Nothing Can Make Up for the Absence of Those We Love

I first posted this piece several years ago, but it is particularly significant today for two reasons:1) this Holy Thursday is the anniversary of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's execution by the Nazis at Flossenburg, and 2) we are experiencing a time of learning to be Church in new ways during a pandemic which separates us from those we love, as well as from much of the ministry and other activity which also make our lives meaningful.  Still, the Holy Spirit is with each and all of us and we are joined as the Body of Christ in that Spirit; as we begin to celebrate the Triduum, each in the relative solitude of our own homes, let us hold onto that truth in whatever ways we can.

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A couple of years ago or so I wrote an article about Jesus' cry of abandonment on the cross; I suggested that it was the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the mutual love of Father and Son  that maintained their bond of love while keeping open the space of terrible separation  experienced as abandonment and occasioning the suffering of both Father and Son which reached its climax on the cross and Jesus' "descent into hell". Both connection and separation are necessary dimensions of the love relationships constituting Trinitarian life characterized by the Divine mission to our world and thus, by the kenosis (self-emptying) eventuating in the cross.

Similarly, in writing about eremitical life I noted that stricter separation from the world was an essential part of maintaining not only one's love for God, but also for God's creation, because without very real separation we might instead know only enmeshment in that world rather than a real capacity for love which reconciles and brings to wholeness. In everyday terms we know that the deficiencies and losses we experience throughout our lives are things we often try to avoid or seek to fill or blunt in every conceivable way rather than finding creative  approaches to genuinely live (and heal) the pain: addictions, deprivations and excesses, denial and distractions, pathological withdrawal or superficial relationships of all kinds attest to the futile and epidemic character of these approaches to the deep and often unmet needs we each experience.

While we may expect our relationship with God to fill these needs and simply take away the pain of loss and grief, we are more apt to find God with us IN the pain in a way which, out of a profound love for the whole of who we are and who we are called to become, silently accompanies and consoles us without actually diminishing the suffering associated with the loss or unmet needs themselves. In this way God also assures real healing may be sought and achieved in our separation and suffering. It is a difficult paradox and difficult to state theologically. Paul did it in terms of the God of all comfort who comes to us and resides within us in the midst of our suffering. Today, I found a quote by Dietrich Bonhoeffer written while he was a political prisoner of the Nazis and separated from everyone and everything he loved --- except God; it captures the insight or principle underlying these observations --- and says it so very well!

Nothing can make up for the absence

of someone whom we love,

and it would be wrong

to try to find a substitute;

we must simply hold out and see it through.

That sounds very hard at first,

but at the same time

it is a great consolation,

for the gap --- as long as it

remains unfilled ---

preserves the bond between us.

It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap;

God does not fill it

but on the contrary keeps it empty

and so helps us to keep alive

our former communion even

at the cost of pain.

from  Letters and Papers From Prison

 "Letter to Renate and Eberhard Bethge: Christmas Eve 1943"

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

As a hermit embracing "the silence of solitude" I know full well that this charism of eremitical life is characterized by both connection and separation. It is, as I have written here many times a communion with God which may be lonely --- though ordinarily not a malignant form of loneliness! --- and an aloneness with God which does not simply fill or even replace our needs for friendships and other life giving relationships. Sometimes the pain of separation is more acute and sometimes the consolation of connection eases that almost entirely. Sometimes, however, the two stand together in an intense and paradoxical form of suffering that simply says, "I am made for fullness of love and eschatological union and am still only (but very really!) journeying towards that." This too is a consolation.

Today I am grateful for the bonds of love which so enrich my life  --- even when these bonds are experienced as painful absence and emptiness. I think this is a critical witness of eremitical life with its emphasis on "the silence of solitude" --- just as it is in monastic (or some forms of religious) life more generally. I also believe it is the terrible paradox of relatedness-in-separation Jesus' almost-inarticulate cry of abandonment expressed from the Cross.  Thanks be to God.

Madman or Messiah? We Wait in the Darkness (Reprise)

I admit that a pet peeve of mine associated with celebrating the Triduum in a parish setting is the inadequate way folks handle what should be periods of silence after Holy Thursday's Mass and reservation of the Eucharist and the stations and celebration of Jesus' passion on Good Friday. Unnecessary conversations, hearty and premature  wishes of "Happy Easter" in the sacristy or upon leaving the Church and parking lot immediately after the Passion drive me more than a little crazy --- not only because we have only just celebrated the death of Jesus, but because there is a significant period of grief and uncertainty that we call Holy Saturday still standing between Jesus' death and his resurrection.

Silence is appropriate during these times; Easter is still distant. Allowing ourselves to live with something of the terrible disappointment and critical questions Jesus' disciples experienced as their entire world collapsed is a significant piece of coming to understand why we call today "Good" and tomorrow "Holy." It is important to appreciating the meaning of this three day liturgy we call Triduum and a dimension of coming to genuine and deepening hope. I have often thought the Church could do better with its celebration of Holy Saturday, but spending some time waiting and reflecting on who we would be (not to mention who God would be!) had Jesus stayed good and dead is something Good Friday (essentially beginning after Holy Thursday Mass) and Holy Saturday (beginning the evening after the passion) call for.

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In trying to explain the Cross, Paul once said, "Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more." During Holy Week, the Gospel readings focus us on the first part of Paul's statement. Sin has increased to an extraordinary extent and the one people touted as the Son of God has been executed as a blaspheming godforsaken criminal. We watched the darkness and the threat to his life grow and cast the whole of Jesus' life into question.

In the Gospel for last Wednesday we heard John's version of the story of Judas' betrayal of Jesus and the prediction of Peter's denials as well. For weeks before this we had been hearing stories of a growing darkness and threat centered on the person of Jesus. Pharisees and Scribes were irritated and angry with Jesus at the facile way he broke Sabbath rules or his easy communion with and forgiveness of sinners. That he spoke with an authority the people recognized as new and surpassing theirs was also problematical. Family and disciples failed to understand him, thought him crazy, urged him to go to Jerusalem to work wonders and become famous.

Even his miracles were disquieting, not only because they increased the negative reaction of the religious leadership and the fear of the Romans as the darkness and threat continued to grow alongside them, but because Jesus himself seems to give us the sense that they are insufficient  and lead to misunderstandings and distortions of who he is or what he is really about. "Be silent!" we often hear him say. "Tell no one about this!" he instructs in the face of the increasing threat to his life. Futile instructions, of course, and, as those healed proclaim the wonders of God's grace in their lives, the darkness and threat to Jesus grows; The night comes ever nearer and we know that if evil is to be defeated, it must occur on a much more profound level than even thousands of such miracles.

In the last two weeks of Lent, the readings give us the sense that the last nine months of Jesus' life and active ministry were punctuated by retreat to a variety of safe houses as the priestly aristocracy actively looked for ways to kill him. He attended festivals in secret and the threat of stoning recurred again and again. Yet, inexplicably "He slipped away" we are told or, "They were unable to find an opening." The darkness is held at bay, barely. It is held in check by the love of the people surrounding Jesus. Barely. And in the last safe house on the eve of Passover as darkness closes in on every side Jesus celebrated a final Eucharist with his friends and disciples. He washed their feet, reclined at table with them like free men did. And yet, profoundly troubled, Jesus spoke of his impending betrayal by Judas. None of the disciples, not even the beloved disciple understood what was happening. There is one last chance for Judas to change his mind as Jesus hands him a morsel of bread in friendship and love. God's covenant faithfulness is maintained.

But Satan enters Judas' heart and a friend of Jesus becomes his accuser --- the meaning of the term Satan here --- and the darkness enters this last safe house of light and friendship, faith and fellowship. It was night, John says. It was night. Judas' heart is the opening needed for the threatening darkness to engulf this place and Jesus as well. The prediction of Peter's denials tells us this "night" will get darker and colder and more empty yet.  But in John's story, when everything is at its darkest and lowest, Jesus exclaims in a kind of victory cry: [[ Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him!]] Here as darkness envelopes everything, Jesus exults that authentically human being is revealed, made known and made real in space and time; here, in the midst of  the deepening "Night" God too is revealed and made fully known and real in space and time. It is either the cry of a messiah who will overcome evil right at its heart --- or the cry of a madman who cannot recognize or admit the victory of evil as it swallows him up. In the midst of these days of death and vigil, we do not really know which. At the end of these three days we call Triduum we will see what the answer is.

Today, the Friday we call "Good," the darkness intensified. During the night Jesus was arrested and "tried" by the Sanhedrin with the help of false witnesses, desertion by his disciples, and Judas' betrayal. Today he was brought before the Romans, tried, found innocent, flogged in an attempt at political appeasement and then handed over anyway by a fearful self-absorbed leader whose greater concern was for his own position to those who would kill him. There was betrayal, of consciences, of friendships, of discipleship and covenantal bonds on every side but God's. The night continued to deepen and the threat could not be greater.  Jesus was crucified and eventually cried out his experience of abandonment even by God. He descended into the ultimate godlessness, loneliness, and powerlessness we call hell. The darkness became almost total. We ourselves can see nothing else. That is where Good Friday and Holy Saturday leave us.

And the question these events raises haunts the night and our own minds and hearts: namely, messiah or madman? Is Jesus simply another person crushed by the cold, emptiness, and darkness of evil --- good and wondrous though his own works were? (cf Gospel for last Friday: John 10:31-42.) Is this darkness and emptiness the whole of the reality in which we live? Was Jesus' preaching of the reality of God's reign and his trust in God in vain? Is the God he proclaimed, the God in whom we also trust incapable of redeeming failure, sin and death --- even to the point of absolute lostness? Does he consign sinners to these without real hope because God's justice differs from his mercy? The questions associated with Jesus' death on the Cross multiply and we Christians wait in the darkness today and tomorrow. We fast and pray and try to hold onto hope that the one we called messiah, teacher, friend, beloved,  brother and Lord, was not simply deluded --- or worse --- and that we Christians are not, as Paul puts the matter, the greatest fools of all.

We have seen sin increase to immeasurable degrees; and though we do not see how it is possible we would like to think that Paul was right and that grace will abound all the more. But on this day we call "good" and on the Saturday we call "holy" we wait. Bereft, but hopeful, we wait.

Jesus' Descent into Hell (Reprised)

The following piece was written for my parish bulletin for Palm Sunday 2012. It is, therefore, necessarily brief but I hope it captures the heart of the credal article re Jesus' descent into Hell. It also represents an explanation of the significance of Jesus' experience of abandonment by God which itself is an experience of hell or godforsakenness.

During Holy week we recall and celebrate the central events of our faith which reveal just how deep and incontrovertible is God's love for us. It is the climax of a story of "self-emptying" on God's part begun in creation and completed in the events of the cross. In Christ, and especially through his openness and responsiveness (i.e., his obedience) to the One he calls Abba, God enters exhaustively into every aspect of our human existence and in no way spares himself the cost of such solidarity. Here God is revealed as an unremitting Love which pursues us without pause or limit. Even our sinfulness cannot diminish or ultimately confound this love. Nothing, the gospel proclaims, will keep God from embracing and bringing us “home” to Himself. As the Scriptures remind us, our God loves us with a love that is “stronger than death." It is a love from which, “Neither death nor life, nor powers nor principalities, nor heights nor depths, nor anything at all” can ultimately separate us!

It is only against this Scriptural background that we make sense of the article of the Apostles’ Creed known as Jesus’ “descent into hell”. Hell is, after all, not the creation of an offended God designed to punish us; it is a state of ultimate emptiness, inhumanity, loneliness, and lovelessness which is created, sustained, and exacerbated (made worse) by every choice we make to shut God out --- to live, and therefore to die, without Love itself. Hell is the fullest expression of the alienation which exists between human beings and God. As Benedict XVI writes, it is that “abyss of absolute loneliness” which “can no longer be penetrated by the word of another” and“into which love can no longer advance.” And yet, in Christ God himself will advance into this abyss and transform it with his presence. Through the sinful death of God’s Son, Love will become present even here.

To say that Christ died what the New Testament refers to as sinful, godless, “eternal”, or “second death” is to say that through his passion Jesus entered this abyss and bore the full weight of human isolation and Divine abandonment. In this abject loneliness and hopelessness --- a hell deeper than anyone has ever known before or will ever know again --- Christ, though completely powerless to act on his own, remains open and responsive to God. This openness provides God with a way into this state or place from which he is otherwise excluded. In Christ godforsakenness becomes the good soil out of which the fullness of resurrection life springs. As a result, neither sin nor death will ever have the final word, or be a final silence! God will not and has not permitted it!

The credal article affirming Jesus’ descent into hell was born not from the church’s concern with the punishing wrath of God, but from her profound appreciation of the depth of God’s love for us and the lengths to which God would go to redeem us and to bring creation to fulfillment. What seems at first to be an unreservedly dark affirmation, meant mainly to terrify and chasten with foreboding, is instead the church's most paradoxical statement of the gospel of God’s prodigal love. It is a stark symbol of what it costs God to destroy that which separates us from Love-in-Act and bring us to abundant (eternal) Life. It says that forgiveness is not about God changing his mind about us – much less having his anger appeased or his honor restored through his Son’s suffering and death. Instead, it is God’s steadfast refusal to let the alienation of sin stand eternally. In reconciling us to himself, God asserts his Lordship precisely in refusing to allow enmity and alienation to remain as lasting realities in our lives or world.

Good Friday: Jesus' Descent into Hell

I wrote the following for my parish bulletin a couple of years ago so it is quite brief. I wanted to provide an enlarging introduction for it and that is the following portion in italics.

When Miraculous Healings and Exorcisms are not Enough:

 A couple of days ago (28. March, Madman or Messiah?) I posted a piece focusing on how the darkness closed in on Jesus. Just as Judas had betrayed him and left the Passover, when things could hardly get darker or Jesus more dishonored, Jesus cries out in a kind of exultation, "Now the Son of Man is glorified, and in him is glorified the One who sent him!"  Is he a madman or the messiah? On Good Friday, that question is sharpened; the darkness does deepen, shame is heightened to unimaginable levels, and sinful death claims Jesus. My point there was the Lord's work was not accomplished in miracles, or preaching, or exorcisms --- as important symbols of God's Reign as those were. In each case darkness and godlessness eclipsed these works of Jesus. In each case Jesus failed to bring the Kingdom of God in a final victory. The destruction of sin and evil had to occur at a much more profound level.

On Good Friday and Holy Saturday, when death seems to have the last word and swallows the Word of God Incarnate in a long and impenetrable silence, Jesus' work continues in the most profound solitude. Obedient (open and responsive to God) even to the point of godless death, Jesus' love creates an opening for God's entrance into the kingdom of sin, darkness, and death. Obedient unto death on a cross Jesus implicates the Love-in-act we call God into this very realm and thus, forever transforms it and our entire world. From another perspective we can say that through the obedient work of Christ, God takes godless death into himself and is not destroyed by it. Instead the world is remade, a New Creation is accomplished. This is the work of Good Friday and Holy Saturday. At its heart is the revelation of God's love, not merely a demonstration of its reality and extent, but a making it real in the unexpected and even the completely unacceptable place, making it real even in the depths of godlessness.

The Depths of God's Love are Made Real in the Godless Place:


During Holy week we recall and celebrate the central events of our faith which reveal just how deep and incontrovertible is God's love for us. It is the climax of a story of "self-emptying" on God's part begun in creation and completed in the events of the cross. In Christ, and especially through his openness and responsiveness (i.e., his obedience) to the One he calls Abba, God enters exhaustively into every aspect of our human existence and in no way spares himself the cost of such solidarity. Here God is revealed as an unremitting Love which pursues us without pause or limit. Even our sinfulness cannot diminish or ultimately confound this love. Nothing – the gospel proclaims -- will keep God from embracing and bringing us “home” to Himself. As the Scriptures remind us, our God loves us with a love that is “stronger than death." It is a love from which, “Neither death nor life, nor powers nor principalities, nor heights nor depths, nor anything at all” can ultimately separate us! (Romans 8)

It is only against this Scriptural background that we make sense of the article of the Apostles’ Creed known as Jesus’ “descent into hell”. Hell is, after all, not the creation of an offended God designed to punish us; it is a state of ultimate emptiness, inhumanity, loneliness, and lovelessness which is created, sustained, and exacerbated (made worse) by every choice we make to shut God out --- to live, and therefore to die, without Love itself. Hell is the fullest expression of the alienation which exists between human beings and God. As Benedict XVI writes, it is that “abyss of absolute loneliness” which “can no longer be penetrated by the word of another” and“into which love can no longer advance.” And yet, in Christ God himself will advance into this abyss and transform it with his presence. Through the sinful death of God’s Son, Love will become present even here.

To say that Christ died what the New Testament refers to as sinful, godless, “eternal”, or “second death” is to say that through his passion Jesus entered this abyss and bore the full weight of human isolation and Divine abandonment. In this abject loneliness and hopelessness --- a hell deeper than anyone has ever known before or will ever know again --- Christ, though completely powerless to act on his own, remains open and potentially responsive to God. This openness provides God with a way into this state or place from which he is otherwise excluded. In Christ godforsakenness becomes the good soil out of which the fullness of resurrection life springs. As a result, neither sin nor death will ever have the final word, or be a final silence! God will not and has not permitted it!

The credal article affirming Jesus’ descent into hell was born not from the church’s concern with the punishing wrath of God, but from her profound appreciation of the depth of God’s love for us and the lengths to which God would go to redeem us. What seems at first to be an unreservedly dark affirmation, meant mainly to terrify and chasten with foreboding, is instead the church's most paradoxical statement of the gospel of God’s prodigal love. It is a stark symbol of what it costs God to destroy that which separates us from Love and bring us to abundant Life. It says that forgiveness is not about God changing his mind about us – much less having his anger appeased or his honor restored through his Son’s suffering and death. Instead, it is God’s steadfast refusal to let the alienation of sin stand eternally. In reconciling us to himself, God asserts his Lordship precisely in refusing to allow enmity and alienation to remain as lasting realities in our lives or world.

Messiah or Madman? We Wait in the Darkness (Reprise)

In trying to explain the Cross, Paul once said, "Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more." During this last week of Lent, the Gospel readings focus us on the first part of Paul's statement.

In the Gospel for last Tuesday we heard John's version of the story of Judas' betrayal of Jesus and the prediction of Peter's denials as well. For weeks before this we had been hearing stories of a growing darkness and threat centered on the person of Jesus. Pharisees and Scribes were irritated and angry with Jesus at the facile way he broke Sabbath rules or his easy communion with and forgiveness of sinners. That he spoke with an authority the people recognized as new and surpassing theirs was also problematical. Family and disciples failed to understand him, thought him crazy, urged him to go to Jerusalem to work wonders and become famous.

Even his miracles were disquieting, not only because they increased the negative reaction of the religious leadership and the fear of the Romans as the darkness and threat continued to grow alongside them, but because Jesus himself seems to give us the sense that they are insufficient  and lead to misunderstandings and distortions of who he is or what he is really about. "Be silent!" we often hear him say. "Tell no one about this!" he instructs in the face of the increasing threat to his life. Futile instructions, of course, and, as those healed proclaim the wonders of God's grace in their lives, the darkness and threat to Jesus grows; The night comes ever nearer and we know that if evil is to be defeated, it must occur on a much more profound level than even thousands of such miracles.

In the last two weeks of Lent, the readings give us the sense that the last nine months of Jesus' life and active ministry was punctuated by retreat to a variety of safe houses as the priestly aristocracy actively looked for ways to kill him. He attended festivals in secret and the threat of stoning recurred again and again. Yet, inexplicably "He slipped away" we are told or, "They were unable to find an opening." The darkness is held at bay, barely. It is held in check by the love of the people surrounding Jesus. Barely. And in the last safe house on the eve of Passover as darkness closes in on every side Jesus celebrated a final Eucharist with his friends and disciples. He washed their feet, reclined at table with them like free men did. And yet, profoundly troubled, Jesus spoke of his impending betrayal by Judas. None of the disciples, not even the beloved disciple understood what was happening. There is one last chance for Judas to change his mind as Jesus hands him a morsel of bread in friendship and love. God's covenant faithfulness is maintained.

But Satan enters Judas' heart and a friend of Jesus becomes his accuser --- the meaning of the term Satan here --- and the darkness enters this last safe house of light and friendship, faith and fellowship. It was night, John says. It was night. Judas' heart is the opening needed for the threatening darkness to engulf this place and Jesus as well. The prediction of Peter's denials tells us this "night" will get darker and colder and more empty yet.  But in John's story, when everything is at its darkest and lowest, Jesus exclaims in a kind of victory cry: [[ Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him!]] Here as darkness envelopes everything, Jesus exults that authentically human being is revealed, made known and made real in space and time; here, in the midst of  the deepening "Night" God too is revealed and made fully known and real in space and time. It is either the cry of a messiah who will overcome evil right at its heart --- or it is the cry of a madman who cannot recognize or admit the victory of evil as it swallows him up. In the midst of these days of death and vigil, we do not really know which.

At the end of these three days we call Triduum we will see what the answer is. Today, the day we call "Good," the darkness intensifies. During the night Jesus was arrested and "tried" by the Sanhedrin with the help of false witnesses, desertion by his disciples, and Judas' betrayal. Today he will be brought before the Romans, tried, found innocent, flogged in an attempt at political appeasement and then handed over anyway to those who would kill him by a fearful self-absorbed leader whose greater concern was for his own position. There is betrayal, of consciences, of friendships, of discipleship and covenantal bonds on every side but God's. The night continues to deepen and the threat could not be greater.  Jesus will be crucified and eventually cry out his experience of abandonment even by God. He will descend into the ultimate godlessness, loneliness, and powerlessness we call hell. The darkness will become almost total. We ourselves can see nothing else. That is where Good Friday and Holy Saturday leave us. And the question these events raises haunts the night and our own minds and hearts: messiah or madman? Is Jesus simply another person crushed by the cold, emptiness, and darkness of evil --- good and wondrous though his own works were? (cf Gospel for last Friday: John 10:31-42.) We Christians wait in the darkness today and tomorrow. We fast and pray and try to hold onto hope that the one we called messiah, teacher, friend, beloved,  brother and Lord, was not simply deluded --- or worse --- and that we Christians are not, as Paul puts the matter, the greatest fools of all.

We have seen sin increase to immeasurable degrees; and though we do not see how it is possible we would like to think that Paul was right and that grace will abound all the more. And so, we wait. Bereft, but hopeful, we wait.