Looking Again at Jesus' Suffering and the Notion of Victim Souls

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I really appreciated the piece you put up on suffering effectively -- sorry, witnessing effectively to suffering. I especially liked what you said about a micro drop of skunk scent and how very far it goes. I've been watching and reading a hermit whose approach to suffering is very different than yours. Not only are they always talking about how they suffer (the scent of skunk is overpowering and keeps me from watching the videos), but seems to me they believe that God sends or causes the suffering. I don't know, but even if God has something to teach us it is incomprehensible to me that God is responsible for suffering.  Besides, what I learned was that what God wants to teach us is how much He loves us. Isn't that the answer to every problem or need? So here are my other questions: Do you believe God wanted Jesus to suffer? Do you believe in "victim souls"? Is the hardest thing about being a hermit the suffering one does? If people don't understand this vocation what is the most important thing they fail to understand?]]

Thanks for your comments and questions. They come up (or used to come up) a lot, and of course, the question of Jesus' suffering is central to our faith -- and is most often misunderstood in terms of placating an angry or offended God. In that regard, I have said many times that what God willed was not Jesus' suffering but his openness to letting God be God and his integrity in the face of every trial he faces. I do completely agree with your rhetorical question, [[Isn't that the answer to every problem or need?]] We are called to witness to the Good News and a God who wills for us to suffer or who even causes that suffering is not that!!!

You might look for the posts where I looked at Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane and how I understand the conversation that goes on between Jesus and his Abba. There are two links that are recent on this: Jesus' Prayer in Gethsemane and the followup to that, Jesus' Call to Integrity. I believe it all depends on how we imagine God responding to Jesus' hope that surely there is another way to live his vocation besides the path he is looking at immediately. If we imagine God saying, "it must be this way, I need your suffering so I can forgive sin," then I think theologically we are lost. If, on the other hand, we imagine God saying, "Live who you are in this as you have lived that your entire life; live your integrity and I will be with you in anything and everything," then we have begun to understand the theology of the Cross that is at the heart of the Good News upon which our lives and faith depend!!

I have also written on the concept of victim souls, which I believe has become more of a problem in contemporary society than it was in earlier times.  This is because we have become enamored of status of almost any sort at all, and for some, it is their victim status they like to flaunt. Thus, today (I am not speaking of more historic cases) you are apt to find online the self-proclaimed victim soul ensconced in their bed, huddled against their pillows speaking feebly of how God has willed their terrible pain and suffering while gaining additional strength upon speaking of how tormented and persecuted they have been by everyone in their adult lives. Now that video recording is possible, the histrionic quality of some of these portrayals can be captured with fascinating clarity. They may be temporarily seductive to some (like a freeway accident can be to those driving past), and some may be moved by compassion and compelled to try to help or give support; to others, however, as is true for you, the scent of skunk is overpowering, and the whole situation is so theologically disedifying, that one really cannot continue attempting to watch them. I first wrote a long post about this in 2008. Here is the link: Questions on Chronic Illness, Victim Souls, etc.

As you will see, I don't believe in victim souls, particularly not as a divine vocation. I note that the idea of victim souls is not official Catholic teaching but is linked instead to private revelations no one is required to believe. Suffering is, of course, very real and I do believe that chronic illness and disability can be thought of as vocational, though never in terms of God willing the person's suffering. Once we reframe the story of Jesus' suffering in the way we have done above our ability to let go of this destructive (victim soul) theology as well as concepts of reparative theology that sees what Jesus did as objectively inadequate and still requiring victim souls is greatly enhanced. 

Over the years I have watched those few in this time who consider themselves victim souls and despite all their talk of the love of God, I simply cannot shake the sense that their God is a sadist whose cruelty is underscored by a piety rooted in the subject's subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle self-hatred and inability to truly love others. Even more, I have the sense these supposed "victim souls" don't truly think anyone else suffers as significantly as they do --- or as heroically! It is tragic, really, because such persons seem to lack the humility necessary to allow God's redemption. Once we convince ourselves that God causes even our most profound suffering and wills it, we have also limited our capacity to receive God's love as fully as God wills to give it. As I have quoted several times, Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it this way, [[ Not everything that happens is the will of God, but inevitably, nothing that occurs happens outside the will of God!]] In other words, if we begin and end with the love of God even the evil that occurs (and this includes our suffering) can and will be redeemed because God has embraced the whole of our reality in Christ and made it his own.

Your last questions ask about the hardest thing about living as a hermit and what it is important for people to know about this vocation. I am not sure I can give you a single thing that is hardest about this vocation. Some things are hard during some time periods and other things are hard at other times. For instance, the meaningfulness of eremitical life is a major question hermits must come to understand and that understanding is often a struggle. We trust that God has called us to this vocation and the Church has verified that call as best they can; she has consecrated and commissioned us to live and explore it. We have to live into the truth of this and explain to ourselves and sometimes to others as well how it is our lives are meaningful and a gift to the Church and the larger world. 

Sometimes the tedium associated with this life is most difficult as we live our faithfulness in the everyday ordinary things we must do again and again. And again and again. And too, for some of us, the suffering associated with illness or disability can be significant and lonely; it is isolating in a way that militates against the silence of solitude and must be redeemed and transfigured by God's love. Finally, I find the demands of the inner work I do regularly can be very difficult, especially as unexpected depths within me open up and flood my present with pain. Ironically, with this last also come some of the most exhilarating times of grace and Divine victory so as much as I might dislike aspects of it, the work itself is compelling.

The most important thing I think people should know is that this vocation is about personal truth and transparency, living the truth of who one is while becoming ever more transparent to God (because God is a constitutive part of our existence). It is not about escape or quiet relaxation (though relaxation is very real too); it is an intense life that is constantly surprising as God draws one deeper into the Mystery He is. As I said in another post, I want others to understand this is a true (though rare) vocation. It speaks to every person about who they are, the place of God in that, and the importance of letting God be God as the priority of our lives. I think all these things are things people fail to understand about eremitic lives.