Your last question is good. Thank you for asking this. While I do regularly pray for others I do not understand the heart of my accountability to others as that. Instead I understand that first of all I am called to witness to the Gospel that says God completes us, God alone is sufficient for us, God loves and delights in us in spite of our sinfulness or isolation. In today's world (and this is especially clear where I live) we see elderly people and others who are isolated from their churches, from families, through bereavement from their spouses, and so forth. We see people who are isolated by disability and the rhythm of whose lives are marked by illness and even impending death. I believe my life is meant to speak to these people in particular. Yes, of course I pray for them, but even more I hope to witness to them that the way to wholeness, holiness, and completeness is still open to them in God embraced in solitude. I hope that my life says that eremitical solitude is not the same as isolation and that while my life is marked by several things which isolate, this isolation can be redeemed by God and transfigured into a solitude which is filled with life, love, meaning, and hope.
12 July 2019
Followup Questions on Accountability and the Diocesan Hermit
Your last question is good. Thank you for asking this. While I do regularly pray for others I do not understand the heart of my accountability to others as that. Instead I understand that first of all I am called to witness to the Gospel that says God completes us, God alone is sufficient for us, God loves and delights in us in spite of our sinfulness or isolation. In today's world (and this is especially clear where I live) we see elderly people and others who are isolated from their churches, from families, through bereavement from their spouses, and so forth. We see people who are isolated by disability and the rhythm of whose lives are marked by illness and even impending death. I believe my life is meant to speak to these people in particular. Yes, of course I pray for them, but even more I hope to witness to them that the way to wholeness, holiness, and completeness is still open to them in God embraced in solitude. I hope that my life says that eremitical solitude is not the same as isolation and that while my life is marked by several things which isolate, this isolation can be redeemed by God and transfigured into a solitude which is filled with life, love, meaning, and hope.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 12:57 PM
Labels: accountability, catechism par 920-921, Diocesan Hermit, esteeming the lay state, Lay hermits vs diocesan hermits, private vows versus public profession
07 July 2019
For What it's Worth: General News and Plans for the Summer
Well, things around Stillsong are coming along! I hadn't mentioned, I don't think, (or did I?) that they are renovating the complex. This last week they put double-paned windows and doors in my place and they are wonderful!! I finally got my bed put back together (it sits in front of the bedroom window so needed to be taken apart to allow access) and was able to sleep in my own bed last night. AHHH!! There's still a lot to get taken care of before I can live comfortably in my own hermitage (I am getting rid of boxes and boxes of books and other things as well!), but it is looking like it will happen. My prayer mat and zafu is still in another apartment where I have been staying as needed because of sound triggering seizures. So are my computer and books for the work I have been doing. I am loving this second apartment because it is located in the midst of redwoods next to a creek and is generally quieter and more secluded. When the work is completed in the entire complex I could move here -- especially if it eases some of the medical difficulties due to sound. We'll see!
Last Wednesday we finished the second series I have done for Bible Study at my parish. We started with Jesus' parables for the first 8 week series and this one was the Sermon on the Mount --- though we focused mainly on the Beatitudes and the Lord's Prayer. We were actually to finish last week, but when I announced it was our last meeting there was a bit of a reaction and one of the participants said, "Why?" So we did one more session in order to clarify, expand on, and bring things to some closure before stopping for the Summer. Starting the Thursday after Labor Day the group wants to begin a semester long series. I'm game. Right now I am planning to do Galatians though some suggestions for something else may still come in. So far the series have built on one another in terms of content. Doing Galatians would be a good introduction to the situation in the Church vis-a-vis Judaism and to Paul's theologies of freedom and the problem of Gospel vs Law. Because we introduced the idea of virtue ethics with the Beatitudes it might be possible to continue Paul's own virtue ethics in order to deepen an approach to moral theology in these terms. We have very fine preaching at our parish but the chance to really go deeper into the texts and to see the depth of the theology involved is exciting.
We may need to move to a larger space for the morning group --- though I have really liked and hope to keep the seminar style around a large conference table. The evening session will likely continue in the same place but the morning group has grown and that is likely to continue over time; moving would allow more space and access to some of the things our new parish center makes possible (use of power point, etc). One of the things I have especially loved watch developing is a sense of community with regard to this specific group. Another is the sense that gathering around Scripture allows for real growth in discipleship and personal formation --- always important in a world where the Gospel is so very countercultural, but not always easy to nurture or provide for. Yet people are hungry for both Scripture and for the theology that is rooted in it.
I have already written about this a few weeks ago, but it continues to be true. Eremitical life demands that I go into the Scriptures and the related theology in order to live from these, but it also frees me to do this in ways I had not expected; at the same time the Scriptures (of course!!) throw me back into the silence of solitude and beg that I allow Christ to teach, nourish, and form me as a hermit in ever more profound ways. Simultaneously (and paradoxically), fostering community through Scripture study is clearly a function of my eremitical life as well. It is gratifying to discover that eremitical solitude can be the source of both growth in community and personal formation for some in a parish community. So far, what I have shared, both Scripturally and theologically are those things which have most clearly been a source of inspiration and sense-making (meaning and hope!) for me throughout my life. I am not surprised to find these things are affecting others in some of the same ways.
At the end of Wednesday's session the group gave me a card with a stylized picture of the burning bush on the front of it. One of the members read a poem which said something of what the studies had meant to them: [[Days pass, and the years vanish, and we walk sightless among miracles. Fill our eyes with seeing and our minds with knowing. Let there be moments when your Presence, like lightning, illumines the darkness in which we walk. Help us to see, wherever we gaze, that the bush burns, unconsumed. And we, clay touched by God, will reach out for holiness and exclaim in wonder, “How filled with awe is this place . . . by Rachel Naomi Remen]] It was a wonderful celebration of the grace of God as it came to each of us through both the parables and the Sermon on the Mount --- but I think that was especially true as we explored some of the depths of the Lord's Prayer, the Kingdom present here amongst us, and our own identities as adopted Daughters and Sons in and through Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God.
My other plans for the Summer include more writing, namely on Canon 603, the charism of the vocation, and the way this defines how dioceses approach candidates for profession and consecration. As I noted a few months ago, Rome is concerned with the incidence of fraudulent hermits so it becomes important to make this vocation better known and also better understood, especially by chanceries and pastors. I remain convinced that a failure to understand the charism of the vocation causes chanceries to profess those who will fail to live the vocation well or, alternately, to refuse to profess anyone at all! The problem of mistaking lone individuals for solitary hermits remains significant at all levels; so does mistaking "the silence of solitude" for "silence and solitude". Unless these points are clarified I believe dioceses will continue to have problems discerning good candidates. At the same time the question of formation is no less pressing now than when I first began to think about it myself so I think it is time to get back to that in order (I would sincerely hope) to assist dioceses and candidates for eremitical profession under c 603 as I can.
There are still some decisions to be made about my left wrist. There will likely be some more cortisone injections (only 1 or 2) because of problems with the tendons of my thumb due to a secondary injury; after that we will need to see if surgery to shorten the ulna is necessary because of pressure on and tearing of the triangular ligament joining ulna and radius due to the way the bones healed. I would like to play violin again (understatement of the century!) --- it has always been important to my prayer life as well as to my intellectual and psychological well-being. I miss it --- though I have certainly kept busy enough otherwise and will continue to do so! For the most part those are my plans for the Summer. I will probably not go away on retreat this Summer but I may use this second apartment for that while construction goes on on my own building. It is quiet enough and feels like a guest room at a monastery or retreat house. Meanwhile, an added benefit is that my own director is available to me should I make retreat here.
I wish readers a good and Holy Summer! I hope you have plans for a fruitful time of prayer, maybe for some silence and solitude, and for family and community time as well as for work and recreation! If you travel be safe!!!
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 4:41 PM
Diocesan Hermits are Hermits of and for the Universal Church
[[Dear Sister O'Neal, I watched a video where Joyful Hermit said those professed "under canon 603 belong to dioceses and those who are privately professed belong per se to the universal Church". Is that right? If I got her right she also says that privately professed hermits have always been the way the Church consecrated hermits. I think she meant that canon 603 is a new way of doing this with some extra requirements that she seems to think represents a kind of legalism. Is this correct?]]
Well, I suppose it depends on what else Joyful has said in this specific regard, but generally speaking, with the quote you have provided it sounds as though Joyful Hermit is saying non-canonical hermits are recognized as hermits by and for the universal Church, but canon 603 hermits are recognized only within a diocese. If so, she is incorrect. Canon 603 hermits are diocesan in the sense that they are bound in authority at the diocesan level. They are hermits of a specific diocese (a local Church) which, in the hands of the local ordinary, professes and consecrates them on behalf of the Universal Church. Their vocations are ecclesial in a Catholic or universal sense, but they must be responsible at the diocesan level or their vocations could not be effectively governed nor could the hermits be genuinely responsible or accountable to the whole Church. The Roman Catholic Church relies on the principle of subsidiarity. Governance in this case proceeds from the lowest or most local level upward precisely to facilitate genuine governance and accountability.
Thus, as a "hermit of the Diocese of Oakland" (Bishop's Decree of Approval. . .) I would need to have another bishop accept responsibility for my vocation if I were to decide to move to another diocese (and I would need my current bishop to verify I am a hermit is good standing in order to begin such a move and remain a diocesan hermit), but the fact that I can move from one diocese to another, marks my vocation as valid in and for the universal Church. Similarly, since canon 603 is the universal norm/canon for solitary eremitical life in the entire Church, and since diocesan hermits are governed by and responsible for the vocation defined in this universal norm, we can affirm their vocations are universal vocations -- callings in and for the universal Church. Again, this vocation is supervised and "created" (discerned, professed, consecrated, and governed) at the diocesan level (at the level of the local Church) but this is the way governance generally takes place in and on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church.
Privately vowed hermits (we don't use the term professed here because that implies a public rite involving a change in state of life!) have been the usual way of living eremitical life in the Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries but this was not recognized as "consecrated life" or defined as part of the "consecrated state of life". In fact, the Church never understood eremitical life as part of the consecrated life unless hermits were members of religious congregations (Camaldolese, Carthusian, Carmelite, etc). Some anchorites came under the auspices of local Bishops, especially during medieval times. Even so, I don't believe these anchorites were considered to be consecrated though, rightly, they were highly regarded by their communities (villages). In @ 1963 in an intervention at Vatican II, Bishop Remi de Roo sought to get eremitical life included in Canon Law as a "state of perfection" -- what today we call "a consecrated state" of life. Only a long 20 years later when the Revised Code of Canon Law was published in October 1983 and included c 603, was eremitical life included in universal Law at all. If, as Joyful Hermit claims, hermits were always consecrated using private vows and always considered to exist in the "consecrated state" of life, Bishop Remi De Roo would not have needed, much less ventured, such an intervention in the language ("state of perfection") he did. Neither would the dozen or so hermits he came to oversee as "Bishop Protector" have been understood to have relinquished their consecrated state of life in order to become hermits after leaving their monasteries.
In my experience, canon 603 was formulated and promulgated for the significantly positive reasons Bishop de Roo put forth at Vatican II (cf The Heart of the Matter: Reasons for including Eremitical Life as a "State of Perfection"); moreover, it is carefully implemented by most dioceses for these reasons as well as to limit the kinds of wackiness and nutcases often associated with eremitical "vocations". Law in c 603 serves to allow sound vocations which are well-supervised and edifying to the universal Church. In particular, it does not allow the kind of individualism represented by autocephalic (or acephalous!!) vocations like that of the person you cite.
The ability to move from place to place without supervision or genuine accountability is not a sign of serving the whole Church; instead it does not tend to serve either the eremitical vocation or the Church well. St Benedict saw this clearly when he referred critically to monks who moved from monastery to monastery without accountability as "gyrovagues" (cf the introduction to his Rule). The Church, in requiring that one entering the consecrated life be professed in a recognized and "stable state of life", is clear that all ecclesial vocations must be adequately discerned, mediated, and supervised. They are simply too precious, too valuable, and too responsible to allow them to languish in a headless, unstable and individualistic context, or to let them become skewed due to an individual's unguided and eccentric readings of Church documents and theology.
The Church has been entrusted with vocations to the consecrated state. She does not (and cannot) hand authority for these over to the individual. These vocations "belong" to the Church herself; they are ecclesial vocations. Such vocations are vetted (discerned and evaluated in an ongoing way), mediated, and governed by the Church herself in the hands of legitimate authorities precisely because they are gifts of the Holy Spirit which are the responsibility of and fruitful for the entire Church. Unfortunately, as you can tell from the questions I get re: these, videos and blogs like those you and others have sometimes cited are a good example of the negative reasons the Church requires ecclesiastical discernment, profession, and supervision for something as potentially individualistic and disedifying as an eremitical vocation.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 4:13 PM
Labels: canonical rights and obligations, Diocesan Hermit, lay hermits, private vows versus public profession, public vs private commitment, subsidiarity
03 July 2019
Thomas called Didymus: What's His Doubt About?
Today's Gospel focuses on the appearances of Jesus to the disciples, and one of the lessons one should draw from these stories is that we are indeed dealing with bodily resurrection, but therefore, with a kind of bodiliness which transcends the corporeality we know here and now. It is very clear that Jesus' presence among his disciples is not simply a spiritual one, in other words, and that part of Christian hope is the hope that we as embodied persons will come to perfection beyond the limits of death. It is not just our souls which are meant to be part of the new heaven and earth, but our whole selves, body and soul.
The scenario with Thomas continues this theme, but is contextualized in a way which leads homilists to focus on the whole dynamic of faith with seeing, and faith despite not having seen. It also makes doubt the same as unbelief and plays these off against faith, as though faith cannot also be served by doubt. But doubt and unbelief are decidedly NOT the same things. We rarely see Thomas as the one whose doubt (or whose demands!) SERVES true faith, and yet, that is what today's Gospel is about. Meanwhile, Thomas also tends to get a bad rap as the one who was separated from the community and doubted what he had not seen with his own eyes. The corollary here is that Thomas will not simply listen to his brother and sister disciples and believe that the Lord has appeared to or visited them. But I think there is something far more significant going on in Thomas' proclamation that unless he sees the wounds inflicted on Jesus in the crucifixion, and even puts his fingers in the very nail holes, he will not believe.
What Thomas, I think, wants to make very clear is that we Christians believe in a crucified Christ, and that the resurrection was God's act of validation of Jesus as scandalously and ignominiously Crucified. I think Thomas knows on some level anyway, that insofar as the resurrection really occured, it does not nullify what was achieved on the cross. Instead it renders permanently valid what was revealed (made manifest and made real) there. In other words, Thomas knows if the resurrection is really God's validation of Jesus' life and establishes him as God's Christ, the Lord he will meet is the one permanently established and marked as the crucified One. The crucifixion was not some great misunderstanding which could be wiped away by resurrection. Instead it was an integral part of the revelation of the nature of truly human and truly divine existence. Whether it is the Divine life, authentic human existence, or sinful human life --- all are marked and revealed in one way or another by the signs of Jesus' cross. For instance, ours is a God who has journeyed to the very darkest, godless places or realms human sin produces, and has become Lord of even those places. He does not disdain them even now but is marked by them and will journey with us there --- whether we are open to him doing so or not --- because Jesus has implicated God there and marked him with the wounds of an exhaustive kenosis.
Another piece of this is that Jesus is, as Paul tells us, the end of the Law and it was Law that crucified him. The nail holes and wounds in Jesus' side and head -- indeed every laceration which marked him -- are a sign of legal execution -- both in terms of Jewish and Roman law. We cannot forget this, and Thomas' insistence that he really be dealing with the Crucified One reminds us vividly of this fact as well. The Jewish and Roman leaders did not crucify Jesus because they misunderstood him, but because they understood all-too-clearly both Jesus and the immense power he wielded in his weakness and poverty. They understood that he could turn the values of this world, its notions of power, authority, etc, on their heads. They knew that he could foment profound revolution (religious and otherwise) wherever he had followers. They chose to crucify him not only to put an end to his life, but to demonstrate he was a fraud who could not possibly have come from God; they chose to crucify him to terrify those who might follow him into all the places discipleship might really lead them --- especially those places of human power and influence associated with religion and politics. The marks of the cross are a judgment (krisis) on this whole reality.
There are many gods and even manifestations of the real God available to us today, and so there were to Thomas and his brethren in those first days and weeks following the crucifixion of Jesus. When Thomas made his declaration about what he would and would not believe, none of these were crucified Gods or would be worthy of being believed in if they were associated with such shame and godlessness. Thomas knew how very easy it would be for his brother and sister disciples to latch onto one of these, or even to fall back on entirely traditional notions in reaction to the terribly devastating disappointment of Jesus' crucifixion. He knew, I think, how easy it might be to call the crucifixion and all it symbolized a terrible misunderstanding which God simply reversed or wiped away with the resurrection -- a distasteful chapter on which God has simply turned the page. Thomas knew that false prophets showed up all the time. He knew that a God who is distant and all-powerful is much easier to believe in (and follow) than one who walks with us even in our sinfulness or who empties himself to become subject to the powers of sin and death, especially in the awful scandal and ignominy of the cross --- and who expects us to do essentially the same.
In other words, Thomas' doubt may have had less to do with the FACT of a resurrection, than it had to do with his concern that the disciples, in their desperation, guilt, and the immense social pressure they faced, had truly met and clung to the real Lord, the crucified One. In this way their own discipleship will come to be marked by the signs of the cross as they preach, suffer, and serve in the name (and so, in the paradoxical power) of THIS Lord and no other. Only he could inspire them; only he could sustain them; only he could accompany them wherever true discipleship led them.
Paul said, "I want to know Christ crucified and only Christ crucified" because only this Christ had transformed sinful, godless reality with his presence, only this Christ had redeemed even the realms of sin and death by remaining open to God even within these realities. Only this Christ would journey with us to the unexpected and unacceptable places, and in fact, only he would meet us there with the promise and presence of a God who would bring life out of them. Thomas, I believe, knew precisely what Paul would soon proclaim himself, and it is this, I think, which stands behind his insistence on seeing the wounds and put his fingers in the very nail holes. He wanted to be sure his brethren were putting their faith in the crucified One, the one who turned everything upside down and relativized every other picture of God we might believe in. He became the great doubter because of this, but I suspect instead, he was the most astute theologian among the original Apostles. He, like Paul, wanted to know Christ Crucified and ONLY Christ Crucified.
We should not trivialize Thomas' witness by transforming him into a run of the mill empiricist and doubter (though doubting is an important piece of growth in faith)!! Instead we should imitate his insistence: we are called upon to be followers of the Crucified God, and no other. Every version of God we meet should be closely examined for nail holes, and the lance wound. Every one should be checked for signs that this God is capable of and generous enough to assume such suffering on behalf of a creation he would reconcile and make whole. Only then do we know this IS the God proclaimed in the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul, the only one worthy of being followed even into the darkest reaches of human sin and death, the only One who meets us in the unexpected and even unacceptable place, the only one who loves us with an eternal love from which nothing can separate us.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 5:58 PM
Labels: Feast of Thomas -- Apostle, The Resurrected Christ --Looking for the Nail Holes
29 June 2019
Esteeming Petitionary Prayer as True Prayer of Praise!
Each line of the prayer is meant to assist us in opening our hearts, minds, and lives to the powerful presence of God who wills to work in and through each of us. So, if this is the case, and this Lord's Prayer is a model or paradigm of the very essence of prayer, the model or paradigm which represents "the mind of Christ" and the way we "put on the mind of Christ" then can we really argue there are "higher forms of prayer than petition"? To put it another way, isn't opening ourselves to another in love and trust the greatest praise one can offer another? And isn't petition, especially as Jesus articulates and orders these in any of the three or four versions we have, an invitation to genuine praise, namely, by putting God's needs first, and our needs/desires second? We are not, in other words, to being people who merely say, "Lord, Lord" (or "Praise God!"), but to BE (the) people who, petition by petition, give our whole selves over to God as the field from which God will bring forth the hidden treasure of God's Kingdom! In this way we are allowed to participate in God establishing God's very life on earth as it is in heaven. We are called, by every petition to open ourselves to the unremitting hallowing of God, to become, that is, living instances of Divine Praise!
One of the theologians who most influenced me when I was a young theologian myself was Gerhard Ebeling. Ebeling wrote a lot about theological linguistics and about human beings as Word Events. Each of us is called to become language events. An event differs from a mere occurrence in terms of meaning; an Event is something filled with meaning where a mere occurrence is relatively empty of significance. Like Jesus (though only in and through Jesus!!) we are to become incarnate Word of God --- meaningful Word Events created by and for God's Word, especially in the form of Proclamation. Most often I think of all of this in terms of becoming an articulate expression of the Gospel of God or becoming God's own prayer in our world. (Some theologians speak of Jesus as the Parable of God --- an identity that grounds and thus characterizes all he is and does, especially in preaching and teaching.) In light of what I have said about becoming a Word or Language Event, perhaps it would not be far off to suggest that we are to become articulate songs or hymns of Praise. As we pray the petitions of the Lord's Prayer, we open ourselves to the Presence, sovereignty, and will of God, don't we thus praise God in truth as well as in our words and become ourselves "Words of Divine Praise"? Could there possibly be a "higher" form of prayer?
I say this as a contemplative whose primary form of prayer is quiet prayer, but for whom other forms of prayer are meant to be equally contemplative, equally the work of the Spirit of Stillness or hesychasm. What I recognize is the dynamics of petitionary prayer and quiet prayer, for instance, are essentially the same: in each form of prayer we pose the question of (i.e., which is) our own incomplete lives and open ourselves to God's dynamic presence so that God might act within us, to touch, heal, strengthen, sanctify and complete us. Prayer is always God's own work in us. Isn't it time to let go of the notion of higher and lower forms of prayer?
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 5:01 AM
Labels: becoming God's own prayer, contemplative prayer, Lord's Prayer, Petitionary and Intercessory Prayer, Word Event, Word Made Flesh --- Flesh Made Word
28 June 2019
Solemnity of the Sacred Heart (Reprise)
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 4:03 PM
24 June 2019
Followup on Suffering Well: Suffering and the Will of God
Thanks for your comment and questions. I think you have put your finger on a really neuralgic place in the Lord's Prayer, Gethsemane, and our own approach to God's will. (And no pun intended with the term "neuralgic".) It is very common to think of the will of God somehow being related to suffering. We get a difficult diagnosis and say, "Well, it must be the will of God!" Or, some terrible tragedy happens and we (unfortunately often carelessly and blithely) say, "We must accept the will of God!" --- as though God wills the tragedy. Isn't it "funny" (peculiar, strange, uncritical, unreasonable, etc.) the way we 1) associate the will of God with suffering, and 2) assume we know what the will of God is in these and similar cases? In fact, when the Lord's Prayer speaks of the will of God being done on earth as it is in heaven, it is talking about something very much different than suffering. It is the coming of the Kingdom of God, the realm of justice, peace, meaning, hope, and authentic humanity here on earth that is the will of God in the Lord's Prayer. The petition for the will of God is the third "Thou" petition, that is, third petition that refers to God's being God for us. All three "Thou" petitions refer to God as verb, God as actor and initiator, God as the One who brings creation into being and to fulfillment of being. All three petitions are ways of opening ourselves to dimensions of what it means to allow God to be God.
I believe something very similar is happening as Jesus says, "Not my will, but Thy will be done", when he is struggling in Gethsemane. Jesus struggled with temptation to use his identity as Son of God to do works of power when he was driven in to the desert by the Holy Spirit after his baptism. He very definitively chose the way of weakness even though the temptations he experienced would have involved the use of his power for good things in and of themselves. (There is nothing wrong with getting food when one is starving or to accept leadership of kingdoms when one would be a wonderful leader, etc.) I think this was a choice he made many times during his public ministry. Now, at the end of the story Jesus must choose again in a final and exhaustive way; he must commit himself to a way of seeing God's purposes and plans that depend on Jesus' own weakness, his own helplessness, and his total dependence on God to bring meaning out of the senselessness people will commit against him and the mission of God, not only unto death "but (unto) death on a cross". I think of this choice as both qualitatively the same and distinct in terms of intensity and difficulty as the decisions Jesus has made right along through his public ministry. He continues to choose "left-handed power" (God's power being perfected in weakness). But now he will have to journey to that far place the NT calls sinful or godless death without any precedent for understanding this in terms of either Judaism or the Greco-Roman world. He will have to trust and depend entirely on God even when he cannot feel God's presence (in fact, when he feels God's absence and abandonment by God).
I think this is what Jesus is saying yes to; this is the will of God he is committing to, despite not being able to see it, imagine it, understand it, etc. But I also think if we were to ask Jesus if his Abba willed his suffering, he would look at us as if we had gone off the rails completely, and I think he would exclaim, "Of course not! How could you suggest that?? That's not the One I have been revealing (making real) to you all this time!!" And yet, God wills to enter into sinful death and transform it with his presence. He wills that Jesus choose the way of weakness. He knows what we human beings will do to Jesus. What we will do (and, it often seems, what we almost inevitably do to holiness or true humanity when confronted with these) is NOT the will of God. That is something the Cross shows us without doubt. The cruelty, treachery, cowardice, duplicity, betrayal, human abandonment, etc hardly argue this (trial and crucifixion) is the will of God. But a God who reveals himself in weakness, a God whose grace is sufficient for us, a God who can and will bring meaning out of absurdity, wholeness out of brokenness, righteousness out of sin, and fulfillment out of emptiness --- these things ARE the will of God. Our God reveals himself as the One from whose love nothing whatsoever can separate us; this is the lesson of the Cross. Not that God wills suffering, but that God wills an end to anything that can cause suffering due to separation or alienation from God.
Your question about Jesus accepting his suffering is a different question though than the question of whether or not God wills Jesus' suffering. It is one thing to determine suffering is somehow inevitable and something else to believe God wills that suffering. It is one thing to consent to journey wherever one's life takes one and to commit to doing so with God; it is another to assert that every step, no matter how skewed or painful was actually willed by God. God can certainly use Jesus' suffering; God can and does bring an almost infinite good out of it (this, after all, is part of the Good News we Christians proclaim); but this does not mean God wills the suffering per se, nor the degradation, torture, and inhumanity human beings take on in their reaction to Jesus!! Surely we cannot say the religious and civil leadership and crowds in Jesus' passion were cooperating with the will of God!!! But Paul faced the same paradox. He wrote, "Where sin abounded grace abounded all the more. What should we say, sin more so that grace may abound even more? God forbid!!!" Our God does not will our suffering any more than he does Jesus' --- but at the same time we should be consoled that where suffering abounds grace will abound all the more!!! Nothing can separate us from the Love of God.
Thus, my answer to your final question re accepting our own sufferings as a share in the Cross of Christ lies in line with all of this. Do what we can to remain open to the God whose power is revealed in weakness. Do not believe that God wills one's suffering per se, at least not when we are speaking of things like illness, tragedy, sinfulness, and death, but believe they will never have the final word or the last silence. Do what Jesus did when he accepted his own cross (the weight of his own authentic humanity), namely accept a humanity that makes God known (or at least CAN make God known) even in those realities which seem antithetical to Divinity and Holiness. Trust this. We do what we can reasonably do medically, etc to relieve suffering, but when there really is nothing that can be done, we trust that our God will be there for us in this way; God has revealed in the cross of Christ that he will be present with and for us in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place. This is the Good News we must cling to in the midst of any suffering.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 3:14 PM
Labels: God and Jesus' Suffering, suffering, suffering and the will of God, Theology of the Cross