Redemptive suffering and abuse

Q: Dear Father Edward, does the idea of redemptive suffering apply only to physical suffering or does it also extend to submission to emotional/mental/spiritual suffering that comes from an abusive relationship? If I am the target of regular mistreatment by my husband and I offer it up, is this the same as redemptive suffering?

A: Dear friend, it sounds like your situation is very challenging. I will do my best to answer your question and I will pray for peace and resolution for you and your family. I would also like to ask all of our readers to join in prayer for you and all those who find themselves in these very painful situations.

The concept of redemptive suffering can certainly apply to suffering that is emotional, mental or spiritual. Each of us is a unity of body and soul, and suffering of the soul is every bit as real as physical suffering — sometimes more so. Emotional suffering includes situations like having to watch a loved one struggle with a terminal illness. Mental suffering can include cases of chronic depression. Spiritual suffering could include the “dark night of the soul,” where a devout person has a deep sense of loneliness or desolation, to the point of feeling abandoned by God. (In this last case the Almighty is actually purifying the soul.)

Quite separate from these is the case that involves emotional/mental/spiritual suffering in an abusive relationship.  An abusive relationship is unhealthy both for the one being abused, and also for the one who is abusing.  Therefore, the truly loving thing to do is to find a way to end the abuse.  This may involve seeking psychological or pastoral help for yourself and, if possible, for your husband. The abuse indicates that he likely has deep-seated issues that need attention and healing. Moreover, your own psychic (and physical) health faces risks from long-term exposure to abuse. Thus, a wife owes it to herself and her family to seek outside help.  In the meantime, you should also do what you can to remove yourself and your children from harm’s way.

The Church is actually quite clear about this. The Code of Canon Law in No. 1153 §1 states

A spouse who occasions grave danger of soul or body to the other or to the children, or otherwise makes the common life unduly difficult, provides the other spouse with a reason to leave, either by a decree of the local Ordinary or, if there is danger in delay, even on his or her own authority.”  Regular  mistreatment is a violation of justice and charity; it is a wrong that should be resisted and, with the help of God’s grace, righted.

Do not think that this course of action is some kind of spiritual cop out.  Taking steps to protect yourself and your family from current abuse, and actively seeking ways to help resolve the underlying causes of your husband’s behavior are not easy tasks.  They will be painful on many levels, and that suffering – the internal suffering caused by the challenge of trying to right this wrong – will indeed be redemptive, as you unite it through prayer and the sacraments to Christ’s own suffering on the cross.

Yours in Christ, Father Edward McIlmail, LC

Father McIlmail is a theology instructor at Mater Ecclesiae College in Greenville, RI.

Sayings of Light and Love #4

It is better to be burdened and in company with the strong man than to be unburdened with the weak. When you are burdened, you are close to God, your strength, who abides with the afflicted. When you are relieved of the burden you are close to yourself, your own weakness; for virtue and strength of soul grow and are confirmed in the trials of patience.

Saint John of the Cross

Struggling with overwhelming sorrow during Lent – how do I deal with it?

Q: Dear Catholic Spiritual Direction: We are but days into Lent, and, after being to our church’s Way of the Cross tonight, I’m overwhelmed with the “low” that Lent is already. Are we to embrace the low to make the joy of Easter even greater, or is there still joy to be found in the 40 days of the Lenten journey? If it’s intended to be 40 days of all low, how do we prevent ourselves from being overcome with the grief and depression that accompanies our reflection of what Christ endured for us sinners, especially when our focus is on his suffering rather than his resurrection during this season?

A: These are important questions; let’s take them one at a time.

First, embrace the lows of Lent to make the joy of Easter greater? Absolutely. This is the wisdom of the Church. Without suffering it is very difficult for us, in our broken state, to fully experience the joy that God has for us. Kahlil Gibran echoed this thought when he said, “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain… When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you will see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” So it is with Lent. The deeper we allow the sorrow to carve into our being during Lent, the more joy we will experience when we celebrate his resurrection!

Second, is there any joy found during Lent? Without a doubt. When Mel Gibson was making The Passion of The Christ, he ran into a problem. He recognized that the scenes of Christ’s sufferings were too much to take in any one sitting. He came up with the idea to intersperse flashbacks into the story. This gave just enough relief without totally leaving the theme of Christ’s horrific suffering and death on our behalf. Similarly, during Lent, every Sunday we have a time where we can set aside our fasting and remember not only his suffering but also his resurrection and provision for us in the Mass. Beyond this gift, we maintain our composure through all this because we know the end of the story. Those of us who suffer from lifelong illnesses sometimes are overwhelmed because in the midst of our suffering we don’t know if it will end in this life. With Lent we not only know the end of the story, but we even know the exact date when it it will end. This should give us the courage to persevere through the challenges and purification this season brings to our souls.

A few more points about grief and depression. It is one thing to feel great sorrow over our sins and to thereby enter into the deep sufferings of Christ, and another to enter into anything like clinical depression or any other unhealthy spiritual or emotional state. With respect to the former, St. Teresa of Avila, after meditating on Christ’s sufferings on her behalf, would often become overwhelmed with grief and weeping for lengthy periods time. The harm done? Absolutely none. In fact, she attributes a great deal of the work of God in her soul, and the souls of other holy men and women, to this kind of affective meditation. How can you tell the difference? The difference is that someone who is truly experiencing union with Christ and his sufferings will experience two things:

1) Peace: Even with intense suffering of this kind, if we maintain peace in the depths of our souls and feel a greater compulsion to love him for what he has done for us, this is a good indicator that our sorrow is truly godly sorrow rather than an unhealthy state of depression.

2) Virtue: If  our heightened sense of his love for us and our corresponding love for him leads us to deepen our prayer, expand our acts of charity, or further intensify our mortification, then, again, our suffering is likely sourced in God’s real and active presence in our meditation.

St. Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians clearly echoes these truths (emphasis mine):

As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting; for you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, what eagerness to clear yourselves… what longing, what zeal …!

Finally, if you find yourself with a sorrow that does not meet the test of “godly sorrow” you can do two things about it. First, go absorb yourself in service to others – particularly those less fortunate than you. If the enemy is behind the anxiety in your heart, responding with love toward God and others will drive this oppression away. If you continue to struggle, make sure you talk with your spiritual director to get more specific insights into how you can make this season one in which you grow in your love and knowledge of Christ and in the virtuous life.

He is real, present, and good… may he always be so to you,

Dan

Does Christ suffer with me when I suffer?

Q: Dear Father John, I pray quite a bit…mostly because I have had some suffering in my life that has drained me, even spiritually. I pray for many things, but mostly, I pray for my own faith. One day, as I was praying, I said to Christ, “I feel like I’m alone in my suffering, yet I am asked to reflect and meditate on Your suffering” After I prayed and asked that question, I had a sort of internal answer to it. I heard, or felt Christ say to me, “I suffer when you suffer. Why wouldn’t I? We’re in this together. We are one body.” I thought about that and, actually couldn’t believe that Christ suffers with me. The question is, was that internal answer correct? I had never thought in all my life that Christ suffers with me, so it came as a shock. Then, I looked it up on the Internet and found out that, while we are asked to suffer for Christ, He also feels our suffering and actually feels bad for us. That notion has helped me a great deal, because I feel more connected to Christ as being a real person with real feelings.

A: Well, you have answered your own question, and you have answered correctly. Yes, Jesus suffers with us. Jesus, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, truly became man not only so that he could atone for our disobedience (i.e., our sin) by his obedience, but also because he wanted to convince us of his unconditional love for us. Try to think of a better way to show someone that you love them than by sharing in their suffering. Just try to… impossible. Our commitment to another person is partial and conditional if we refuse to share in their sufferings, if we abandon them in difficulty. But God’s commitment to us is total, absolute, wildly and infinitely faithful. It’s hard for us to believe this. That’s why he chose to save us through suffering for us. By his suffering, he united himself to our suffering, voluntarily. And so, in a tour de force of ingenuity, suffering, the fruit of original sin, has become the very currency of salvation, the very path of deeper union with God.

An Uncanny Connection

Jesus suffers with us, because he has united himself to us. This occurs in two ways.

Simply because of his incarnation, he has taken upon himself human nature. And so, every human being is his brother or sister. This is why he told us that “in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). An even deeper union with Christ occurs at baptism. When we receive sanctifying grace through that sacrament, the Holy Trinity actually comes to dwell within us: “If anyone loves me he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him and make our home with him” (Jn 14:24).

This is actually the deeper meaning of the word “compassion.” It comes from a Latin phrase meaning “to suffer with.” Jesus, by taking on our nature and uniting himself to us, has shown a brand of compassion that no other religion ever even dreamed of. This is why the cross is the central symbol of Christianity. The vertical and horizontal bars meet and become inextricably linked, just as our suffering and Christ’s suffering meet and become, together, the path of redemption. Suffering entered the world because of sin – it was our own fault. Jesus came to save us not by eliminating suffering (which would have eliminated our freedom), but by transforming suffering, making it the privileged meeting place between fallen man and the God of all-powerful love. You have already experienced this – you mentioned that you are someone who prays, because your own sufferings have brought you to your knees. That’s how you discovered that you are never alone.

Being Like Christ

This truth is also at the root of Christian virtue. We are all called to love our neighbors as Christ has loved us – coming to meet them in their suffering, being compassionate and merciful with them, not giving up on them, not letting them suffer alone. Wasn’t this the genius of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta? Isn’t it precisely this message of divine compassion that she and her sisters (and all the saints, really) broadcast to the world?

Once Mother Teresa was staying with a community of her sisters who worked among the Aborigines in Australia. She visited an elderly man who lived in total isolation, ignored by everyone. His home was a filthy wreck. She told him, “Please let me clean your house, wash your clothes and make your bed.” He answered, “I’m OK like this. Let it be.” She said, “You will be still better if you allow me to do it.” He finally agreed. While she was cleaning, she discovered a beautiful lamp, covered with dust; it looked like it hadn’t been used in years. “Don’t you light that lamp?” she said, “Don’t you ever use it?” He answered, “No. No one comes to see me. I have no need to light it. Who would I do it for?” Mother Teresa asked, “Would you light it every night if the sisters came?” He replied, “Of course.” From that day on, the sisters committed themselves to visiting him every evening. Mother Theresa left Australia. Two years passed. She had completely forgotten about that encounter. Then she received a message from him: “Tell my friend that the light she lit in my life still continues to shine.”

Revolutionary Doctrine

This is the revolution of Christianity: that every single human life is infinitely valued by God, valued so much that God himself accompanies each one, in good times and bad, and desires us all to dwell with him forever in heaven. It is this truth that gives the Church its vision of human dignity and undergirds its moral teaching on issues like cloning, abortion, and artificial reproduction. Only the Christian worldview contains this insight, which God has so beautifully and graciously whispered to your heart.

And just to make sure that we would never doubt this reality, never think that it’s too good to be true, Jesus gave us the Eucharist. When he comes to us in Holy Communion, whether amidst the joys of life’s triumphs or the sorrows of life’s tragedies, he is telling us once again: You matter so much to me that I can’t hold myself back; I must share in all that you suffer, so that you can share in all that I promise.

Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC

23. The Cost of Calm (Mt 8:18-27)

“Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul. All other things on the face of the earth are created for man to help him fulfill the end for which he is created.”

- St Ignatius of Loyola

Matthew 8:18-27

When Jesus saw the great crowds all about him he gave orders to leave for the other side. One of the scribes then came up and said to him, ‘Master, I will follow you wherever you go’. Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head’. Another man, one of his disciples, said to him, ‘Sir, let me go and bury my father first’. But Jesus replied, ‘Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their dead’. Then he got into the boat followed by his disciples. Without warning a storm broke over the lake, so violent that the waves were breaking right over the boat. But he was asleep. So they went to him and woke him saying, ‘Save us, Lord, we are going down!’ And he said to them, ‘Why are you so frightened, you men of little faith?’ And with that he stood up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and all was calm again. The men were astounded and said, ‘Whatever kind of man is this? Even the winds and the sea obey him.’

Christ the Lord 

St. Matthew is still showing us Jesus’ credentials. Not only does he heal the sick, but he also has power over the elements of nature. Storms were frequent in the Sea of Galilee, situated like a bowl surrounded by mountains, whence strong winds came sweeping across the water; violent storms would brew suddenly and then just as quickly play themselves out. At least some of the disciples present were fishermen, so they knew the weather patterns well, and they knew how to navigate a boat to ride out a storm. For them to panic means that the situation was truly perilous – the waves were high enough and the wind strong enough that they feared shipwreck. And yet, for Jesus, all it takes is a word to rein in the violent primal forces.

The passage is reminiscent of the Book of Jonah. Jonah too was asleep in the hold while the ship’s crew panicked. In that case as well, God calmed the sea in an instant – as soon as they threw the disobedient prophet into the water. But there is a difference. In Jesus, St. Matthew shows us, the very God who acted from on high to bring Jonah to Nineveh has come to dwell among men. No wonder the disciples were “amazed” – they were just starting to get the picture: Jesus is the Lord.

Christ the Teacher

The Church has long seen in this passage an analogy for the life of every Christian. The storm rages and threatens and batters the boat – just as temptations, sufferings, persecutions, and difficulties unceasingly beat against the mind and will of the Christian. Sometimes it seems that they are too much – the journey of doing God’s will is simply too difficult. Panic sets in. But the Holy Trinity has been in the Christian’s soul the entire time, ever since the day of baptism. And when human efforts fail to calm the storm, the Christian remembers the Lord, turns to him, and asks for help. Soon Jesus restores the “great calm” that comes from confiding in the power and the promises of God instead of in the dim knowledge and withered strength of self.

St. Therese of Lisieux used to meditate on this passage in times of inner turmoil or darkness. But she wouldn’t wake up the Lord. For her, it was enough to go over and sit beside him as he slept. Let the tempest rage; stay close to Christ and all will be well.

Christ the Friend 

At this point in St. Matthew’s Gospel Jesus has not yet called apart his Twelve Apostles. A larger group of disciples, including the future Twelve, is following him. As he prepares to get away from the crowds and spend some time with them across the Sea of Galilee, a couple of newcomers approach him and ask to be let into the group. They have been watching and listening, and Jesus has moved their hearts. But the Lord doesn’t exactly welcome them with open arms.

He doesn’t send them away, but he does point out that following him will not be easy. They will have to forego some of the comforts and stability enjoyed by their peers and neighbors (“the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head”); they will have to make their relationship with him their highest priority – even higher than good and natural family ties (the disciple who requests that Jesus let him “bury his father” is expressing his willingness to follow Christ in the future, after his father dies, when it would be more convenient). Christ is a friend who loves too intensely not to demand the very best for his friends. Whenever he makes demands, it’s only because he loves.

Christ in My Life 

You are so patient with me, and you stay so close to me, that sometimes I forget about your greatness. You inspired awe in your disciples. There have been moments when I too have experienced profound reverence in your presence. Jesus, don’t let me take you for granted. Remind me of your greatness; make me worthy to serve such a Lord; make me follow you as you deserved to be followed…

Are you pleased with how I react to the storms that come into my life? They are precious moments, when things come into focus, when you remind me of my fragility and weakness. I want to stay close to you; I want to lean on you; I want to work hard for your Kingdom and even suffer for it, but always with a joyful heart, because you are always in the boat of my soul…

What are you asking of me right now, at this specific point in my life, that makes me uncomfortable? Is our friendship worth that kind of sacrifice? All I have to do is look at the crucifix and you give me the answer: of course it is. I want to follow you, Lord, and I want to help many others follow you as well. You are my life and my salvation – what could I possible fear?… 

Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC

To learn more, or purchase “The Better Part – A Christ Centered Resource for Personal Prayer,” click HERE.