Do we treat the suffering with kindness?
Imagine Christ, bloody, beaten, with some of his flesh falling off of his holy body. When we see him what is our reaction? Do we embrace him or do we throw up first or worse, run? Mother Teresa was wont to scrape dying bodies off of pavement because the souls of the poor were deserving of a dignified death. What of you and I?
I think the reality is that we often see the suffering, even those suffering as innocents, and find them revolting. My childhood dog was dying of cancer, a sad sight indeed. Our other much younger dog was angry with her, and would growl at her. They say the healthy animals will often turn on the dying. She raised him, protected him, taught him, and in the end she was the object of disdain. Who had been a friend was now a foe all because of suffering, because the strong didn’t value the weak. So many bad ideas are based on trying to make the weak strong instead of recognizing them as inherently valuable.
Job’s friends saw him suffering as Christ and said he needed to be more righteous. Even if it was true that he had brought this suffering upon himself, the friends of Job were harsh beyond words. They thought if they bombarded their friend with many words his eyes would suddenly open, and he would see that he had committed some horrific sin, no matter that he solemnly swore before God that he hadn’t done anything like that. His friends didn’t really think he was guilty, they just didn’t want to believe that God would make an innocent man suffer that much, they wanted to believe that God’s way was the easy way, the way of riches and of honor. Isn’t that why we crucified Christ, not because we denied he was of supernatural origin, but rather because he wasn’t willing to use his supernatural power to give us what we wanted, which for the Jews was the defeat of all their enemies and reclamation of the promised land. They wanted Christ to be a general.
Anyways, this experience, the way my younger dog treated the dying one, isn’t peculiar to dogs. People act like animals all the time, and they love to beat someone who has fallen down, just like they beat Christ when he had fallen and then went so far as to nail him to a cross.
What will our reaction be when we see him, bloody and beaten? Will we blame him and close our hearts in incredulity, or take responsibility, thus opening the door of our heart’s wound so that blood and water might rush in from within us, healing us.
O most provident guardian of the Holy Family, defend the chosen children of Jesus Christ. Most beloved father, dispel the evil of falsehood and sin. Our most mighty liberator, graciously assist us from heaven in our struggle with the powers of darkness. And just as you once saved the Child Jesus from mortal danger, so now defend God’s Holy Church from the snares of her enemies and from all adversity. Shield each one of us by your constant protection, so that, supported by your example and your help, we may be able to live a virtuous life, to die a holy death, and to obtain eternal happiness in heaven.
Early one afternoon my wife had looked through our store of keepsakes, the kind that we went through and really decided that we wanted to keep. Its contents make up a somewhat decent-sized old-fashioned-looking chest. She found a frame that my sister, her Confirmation sponsor and college friend, had give to her at some point. The words, written in beautiful calligraphy, read thus: “For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare, not for woe! Plans to give you a future full of hope.” This was an important frame to her and to me as well, but it had been stowed away ever since we made a big move a couple of years ago. That day it surfaced as its message would be useful in communicating something God wanted to say to us.
The LORD answer you in time of distress; the name of the God of Jacob defend you!
Today at McDonald’s I met a wonderful boy named Diego and I quickly ascertained from his mother that Diego had been born on the feast day of Saint Juan Diego, the saint who received the apparitions surrounding the manifestation of the Blessed Mother as Our Lady of Guadalupe. My sister is also on pilgrimage today or tomorrow at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, carrying all of our family’s intentions to her to ask for her help with all of our troubles. God never ceases in assuring us of his love and care, if we have the eyes to see his assurances! I can’t begin to explain the many assurances of the Spirit I have received recently, they keep pouring down like a torrential rain to the point that it is impossible to keep up with them, to contain them in my mind in order to cherish them. I have to do a better job of writing these things down just as the Israelites wrote down all of the wonderful things that God had done for them in delivering them from oppression in spite of their very great infidelity in sinning before God.
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