In Mass tonight, I was struck by something in the homily. It was nothing new, really. The deacon was mentioning a common theme of our pastor's--that everyone around us has their own crosses to bear. He went so far as to catalogue possible misfortunes or causes for suffering that one or another person there might have had to bear, or might currently be bearing. This strategy has a mixed effect on me. On the one hand, I recognize its truth, on the other hand, I find the suppositions--the anonymous attributions--to separate me further from the people around me rather than bringing me closer, simply because of the emphasis placed on the unknowability. It ends up registering a little bit existential.
But at one point, the deacon paused and said, "What people have a hard time with . . . . is that," and he turned to the large, centrally placed, intricately carved wooden crucifix that I have always considered a little too evocative, or graphic, or whatever, with its drawn face and jutting ribs. 'Lest it sound like his words and gesture bordered on irreverent, they were not. In fact, they were deeply reverent. When he continued, he elaborated his meaning: that people are puzzled by the role of suffering in redemption. The reference was to Peter's shocked denial that any of the horrible things Jesus said would happen to him would, in fact, happen. We don't want to believe that those things will happen to someone we care about, look up to, someone who is so real and present to us. But they can and they do. He did not mention directly that people question why, but it was implicit: that question people ask about why God allows suffering. I admit that I was turning inward, thinking not about why God allows suffering, which never seemed a question worth asking, really. Suffering is a part of life. We know this. Why God would see fit to end suffering might be a more valid question, and often in the midst of creating my own suffering, I ask tentatively, gratefully, and perhaps fearfully why I am allowed to have the existence that I take for granted. It is perhaps because the deacon mentioned our occasional moments of clarity that I had what I consider to be a moment of clarity. It is difficult to know which thought came first. I believe it was the idea that in suffering, we realize the full strength of our human potential--that there is a spark of the divine in our nobility in the face of suffering. And I thought of the beauty of art that focuses on human suffering--how does beauty come out of suffering? Why does beauty come out of suffering? Perhaps because in bearing our suffering, we are approximating the beauty of the Redemption, which also came out of suffering. "About suffering, they were never wrong, the Old Masters. . ."
But the second thought involved the Garden of Eden. And it occurred to me that in the story of the Garden of Eden, Man and Woman are in an ideal, sinless state, we see that peace does not prevent the human traits of jealousy and greed from emerging. Rather, in that ideal state we find a breeding-ground for competitive impulses and jealousy of God--it only required a seed. It may be a problematic conclusion, but human nature, once corrupted by the suggestion, could only descend into ignobility in that idyllic state. I do not mean that the idyllic state produced the greed and jealousy, only that in peace there was nothing to prevent the corrupting suggestion from inspiring rebellious thoughts and defiant actions. After the first disobedience, suffering entered the world. The story gives a basis for understanding the presence of suffering--and why God allows suffering to persist. Suffering, by this account, seems so intrinsic to the human condition--such a direct result of our natures--that it seems pointless to question it. However, if suffering is intrinsic to the human condition, so is the bearing of suffering with nobility one of the most admirable human traits. It is in adversity that we see what a person "is made of," as the saying goes. And in this, we tap into the Redemption through suffering, that suffering that leads to Redemption. And I suppose this is what is meant by "taking up the cross."
I have posted this on my Booknotes blog, first because it was too large a thought to commit to the obscurity of memory, and second because it relates back to The Power and the Glory, which all Catholic thoughts about suffering seem to do. I couldn't help thinking about the suffering of the priest in that novel, much of it self-inflicted, and I struggled to think of a setting or scene in which he is allowed relative peace, and relieved of suffering. I thought fairly quickly, though not at first, of the house/estate/town of Mr. Lehr, a protestant, who is kind, polite and tolerant of the religion that he does not understand. I thought of the routine quality of the priest's dealing with the people there--his dealings admit no empathy with the people, and he almost forgets his own pain in the comfort and the promise of peace. And he slips back into the wheedling to make certain the people are paying enough for their sacraments--in short, in peace, all that made his character ignoble, traits buried for most of the novel, resurfaces. Were he to die in this place, there would be no question of his being a saint. However, he does not die there. Rather, he is made by pity and by duty, and by the virtues bestowed by his office, to return into danger, to administer last rites to a dying criminal who would surely be damned without him, and it is in the pull of his sacramental duty--and the accompanying suffering--that he begins to appear noble to the reader. In Eden, we are pulled toward greed and jealousy; in suffering we are noble, and are redeemed.
