{"id":16835,"date":"2016-08-09T17:51:22","date_gmt":"2016-08-09T21:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/?p=16835"},"modified":"2016-11-21T16:48:45","modified_gmt":"2016-11-21T21:48:45","slug":"16835","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/2016\/08\/09\/16835\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on Christ\u2019s Afflictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his Letter to the Colossians, St Paul tells us that in my flesh I complete what is lacking\u00a0in Christ\u2019s afflictions for the sake of His Body, that is the Church.<\/em> Now in being told of\u00a0something lacking in Christ\u2019s afflictions<\/em> we encounter a real challenge to interpretation.\u00a0What exactly does St Paul mean?<\/p>\n

Does he mean that the sufferings of Christ were in themselves insufficient<\/em> for the\u00a0redemption of the world? Does he mean that Christ\u2019s sufferings have to be supplemented\u00a0and completed by the suffering of others<\/em>, in order for the work of salvation to be brought\u00a0to fruition?<\/p>\n

This way of interpreting Paul\u2019s words seems on the face of it impossible. Everywhere in\u00a0his writings Paul seems absolutely clear that it is Christ and Christ alone Who saves us,\u00a0and that if anything is lacking it is in us<\/em>, not in Him<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And so we must try to find another way of understanding what Paul says. An alternative\u00a0interpretation might be as follows. We might suggest that he is referring to a lack, not in\u00a0Christ\u2019s<\/em> sufferings, but in the sufferings of those who follow Him. The afflictions of Christ<\/em>,\u00a0in other words, will be interpreted as we might interpret a phrase like the discipleship of\u00a0Christ<\/em>, where this refers not to Christ\u2019s own discipleship, but to the discipleship of those\u00a0who belong<\/em> to Him. So the afflictions of Christ<\/em> would then mean the afflictions of those\u00a0who follow Him, afflictions which come to them from<\/em> following Him, precisely because<\/em>\u00a0they are following Him. Such sufferings would accordingly represent the cost<\/em> of\u00a0discipleship, and would be lacking to the extent that disciples fail to be what they are\u00a0called to be. On this reading, Paul is declaring his determination to be a true<\/em> disciple, and\u00a0to remedy by his apostolic zeal what is lacking in those who half\u00adheartedly refuse the\u00a0sufferings that are involved in following Christ. In this way, the completeness of Christ\u2019s\u00a0own afflictions is preserved, and deficiency in suffering, together with whatever suffering\u00a0is necessary to overcome such deficiency, is ascribed unambiguously to ourselves.<\/p>\n

But we pay a price for such clarification. It proceeds by way of distinction and separation \u00adChrist on the one side, good and bad disciples on the other \u00ad and the question arises\u00a0whether a pattern of such neatly defined difference is adequate to the subtlety and depth\u00a0of Paul\u2019s thinking. For the whole mystery<\/em>, as he calls it, which Paul declares that he is sent\u00a0to proclaim, is described by him, just a few lines later, as Christ in you<\/em>. And this word\u00ad –\u00a0in –<\/em>\u00ad seems to speak, not of distinction and separation, but of intimacy, indeed of indwelling<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Now of course Paul shouldn\u2019t be read as saying that there is no difference at all<\/em> between\u00a0Christ and those who follow Him. But what he does<\/em> seem to be saying is that such\u00a0difference is maintained only within the context of a mysterious union, a coming together\u00a0of Christ and ourselves which is rooted in His Presence within<\/em> us. And this must mean\u00a0that, in relation to Christ, we are more than merely alongside or nearby<\/em>\u00ad more even than\u00a0faithfully<\/em> alongside or nearby – but are, in an ultimately inexplicable way, inhabited<\/em> by\u00a0Him. We can think here of what Paul says elsewhere, in his Letter to the Galatians, in\u00a0which he claims that it is no longer I who live, but Christ Who lives in me.<\/em><\/p>\n

It seems inadequate, then, to speak only of the difference between Christ and the disciple.\u00a0There is a difference<\/em> here, but it is maintained only within a more encompassing union: a\u00a0union in which the disciple, in his very interiority, seems to give way to Christ Himself.<\/p>\n

But if we must speak, in this sense, of a Christ \u00adcentred transformation of the disciple\u2019s\u00a0very self, what are the implications of this for Paul\u2019s teaching about making up in his flesh\u00a0what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ?<\/em> Perhaps, in the light of Paul\u2019s understanding\u00a0of the union between Christ and His disciples, we can begin to discern the way forward.<\/p>\n

What we can say at once is that whether we ascribe the lack to Christ, and by implication\u00a0not to ourselves, or to ourselves, and by implication not to Christ, we are in either case\u00a0refusing the challenge of the Pauline teaching that Christ is not merely close at hand<\/em> but\u00a0actually within<\/em> us. Because of this, the disciple has nothing which is exclusively his own;\u00a0everything that is his own, even his afflictions, are touched by the indwelling Christ, who\u00a0is more interior to the disciple than the disciple is to himself. We do not need to choose<\/em>\u00ad\u00a0is this Christ, or is it me? For it is both<\/em>, precisely in accordance with the mystery which St\u00a0Paul announces: it is Christ and<\/em> ourselves, for He is in<\/em> us.<\/p>\n

And what follows from this is that, if Christ Himself<\/em> is within us, then He must be\u00a0somehow within our afflictions as well, indwelling them<\/em> as a dimension of His indwelling\u00a0us<\/em>. It is in the light of Christ somehow indwelling our afflictions<\/em> that we must interpret\u00a0what Paul says to us this morning.<\/p>\n

But at once we encounter another problem. How does Christ indwell our afflictions? If the\u00a0disciple suffers, does Christ suffer at the same time, just as, in the living disciple, it is at\u00a0the same time Christ Himself who lives? This is difficult to affirm \u00ad for then Christ suffers\u00a0still, suffers here and now, with me and in me \u00ad and how can that be?<\/p>\n

We usually avoid this controversial implication by saying, not that Christ<\/em> suffers in us<\/em>, but\u00a0rather that we<\/em> suffer in Christ<\/em>, in relation to Him. And what that is typically taken to\u00a0mean is that we, who suffer now<\/em>, can unite ourselves with Christ who suffered once and\u00a0for all on the Cross. In our present, in other words, we are somehow able to have access to\u00a0His past. But from another point of view, this too seems unsatisfactory. We want to avoid\u00a0saying that Christ suffers still, here and now; but we also<\/em> want to say more than that He\u00a0suffered once upon a time, in such a way that His suffering and ours no longer seem to\u00a0have any kind of internal connection. An internal connection, however we try to\u00a0understand it, seems to be demanded by the Pauline teaching of a union between Christ\u00a0and ourselves. We need to hold on to the thought that Christ is in<\/em> us, indwelling us here\u00a0and now, including in our present suffering. How, then, does He indwell that suffering,\u00a0without here and now suffering Himself?<\/p>\n

Let us try to approach the question from the following angle. We have seen that one of the\u00a0consequences of saying that Christ is in us is that, as disciples, we have nothing that is\u00a0exclusively our own: everything in us is in Christ, even what is most interior to us. But if it\u00a0is true to say that we<\/em> have nothing exclusively our own, this can only be because it is first\u00a0and foremost true of Christ Himself. It is true of Christ, and therefore<\/em> it is true also<\/em> of His\u00a0disciples. For we become His disciples by sharing in His own pattern of self \u00ademptying, in\u00a0which everything is given, and nothing held back.<\/p>\n

Christ Himself has nothing He keeps to Himself, and we can affirm this even of His<\/em>\u00a0afflictions<\/em>. Everything in Him is gift<\/em>, received from the Father and handed on to us.\u00a0Everything is offered, opened out, towards others: nothing is retained or held back. And\u00a0so when St Paul speaks of the afflictions of Christ<\/em>, he speaks, even here, of a gift, the inner\u00a0logic of which asks that it be communicated so that it can be completed. No gift can be<\/em>\u00a0communicated, no gift can be completed as a gift<\/em>, until it is received. And in the case of\u00a0the gift of Christ\u2019s sufferings, these are received in the disciples when they suffer in turn \u00adwhen they allow, in their own sufferings, the completion of Christ\u2019s sufferings within\u00a0them<\/em>; it is then, and only then, that Christ\u2019s sufferings come to fruition. As St Paul puts it\u00a0in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, we share abundantly in Christ\u2019s sufferings.<\/em><\/p>\n

And now we can see that, until this sharing comes about, there is indeed something\u00a0lacking<\/em> in the sufferings of Christ, just as there is, inescapably, something lacking in the\u00a0gift that remains unreceived. But this lack is not an insufficiency<\/em>. On the contrary, it is\u00a0essential to the logic<\/em> of the gift, an unavoidable dimension of its perfection as gift.<\/em> Every\u00a0gift lacks the capacity to complete itself, and therefore makes itself vulnerable to the\u00a0freedom of the one to whom it is offered. Every gift yearns finally to be taken hold of, to be\u00a0accepted by the one intended to receive it: it is in this aspiration, this incompleteness\u00a0awaiting the consummation of being received, that the gift is most perfectly itself as\u00a0something offered. And so we can say that Christ offers us His sufferings, and that we, by\u00a0receiving them, complete in ourselves what they lack; the afflictions of Christ, as gifts, are\u00a0completed only in being received in the suffering of His disciples; in their<\/em> sufferings,\u00a0Christ completes the gift of His own.<\/p>\n

So now let us try to think this from a rather broader perspective. What Christ suffered on\u00a0the Cross was not undergone in such a way as to seal it or lock it up, confining it within\u00a0the temporal and spatial limits of His individual humanity. Think of His body on the\u00a0Cross \u00ad was this a barrier<\/em>, an unsurpassable difference<\/em>, between Him and everyone else?\u00a0We might think so. And yet after the Resurrection that very body becomes limitlessly\u00a0sharable. It becomes sharable in the Eucharist, which extends the gift of His Body. And\u00a0from the Eucharist it becomes sharable in the Church, which He teaches us also to\u00a0recognize as His Body. In both ways, in Eucharist and in Church, the body on the Cross\u00a0extends itself, expanding beyond its individual limits to communicate itself wherever it\u00a0can find a home. We take this body into ourselves, and thereby become what we take in.\u00a0Nourished by His sacramental Body we are formed as members of His mystical Body, all\u00a0of this originating in and flowing from His body on the Cross, broken open in suffering,\u00a0given for us and to us. His body on the Cross, the suffering Christ, is therefore not a\u00a0merely<\/em> historical reality, constrained by a particular time and place. From the moment of\u00a0the Resurrection, and handed over in the Eucharist and in the Church, we must think of\u00a0the suffering Christ trans<\/em>-\u00adhistorically: His suffering and death come to encompass\u00a0potentially every time and place in which human life unfolds.<\/p>\n

Now at the very heart of the Cross lies Christ\u2019s endurance of what is most grievous in\u00a0human suffering, whether as reality or as temptation. At the heart of the suffering of the\u00a0Cross is human distance from God, our alienation from the Father. In enduring this\u00a0alienation, Christ also transforms it, even to the lengths of descending to the realm of the\u00a0dead, seeking out the extreme limit to which our alienation can extend. Suffering and\u00a0transformation are here intimately linked and coextensive. In His Passion and Death,\u00a0Christ sustains the maximum consequences of our distance from God, enfolding and\u00a0surpassing them within His filial obedience and love. And this transformative suffering,\u00a0because it is something He undergoes for<\/em> us, is necessarily something He desires to enact\u00a0in<\/em> us. For the alienation is ours<\/em>, and it is therefore in<\/em> us that it must be transformed: not\u00a0away from us, somewhere else, in the historical Cross, but from<\/em> there into<\/em> the here \u00adand-\u00a0now of our very being.<\/p>\n

This, we can now see, is the reason why the body of the Cross undergoes its limitless\u00a0expansion in Eucharist and Church. Christ, as the One Who suffered and rose again,\u00a0desires to be with us whenever and wherever we ourselves suffer \u00ad whenever and\u00a0wherever, in the alienation of our fallenness, we stand in need of His transforming\u00a0presence. Then His desire to suffer for<\/em> us is completed in<\/em> us. He makes His suffering\u00a0interior to ours, by applying to it His endurance of His own. And just as it is the same\u00a0body that suffered on the Cross and which afterwards rose from the dead, so His suffering\u00a0always remains present to Him, even though He can suffer no more. It remains present to\u00a0Him within the strength He conveys to us, as the weight which that strength measures\u00a0and overcomes; His suffering remains present to Him as something which our own\u00a0suffering recalls and brings to mind: we can say that our<\/em> suffering reminds Him of His\u00a0own<\/em>, eliciting from within Him an experience and a knowledge He draws upon as He\u00a0comes close to us, enabling Him to resonate, to vibrate, with whatever we ourselves must\u00a0suffer, even as the strength to endure it is also communicated. As St Paul puts it in his\u00a0Second Letter to the Corinthians: For as we share abundantly in Christ\u2019s sufferings, so\u00a0through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too<\/em>. It is in this way, by shared\u00a0experience and shared consolation, that He indwells what we suffer.<\/p>\n

And it is in this way, too, that the Paschal Mystery unfolds. That mystery is not simply His\u00a0three days of suffering, death, descent and Resurrection, considered as over and done\u00a0with, definitively in the past. But instead, those three days were \u00ad or are \u00ad mysteries of\u00a0redemptive love, and they are therefore intrinsically open and self-\u00addiffusive. His\u00a0redemptive suffering began, indeed, in His own terrible solitude, but it completes itself,\u00a0through Him, only in us.<\/p>\n

By Fr Philip Cleevely, Cong. Orat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his Letter to the Colossians, St Paul tells us that in my flesh I complete what is lacking\u00a0in Christ\u2019s afflictions for the sake of His Body, that is the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/crucifixion.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s8brX6-16835","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16835"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16836,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16835\/revisions\/16836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}