Reflection on Luke 9:22-25

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Thursday, February 18, 2021

In this Gospel, Jesus lays out the conditions for discipleship: “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” 

Beloved in Christ, how can we overcome pain? Or better still, how can we cope with pain and human suffering and attain joy? Interestingly, some world religions and philosophies have something to say about the question. Stoicism believes that pain can be overcome by resignation. When faced with pain and suffering, stoicism proposes a shrug of resignation. A stoic endures pain or hardship without any display of feelings and without complaint. I once encountered a family whose spiritual tradition is deeply rooted in stoicism. The family had just lost a monumental figure, someone who wields a lot of influence in the family and who kept the family together. Her death was excruciatingly painful for all. But when I tried to offer the family spiritual care, I felt like I was talking to a wall. No word. No speech. No emotion was uttered or expressed. Platonism, which is the philosophy of Plato believes that pain can be overcome by an undistracted contemplation of the eternal forms. Plato taught that there are two realms or worlds— the physical realm and the spiritual realm. The physical world is not really the “real” world, rather a shadow or image of the true reality of the realm of forms. The physical realm is the material stuff we see and interact with on a daily basis. This physical realm, he says, is imperfect and changing as we know all too well. But the spiritual realm, which exists beyond the physical realm, Plato calls “the Realm of Forms.” What are these forms? Plato said they are abstract, perfect, unchanging concepts or ideals that transcend time and space. They exist in the realm of forms. To overcome pain therefore, one must stop thinking about the things that exist in the physical world, and contemplate on what exists in the eternal world of forms. For Buddha, suffering is the consequence of creating bonds of attachment with transitory and transient things of the world. Whatever is transient is painful. Suffering, he says is caused by desire, insatiable craving, thirst, attachment and clinging to passing things of the world. To end pain and suffering, Buddha proposes negation of the self or unattchement. What does Jesus say about suffering? How can we cope with pain and suffering? It is not by way of stoicism or platonism, or Buddhism but rather by way of the sacrifice of the self in love. 

Jesus did not pretend not to be suffering. He did not hide his feelings or emotions. He was not detached from his human experience of pain and emotions. From the beginning of his public ministry, he said over and over again that “The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.” During his trial, he did not hide his feelings. Hung upon the cross, he was not oblivious of what he was experiencing. Jesus groaned. He cried. He experienced and expressed pain. He even prayed to his Father to take away his suffering, nevertheless, he submitted to his Father’s will. 

How can we cope with suffering? To answer this question I will turn my attention to two people. One of them is known by many of you; and the other is only known by me alone. One of them still living on earth, and the other lives in the company of the saints in heaven. The one that many of us know is Mary Jo Copeland, the founder of the Caring and Sharing Hands. She is widely known for her work of providing houses for the homeless, feeding the hungry, giving hope to children, and serving the general need of low-income families in Minneapolis, Minnesota. But as someone who has celebrated several Masses in her chapel, spoken to her one on one, I have also come to know her as someone who has a profound understanding of Christian’s concept of suffering. A few weeks ago, Mary Jo hurt her back. Whenever I ask her about it and about other aches and pains she is feeling, her response is always, “Father, I still feel the pain, but I have offered it to Jesus my Lord.” No doubt, she would want the pain to go away, but since it is not going away, she is not out there pretending that the pain is not there. She is not embracing the stoic or platonic or Buddhist spirituality to dealing with pain. She is authentically Christian. While she is acknowledging it, she is also offering it to the Lord as her own own share in the suffering of Christ. Another person is my late mother. In my entire life, I am yet to see someone who prays more than my mother. Her entire life was all about prayer. She began the day with prayer, went through the day with prayer and ended it with prayer. One early morning, I overheard her praying in her room, and this was what she said, “My Father in heaven, I depend on you for everything. I cannot do without you. Only you can heal me of my sickness, and I pray you heal me. However, if healing me will cause me to live a life that will prevent me from making heaven, please, keep the sickness. All I want is you. Jesus offered his life for me and the entire world. If this is my own cross, my own sacrifice, let it be so.” I wept when I heard my mother utter those words. And according to my siblings in Nigeria, her final words of prayer before she breathed her last was, “God’s will has been done. Jesus, be merciful to me. Into your hands, I commend my Spirit.” My mother did not have an easy life, but her faith in God was unyielding and solid as a rock. 

The Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) must be Via Christus. Jesus accepted his pain, suffering and humiliation as the sacrifice he has to pay for the ransom of the many. He did pray to the Father to remove the suffering, but in the end, he submitted to it. While we work and pray to eliminate our pain and suffering and that of others, we should be willing to accept what God allows. This acceptance is not the stoic acceptance or resignation. It is rather the sacrifice of the self in love. Jesus traveled to Jerusalem in order to give himself away, to sacrifice himself in love for the other, to become a source of life to others. We should be willing to sacrifice our very lives for him as well. This spiritual and theological approach to pain and suffering removes the purposeless and the meaninglessness that suffering oftentimes generates. And when no purpose is thought of, it most often than not leads to depression and sadness.