In last week’s article, we explored the importance of not turning away from suffering, as we are so tempted to do.  Rather, by turning into our suffering, it can become a means by which we mature “through it and find meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love.” (SS 37) In the next paragraph, Pope Benedict explains how accepting our own suffering not only helps us get through suffering, but it also equips us to assist others in their suffering.  On this point, the Holy Father notes the impact that accepting personal suffering can have on the society in which we live:

A society unable to accept its suffering members and incapable of helping to share their suffering and to bear it inwardly through “com-passion” is a cruel and inhuman society. Yet society cannot accept its suffering members and support them in their trials unless individuals are capable of doing so themselves; moreover, the individual cannot accept another’s suffering unless he personally is able to find meaning in suffering, a path of purification and growth in maturity, a journey of hope. (SS 38)

One who is unwilling to endure suffering themselves will be less likely to help others when they are suffering.  But there are times when somebody close to us begins to suffer that we put aside our fear of suffering and enter into their suffering.  Though we may not be experiencing the same suffering, nevertheless we suffer with the other person, and the Lord uses that experience of suffering in another to strengthen and purify us, even as we support the one who is suffering.  Even if we cannot take away the suffering of another, our presence removes the particularly painful experience that so often accompanies suffering, loneliness and isolation.

I have a vivid memory of this from my childhood after I had a rather major surgery.  I woke up very briefly in recovery, feeling a lot of pain and feeling scared.  I did not even open my eyes, but I sensed somebody was there in the room.  When the voice spoke, it was that of my mother, and though I still felt so uncomfortable, I fell back asleep in peace, knowing that she was there with me and that I was not alone.  The following morning, I awoke early in the ICU, but nobody was there.  I do not exactly remember how I felt physically, but there was an overwhelming sense of fear of being alone.  The nurse assured me that my parents were on their way, and when they did arrive, I was able to be at peace again.  Throughout my childhood, whenever I had to stay home due to being sick, which was always miserable, my mom was always there.  Though she could not suffer what I was suffering, she was suffering with me and for me as only a mother can and her presence always made the experience much more bearable.

In that regard, we recently celebrated the Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows.  This feast recalls the beautiful truth that as Jesus was dying, Mary stood by the Cross.  Her standing signifies a posture of readiness to do whatever she could to help encourage her Son in His final hours.  From the Cross, Jesus entrusted His mother to us when He said to her about St. John, and by extension, all of us: “Behold, your son.” (Jn 19:26) Mary always stands close to us in our suffering, ready to offer her motherly encouragement, reminding us that we are never alone in our suffering.  May that truth bring us true consolation, and may we imitate her example of standing ready to assist anybody who the Lord invites us to assist in their suffering.

A question St. Augustine asks frequently throughout his many commentaries on the Psalms is, “Who is speaking here?” He reads the Psalms as prayers composed by a human author called the “psalmist,” and yet, they are also inspired by the Holy Spirit and destined to be prayed by many more people than just that psalmist, even one particular person known at first only to God. Insofar as they are inspired, the words of the Psalms come from the heart of God and are a true communication of the divine Word. This Word became flesh (John 1:14) in Jesus Christ, and therefore, the primary answer St. Augustine gives to his question, “Who is speaking here?” is Jesus Christ, the Lord. He is speaking here.

Though Jesus is the one St. Augustine understands to be speaking in the Psalms, Jesus is not speaking alone. He speaks in, with, and through his body, the Church. St. Paul gives the seed of this teaching when he writes, “He [Christ] is the head of the body, the Church” (Colossians 1:18), and “Now you are the body of Christ, and individually members of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27). This teaching of St. Paul is something that St. Augustine reflected on very deeply. The image and reality of the Church as the body of Christ became the root of St. Augustine’s understanding of the speaker in the Psalms. 

As he preaches on Psalm 61(60), especially the opening line, “O God, hear my plea, give heed to my prayer,” St. Augustine asks that very question: “Who is saying this? It sounds like a single person. But look at the next phrase, and you will see whether it can be only one: From the ends of the earth I have called to you, as my heart was wrung with pain. It cannot be one alone, then; yet it is one, because Christ is one, and all of us are his members” (Expositions of the Psalms 60.2, Translated by Maria Boulding). One person says this, and that one person is Christ, the head of the body. But, more than one person says it, and says it from the ends of the earth, because Jesus has joined a body (the Church) to himself.

St. Augustine calls this head and body unity the totus Christus, “the whole Christ.” Jesus is, in himself, a true person, and a divine person at that. He doesn’t need any additional body attached to him to make him complete and perfect. BUT, in a wonderful plan of salvation, he chooses to join human beings to himself in a mystical and sacramental union so that we become truly members (limbs) of his mystical body. We therefore share his divine life – the Father looks upon us as children, the life of the Holy Spirit dwells in our souls, and we are heirs to his Kingdom. We also, then, speak and act as Christ in our prayer and in our lives. A simple analogy is this: When my hand moves, I move; when a member of the body of Christ acts, Christ acts. 

It is, therefore, not a stretch for St. Augustine to be able to say that Christ is the one speaking in the Psalms, always. Sometimes Christ the head alone speaks, sometimes a member of the body alone, but more often than not, he can say that Christ, head and members, speak as one. The whole Christ speaks. This teaching gives a whole new meaning to those words of the Mass, that we pray through Him, with Him, and in Him, to God the almighty Father. 

Thanks be to God for this saving grace! 

A few years ago, I heard a story about how bison on the Great Plains react to storms.  Unlike cattle who tend to turn away from the storm in hopes of avoiding it, bison turn into the storm and face it head on, literally.  The claim is that by doing so, they minimize the impact the storm will have on them and they get through it faster.  For those animals that turn away from a storm in hoping to avoid it, the storm often catches up to them and they spend more time in the storm.  I do not really have a way of verifying this as a fact, though I have heard it in different presentations, but even if it cannot be proven as fact, the principle applies and it provides a helpful lesson for how we face storms in our lives as Christians.  

In the next paragraph of Spe salvi, Pope Benedict reflects on how tempting it is for us to run from suffering when it comes, to do everything that we can do avoid it in our lives.  By doing so, however, we find ourselves often worse off than if we had not turned into the suffering.  The Holy Father explains:

It is when we attempt to avoid suffering by withdrawing from anything that might involve hurt, when we try to spare ourselves the effort and pain of pursuing truth, love, and goodness, that we drift into a life of emptiness, in which there may be almost no pain, but the dark sensation of meaninglessness and abandonment is all the greater. (SS 37)

Instead, like bison about to encounter a storm, we should not flee in fear, but turn into the suffering:

It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love. (ibid.)

As a way of demonstrating this, the pope quotes a rather lengthy account from the Vietnamese martyr Paul Le-Bao-Tinh († 1857) who suffered imprisonment and torture in a condition the martyr described as “a true image of everlasting Hell.” It is well worth going to this paragraph and reading it to see the remarkable effect of turning into suffering with faith in Jesus Christ.

I will quote what Pope Benedict writes as he reflects on this inspiring quote, words which I find extremely fruitful for our reflection when faced with suffering:

This is indeed a letter from Hell, but it also reveals the truth of the Psalm text: “If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I sink to the nether world, you are present there … If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall hide me, and night shall be my light’ —for you darkness itself is not dark, and night shines as the day; darkness and light are the same” (Ps 139 [138]:8-12; cf. also Ps 23 [22]:4). Christ descended into “Hell” and is therefore close to those cast into it, transforming their darkness into light. (ibid.)

By God’s Providence, I was recently praying with Psalm 139 and was struck by that same line, alternately translated as: “even darkness is not dark for you and the night is as clear as the day.” (Ps. 139:12) This is one of the great gifts of the Psalms, as they provide ready responses to pretty much every human emotion that we face.  Therefore, when we are confronted with the storm of suffering in our lives, we can turn toward it, and call upon the Lord, reciting those words, and asking Him to be our light to guide us through the darkness and pass safely to the other side with the gracious assistance of His protecting grace.

I find it difficult to choose one of the Psalms as a “favorite” – mostly because I have found so many of them to be undeniably powerful and meaningful at different times in my life. If I did have to choose, however, one that would be very near the top of my list is Psalm 45 – a song about the marriage of the King. I love it because of its bold and tender imagery. The first half of the Psalm is bold in its description of a very powerful king, who, if he is not God himself, is at least very God-like. The second half, on the other hand, tenderly describes how the young maiden chosen to be the spouse of the king prepares herself to “enter the palace of the king” (15).

Unsurprisingly, as St. Augustine interprets this marriage-themed Psalm, he reads it in light of the marriage that God desires to have with humanity. All through the Old Testament are hints, prophecies, and outright statements of the nearly unbelievable truth that God desires such a close and intimate relationship with his people that we would call it a “marriage.” For example, we read in Isaiah, “As a young man marries a virgin, your Builder shall marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride so shall your God rejoice in you” (62:4-5). This prophecy is fulfilled most completely in Jesus, who comes to make us one with him. The Church becomes his body and we can be said, mystically, to have a “one-flesh” union with him: He is our head, we are his members.

In the tender second half of Psalm 45, the young woman is told that the King desires her beauty. St. Augustine comments on this verse: 

“For the king has desired your beauty. … But who is this king? He is your God. See now how right it is for you to abandon that other father, and that other nation that was yours, and come to this King who is your God. He is your God and your King, your King and your Bridegroom. The King you are marrying is God; he provides you with your portion, by him you are adorned, by him redeemed, by him healed. Whatever you have in you that can please him, you have as his gift” (Expositions of the Psalms, 44.26. Translated by Maria Boulding).

So, in a very beautiful way, for St. Augustine and for so many Christians who read and pray this Psalm in a Christian light, the King is God – Jesus Christ our Lord. And you and I as members of the body of Christ are the bride, because the Church is the bride of Christ. Jesus desires your beauty, and that beauty is what he has created in you by redeeming you and washing you clean from your sins. Your clean soul is a beautiful soul, a fitting place for God to dwell. 

I would highly encourage you to pray Psalm 45 with this reality in mind. Although the original human author would not have been thinking of Jesus as the King, the Holy Spirit certainly had our Lord in mind when he inspired this Psalm. Similarly, the human author of the Psalm would not have known the bride to be the Church, but the Holy Spirit knew. We can, therefore, recognize that the King in the Psalm can be read as Christ himself and the bride is the Church. You are the beloved one of God, you are beautifully clothed in gold when you are sacramentally washed by his blood. When you reach heaven, you will enter his palace to live with him forever.

O Jesus, beloved of my soul, draw me close to you. You desire my beauty – make me beautiful by freeing me from my sins! Amen.