suffering Archives - Held By His Pierced Hands

Being Our Lady of Sorrows

I love St. Simon of Cyrene. I love that he was plucked out of nowhere, forced into a task he despised, and found eternity in the process. I love that he kept Jesus company on the road to Calvary. I love the image of walking beside my friends as they suffer and spelling them for a bit.

I love St. Veronica. I love that she stepped out of the crowd to wipe the blood and sweat from Jesus’ eyes. I love the risk she took to offer an act of human kindness in a sea of inhumanity. I love the image of serving my friends as they suffer, bringing some peace and beauty into their painful lives.

I love being Simon. I love being Veronica.

But lately I’m neither. Lately I’m Mary.

Normally, identifying with the Blessed Mother is a good thing, a sign that you’re doing something right. You’re trusting God or pointing people to him or interceding. But when the people you love are being tortured, being Mary just means you’re standing there doing nothing.

I don’t want to do nothing. I want to fix it. I want to love them out of their pain or take it over for them. I at least want to do something, say something to make it better, even just a little, even just wiping the sweat out of their eyes.

But I’m not Simon. I don’t get to carry their crosses with them or for them. And I’m not Veronica. I don’t get to give them a moment’s peace. I’m Mary. I only get to be there with them, loving them in utter futility as a sword pierces my heart.

I hate being Our Lady of Sorrows. I hate standing there doing nothing, watching the people I love suffer. I hate waiting for a diagnosis, hearing about infidelity, watching depression. I hate going to prayer and begging, begging, begging to take their crosses from them and being told no. I hate being useless in the face of catastrophic pain.

And yet.

And yet, with all that he could have asked of his Mother in that moment of his greatest need, this is what he asked: just be with me. Just stand there and watch me suffer. Just love me in my pain.

And somehow, that nothing that she did was everything that he needed. Somehow, it bore fruit down through the ages for every one of us. Somehow, it is in her silent suffering with that Mary fulfills God’s plan for her. I’m sure she also wanted to be Simon or Veronica or Peter whipping out a sword or anyone doing anything. But she knew that being there and “useless” was good and right and beautiful.

img_20151208_154307 — Weinende (weeping) Madonna by Hermann von Kaulbach

Our Lady wasn’t Our Lady of Sorrows only on Good Friday. She suffered the day after the Annunciation and when Simeon told her the sword would pierce her and when they fled into Egypt and when Jesus was lost and when he left home and when he foretold his death and when she stood at his tomb on Holy Saturday and a thousand other times in between. Because her suffering with him, somehow, accomplished something.

I can’t say I get it. I don’t know what it does to suffer with someone, especially when that person can’t feel you there. But I know that it works for good because God gave that job to his Mother. The most powerful woman in history was left powerless because her helpless inaction was necessary and good and powerful. I don’t have to know how. It’s enough to know that when I am Our Lady of Sorrows, standing uselessly by as the ones I love suffer unimaginable pain, I am not useless. It is good to love them, even when that love seems impotent. It is good to suffer with.

If you are where I am right now, watching helplessly as those you love suffer, know this: it is not to no effect. You are not alone. Our Lady of Sorrows stands uselessly with you, holding you up as you weep and rage and faint from exhaustion. And somehow none of it is useless. Somehow, it is just what you need, just what your beloved needs, just what the world needs. And sometimes that’s enough.

Heavy Blessings

Elizabeth spent her life barren in a society inclined to value women solely based on their childbearing abilities. Those of you who struggle with infertility can identify with the longing and the despair and the irrational guilt that must have plagued Elizabeth. More than the internal suffering, Elizabeth would also have been subjected to open scorn and derision from her neighbors and friends, seen as one cursed.¹ So when, at long last, the angel appeared to Zechariah, when her belly began to swell, when she felt the quickening of life within her, Elizabeth must have been transfigured by joy. What an incredible gift: not only motherhood, but such motherhood. To bear the prophet of the most high—it was more than she could ever have dreamed.

But Elizabeth was old. Old enough that this conception was more than just providential but miraculous. So when God worked this miracle and John the Baptist was conceived, there was great rejoicing and also great pain.

Elizabeth’s joints were already stiff and sore; they must not have taken 40 extra pounds well.

Elizabeth’s ligaments didn’t stretch as well as they once had; her body must have screamed in pain.

I wonder how sick she got.

I wonder how early in her pregnancy she was no longer able to get out of bed at all.

I wonder just how awful it was, this incredible blessing.

Because Elizabeth’s pregnancy was a blessing, but it was a heavy blessing. She rejoiced, she gave thanks, she loved her baby. But it was really, really, really hard.

I wonder what your heavy blessing is right now. The situation you’re in that you’re able to thank God for but that still weighs on you as a cross. The unexpected pregnancy or the much-needed promotion that requires far more hours. The roommate you adore who sucks you dry emotionally. The child with special needs. The big old house in need of a thousand repairs. The summer break with your kids that might drive you crazy. The amazing community that leaves you little time for sleep. The mentally ill spouse. Some things in your life might be purely awful, but many are good things that are really, really hard.

The temptation is to get caught up in the difficulty of it, to focus on the aches and exhaustion and fear of what happens when an old body gives birth. But the more we focus on all that’s ugly the more we forget the shattering beauty of what’s weighing us down. We start to define our blessings by the ways they inconvenience us instead of seeing them as gifts. We need the clarity of Elizabeth, stepping back from all the heaviness to rejoice in the goodness.

We also need to be real and to acknowledge the struggle that it takes to accept God’s gifts. It seems so ungrateful to look at something beautiful God’s given us and complain about the attendant pain or worry or sleeplessness. But for all Elizabeth may have rejoiced in her suffering, I bet you anything she acknowledged it. I bet she asked for help. I bet she wept tears of relief when Mary showed up to help. There’s nothing unvirtuous in being honest about your struggles. And I think that when we’re honest, we open the pressure valve a little and the resentment dissipates.

When you spend your life trying to be okay with a difficult situation, eventually it becomes too much. “It’s good, it’s a blessing, everything’s fine, I should be grateful” explodes into anger and self-pity. But looking at your marriage or job or friend or child or health and calling it a heavy blessing gives glory to God while acknowledging your weakness and that is exactly what Christians are called to do.

My friend, you’re not a superhero. Neither was Elizabeth. Just like her, you’re an ordinary person with some awfully heavy blessings. It’s okay to be really grateful and really tired. And if you need a patron saint of those heavy blessings, Mary’s got a cousin who might be willing to help you out.

Lk 1:24 [↩]

It’s Okay to Be Miserable

I was chatting with some ladies recently about the suffering of Christ when one of them drew our attention to his Mother.

“Jesus knew his suffering would end,” she pointed out, “but Mary didn’t. She didn’t know he would rise from the dead. For her, this was the end.”

Now I don’t know of any definitive statement on this matter, but I can’t help but disagree wholeheartedly. There may have been quite a lot that Mary didn’t know,¹ but I don’t think the promised resurrection was one of those things. Jesus hadn’t exactly been secretive about it, after all. Again and again he tells his followers that he will die and rise on the third day.² And while they somehow managed not to understand what seems so clear to our post-resurrection eyes, Mary wasn’t blind the way they were. She knew just who Jesus was. She knew he could do what he said. So I simply can’t believe that Mary stood beneath the foot of the Cross not knowing his death wasn’t final.

And yet she wept.

Mary knew what was coming. She knew he would rise. She knew death would be defeated and the gates of heaven thrown open. And still she wept.

We call her Our Lady of Sorrows, this woman who was profoundly aware of the coming victory. We paint her swooning in agony with tears running down her face and a heart pierced by seven swords, all the while knowing that her son would be back in her arms a scant 40 hours later.

Despite the promise of joy, Mary was miserable. She knew—better than any of us ever will—that God would work all things for good. And still she mourned, her heart shattered. Because hope doesn’t banish suffering. It just makes it bearable.

Joy is the duty of the Christian, we hear, most especially from dear St. Paul who commands it as though it were as simple as sharing or paying your taxes.³ So we grit our teeth and smile through our anguish, determined that we will be happy regardless of our pain. Then we’re shocked when it all just makes us bitter.

Joy, you see, is not the same as happiness. Joy is much more akin to hope than to happiness. Joy means trusting that God is for you, that he loves you, that he will—one day—come to your rescue. It doesn’t mean calling evil good. It doesn’t mean stuffing down your pain and covering it over with a veneer of pleasantries. Often it means swooning in agony with tears running down your face.

It’s okay to be miserable. It doesn’t mean you don’t trust God. It means that pain hurts and evil should be lamented. When your sweet baby dies or your wife leaves you or the bank forecloses or you get laid off or a thousand other things, it is right and just that you weep. You may well know that it will all come out right one fine morning. But still it hurts. And that’s okay.

It is not Christian to deny people the right to suffer. The model Christian, who knew with absolute certainty that all would be made new, was sore distressed to see her son so wounded. I can imagine Christians of a certain sort standing by her cheerfully: “Oh, don’t worry, Mary. Everything happens for a reason, you know. I guess God just needed another angel.”

It’s banal at best and heresy at worst. Because the joy of Easter Sunday doesn’t deny the pain of Good Friday, it just completes it. To say that those who hope in the Resurrection shouldn’t mourn is to say that evil isn’t to be lamented. It’s just not true.

Should we allow our pain to drown out our hope in God’s promises? Of course not. But that doesn’t mean denying our sorrow or stuffing our pain down, plastering a Pollyanna smile over our anguish. It means standing with Mary at the foot of the Cross weeping over Friday while trusting in Sunday. It means that in our pain we look on Christ crucified and remember the promise of the empty tomb. It means that we follow “My soul is troubled” with “Father, glorify your name.”⁴

If you are suffering now, be gentle to yourself. Allow yourself to suffer. Remember that this is not the end, that God will triumph, that the battle has already been won. Remember that in eternity all our suffering will clearly have been to good purpose. Remember that God is working for you even when you can’t see him. But remember also that Jesus wept and Mary wept and go ahead and cry—you’re in good company.

For all “Mary, Did You Know?” gets flack in Catholic circles, I think there are quite a few of those things that pregnant Mary didn’t know. [↩]
Mt 16:21, 17:22-23, 20:17-19 and parallels [↩]
Phil 2:18, 3:1, 4:4; Rom 12:12; 2 Cor 13:11; 1 Thes 5:16; etc [↩]
Jn 12:27-28 [↩]

I Wore a Hoodie Today

I wore a hoodie today.

I was pretty excited about it. It had been in my trunk, so it was actually my first hoodie day of the season. “I love hoodies!” I thought. “I love them so much it almost makes hoodie weather worth it!”

This is what I think about hoodies. Because wearing a hoodie has never made me a target.

I got pulled over for speeding a few months ago. When the officer approached the car, I was annoyed at myself for not hitting the brakes when the speed limit changed. I wasn’t scared. Because police officers won’t hurt me. They won’t harass me or assault me or strangle me while I beg for breath.

I don’t get followed in upscale stores. I don’t have cops called when I walk with my hands in my pockets.

I read the #iftheygunnedmedown hashtag on Twitter and think wryly that they’d probably use something sweet and wholesome like this:

And then I remember. They won’t gun me down.

Since Mike Brown and Tamir Rice and Eric Garner and a dozen other dead black¹ men whose names I haven’t bothered to learn because it’s not news, my Facebook feed has been split. Some people are sharing posts left, right, and center about racism and violence and solidarity and protest.² A few are sharing articles with titles so ignorant I know clicking them is just going to enrage me. And most of us are still talking about turkey and sales and weather and everyday life like thousands of our brothers and sisters aren’t angry and desperate and running for their lives.

I’m in that third group. People are being killed and I can’t even manage to be a slacktivist. Because I don’t know what to say. I’ve wrestled with this in adoration every day for the past week and a half. I don’t know how to say I’m so sorry and I wish I could suffer this for you. I’m so sorry for the ways I’ve done this to you and I didn’t even know it. I’m so sorry I’m afraid to pick a side without feeling like I know everything I need to know to defend it.

I’m on the side of lives. Black, brown, white, old, gay, disabled–all lives. But right now I am particularly and vocally on the side of black lives. Because that’s where the attack is. I know white people are killed by cops,³ too–but young black men are 21 times more likely to be. THAT IS NOT OKAY! And your misdirect about looting or your blatantly racist claim that black people are criminals doesn’t fix it.

I don’t know what fixes it. I like to rant about injustice and suffering and then tie everything up with a sweet Jesus bow because he makes everything all right. And he does. But today, I just need to say this, to my largely white audience: this should upset you. Your black brothers and sisters are being judged and jailed and killed while their white counterparts get a slap on the wrist.⁴

Don’t deny it. Don’t defend it. Just listen. Read the articles that make you uncomfortable. Stop reading The Conservative Tribune. Move past the specifics of the one homicide you know about and look at the underlying problem. Because whatever you think happened with Michael Brown, you can’t deny that something’s wrong with our country. And burying yourself in Duggar pregnancy announcements and Dancing with the Stars won’t make it go away. Pray. Pray for the victims, the families, the killers, the innocent officers, the bigots, the oppressed, the lawmakers, the nation. Pray for yourself–for mercy and for justice and for eyes to see.

I hate that I can’t do anything about this. But at least that feeling of desperate futility gives me something I can share with people of color in this country. I guess I’ll be grateful for that. And wrap myself in my hoodie while I pray and love and listen and try to be better.

Written by Senator Cory Booker--22 years ago. Progress? — Written by Senator Cory Booker–22 years ago. Progress?

I’m leaving both black and white uncapitalized. This is basically why. [↩]
Thank you! [↩]
And I know that most cops are good. And I understand they’re just trying to stay alive. But there’s a lot of cops killing unarmed black people without so much as a slap on the wrist. The problem isn’t cops–the problem’s the culture they (and we) come out of. [↩]
Really. Check out #crimingwhilewhite. [↩]

And Still We Rejoice

For those shaken by yesterday’s shooting–another in a long line of acts of senseless violence against children–tomorrow’s celebration might seem callous. Gaudete Sunday? Rejoice? When children are killed in their desks, ripped apart in their mothers’ wombs, beaten by their parents, forced to slaughter each other as child soldiers, sold into slavery, how can we rejoice? When Friday, as horrifying as it was, is not out of the ordinary in a world where children are killed by the thousands in “ethnic cleansing” crusades? When children themselves become murderers on the streets or in their nice suburban homes? When thousands of children die of hunger each day while you and I shell out 20 bucks for dinner without batting an eye? Now, you tell me, rejoice?

When Israel had been destroyed and Babylon was knocking down the door of Judah, how could they then rejoice? When even priests and Levites worshiped idols? When the best you could hope for was to live in peace and die in peace and then…who knew? When all the world was trapped in the darkness of sin with only the barest hint of a promise of the Light to come, how could they then rejoice? But Zephaniah calls from the darkness:

Shout for joy, O daughter Zion!
Sing joyfully, O Israel!
Be glad and exult with all your heart,
O daughter Jerusalem!
The LORD has removed the judgment against you
he has turned away your enemies;
the King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst,
you have no further misfortune to fear.
On that day, it shall be said to Jerusalem:
Fear not, O Zion, be not discouraged!
The LORD, your God, is in your midst,
a mighty savior;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
and renew you in his love,
he will sing joyfully because of you,
as one sings at festivals.

Zephaniah has no reason to hope, in a world of sin and slavery and suffering. But he knows the One who is hope, the One who turns mourning to gladness, the One whose mercies are renewed each morning. And despite the wisdom of the world, he looked to God and found joy in the midst of sorrow.

When Christ had died and his disciples were following him in ignominy and death by the hundreds and the thousands, how could they then rejoice? When Paul had been beaten and shipwrecked and imprisoned, how could he rejoice from the darkness of his prison cell? When Jesus had promised to return again and yet…nothing–how could they rejoice? But Paul writes from his cell:

Brothers and sisters:
Rejoice in the Lord always.
I shall say it again: rejoice!
Your kindness should be known to all.
The Lord is near.
Have no anxiety at all, but in everything,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
make your requests known to God.
Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding
will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Rejoice, he says. Have no anxiety, he says. Seek the Lord and you will find peace, he says.

But still hunger and violence and torture and rape and how oh HOW can we rejoice?

When the Savior of the world was born amid noise and filth, how could Mary rejoice? When armed men were sent to slaughter him, when he was saved at the cost of dozens of other young lives, how? How could she flee into Egypt and lose her son for three days and remain a woman of joy? How could she watch him rejected and ridiculed and beaten and tortured and killed and stabbed and laid in a tomb and still trust in God?

And yet she did. In all things, her spirit rejoiced in God her savior. Facing life as an unwed mother, she trusted. At the foot of the Cross, she trusted. When he left her again to continue in a world that had slaughtered her only son, she trusted.

Scripture is so clear on this, my friends. Joy is not contingent on the circumstances of this world but on God who is so much bigger than our circumstances.

Sing out, oh heavens, and rejoice oh earth. Break forth into song, you mountains, for the Lord comforts his people and has mercy on his afflicted. But Zion says, “The Lord has forsaken me. My Lord has forgotten me.” Can a mother forsake her infant? Be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forsake you. See, upon the palms of my hands I have written your name. Your walls are ever before me.-Isaiah 49:13-16

Though he slay me, still will I trust in him. -Job 13:15

God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in distress. Therefore we fear not though the earth be shaken and mountains plunge into the depths of the sea, though its waters rage and foam and the mountains quake at its surging the Lord of hosts is with us, our stronghold is the God of Jacob. -Psalm 46:2-4

We hold these treasures in earthen vessels that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us. We are afflicted in every way but not constrained, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying about int he body the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being given up to death for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. -2 Corinthians 4:7-11

Though the fig tree blossom not nor fruit be on the vine, though the yield of the olive fail and the terraces produce no nourishment, though the flock disappear form the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet will I rejoice in the Lord and exult in my saving God. God my Lord is my strength, he makes my feet swift as those of hinds, and enables me to go upon the heights. -Habakkuk 3:17-19

But I will call this to mind as my reason to have hope: the favors of the Lord are not exhausted. His mercies are not spent. They are renewed each morning, so great is his faithfulness. My portion is the Lord, says my soul; therefore will I hope in God. -Lamentations 3:21-24

When cares abound within me, your comfort gladdens my heart. -Psalm 94:19

At times like this, it’s easy to respond with discouragement and despair.¹ Without Christ, I can’t see how I would respond any other way. But my God saw how miserable this world was and couldn’t stay away. He sent his only Son to enter into our mess, to suffer with us and for us. My God ached for love of us and so he changed everything. And he longs to do it still. He longs to turn our mourning into dancing. He longs to bring peace to our troubled hearts.

This is terrible. There is so much evil and so much suffering and misery and desperation in this world. But we were not made for this world. If you are suffering today–and I think we all are–I’m so sorry. But I know a God who is bigger than your pain. Let us turn to him and–in everything, despite everything, because of everything–let us rejoice. At the end of the day, God is still so, so good.

And of course, and always, we pray. We pray for the deceased and their loved ones. We pray especially for the young souls who witnessed such violence and will spend the rest of their lives trying to recover. God help them.

Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer. -Romans 12:12

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In case the assurance of God’s sovereignty isn’t enough for you, here are some reminders of the goodness he’s put in men’s hearts.