Assuming the Sufferings of Others
A reflection for Holy Week
Several years ago I gave a talk about the Presentation of the Lord that included a reflection Cardinal Ratzinger. I just happened to stumble across it again yesterday and it struck me in a new way this Holy Week. Ratzinger said:
“From Mary we can learn what true com-passion is: quite unsentimentally assuming the sufferings of others as one's own. In the writings of the Church Fathers, a lack of feeling—insensitivity toward the suffering of others—is considered typical of paganism.
In contrast to this attitude, the Christian faith holds up the God who suffers with men, and thereby draws us into his “com-passion." The Mater Dolorosa [Suffering Mother], the mother whose heart is pierced by a sword, is an iconic image of this fundamental attitude of Christian faith.”
(Cardinal Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives)
As I approach Good Friday, I recall that I worship a God who freely and totally assumed the suffering of others.
Throughout the gospels, Jesus not only spent time with the suffering and vulnerable, but he explicitly identified himself with the hungry, lonely, and persecuted (cf. Matthew 25). He preached to the poor, the grieving, the powerless, and the peacemakers, proclaiming that the Kingdom of God is close to them (cf. Matthew 5). In the story of the woman caught in adultery, Jesus demonstrated that he was willing to put himself at risk of harm from the mob of religious leaders in order to show compassion and defend the woman’s dignity (cf. John 8).
Then, as we will hear in the Passion, Jesus, quite unsentimentally, suffered to the point of death. He suffered when his best friend, who just promised that he’d always be loyal, completely abandoned him. He suffered when another friend betrayed him for thirty pieces of silver. He suffered when the religious leaders—his own religious leaders—not only failed to come to his aid, but we’re in the fact his primary accusers. He suffered when the civil authorities decided truth and justice weren’t sufficient to prevent an innocent man from being executed. He suffered when he, hanging from the cross, allowed himself to experience feeling abandoned by his Father.
He assumed all of these sufferings so that every time I experience them, I know that God himself knows what it feels like. He assumed all of those sufferings as a promise to me, so that when I’m experiencing them I can look to the resurrection with hope.
As I approach Good Friday, I recall that I worship a God who exercises power by making himself vulnerable in order to assume the suffering of others.
Therefore, as Ratzinger said, compassion, assuming the suffering of others, is the fundamental attitude for followers of Christ.
Likewise, he said that insensitivity towards the suffering of others is the attitude of paganism.
What immediately came to my mind as I read that was a comment from Sara Larson in a recent interview she did with The Pillar. Sara said (emphasis mine):
“I hear almost universally from abuse survivors, including those who have made reports in the last five years, that the experience of reporting abuse to the Church was incredibly painful and re-traumatizing. And many, many survivors will say that that has been the more painful part of their experience - reporting abuse to the Church.
There are a lot of good people working within the Church to try to improve our response to abuse survivors, and I don't want to minimize those efforts. But we have a lot of work to do in how we as a Church respond to allegations of abuse and treat survivors with sensitivity and compassion.”
Survivors of abuse from Catholic leaders regularly experience more suffering from reporting their abuse to Church officials than they did from the abuse.
The failure of a priest or bishop or diocesan employee to have compassion, to put themselves at risk to assume the suffering of an abuse survivor, is, as Cardinal Ratzinger stated, a type of paganism. It is burning incense to fear, personal advancement, self-protection, defense of the institution instead of picking up the cross and following Christ. It is playing the role of Peter the denier, Judas the betrayer, and Caiaphas the accuser.
As we approach Good Friday, I invite you to consider where Christ is suffering with you in this season, this week, this moment of your life. And I invite you to consider where you may need to repent of putting fear and self-protection before compassion.