Why Me? Why, God?

Session Two: The Suffering of Christ, Cause of Our Redemption

Let us open up in prayer. We begin by placing ourselves in the presence of

Almighty God, in Whom we live and move and have our being, and we call upon
Him in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I'm going to read for our opening prayer from the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 11,
starting in verse 14 (14-23):
Now Jesus was casting out a demon, a demon that was dumb (mute), when
the demon had gone out, the dumb (mute) man spoke and the people
marveled. But some of them said, "He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the
prince of demons. While others, to test him, sought from him a sign from
heaven. But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them: "Every kingdom
divided against itself is laid waste, and house falls upon house. And if Satan,
also, is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say
that I cast out demons by Beelzebul; and, if I cast out demons by Beelzebul,
by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore, they shall be your judges.
But, if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of
God has come upon you.
When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own place, his goods are in
peace; but, when one stronger than he assails him and overcomes him, he
takes away his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoil. He who is
not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.
Amen.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I began with that reading tonight

out of Luke, Chapter 11, because
Pope Benedict XVI in his book
called "Jesus of Nazareth" starts
with that passage and says this
passage explains the mission of
Jesus from his baptism to his
crucifixion. So, I'm going to explain
what he meant by that as we get
started tonight in our talk. So, our theme tonight is "The suffering of Christ, Cause
of Our Redemption."

Last week we looked at "The

Problem of Evil" and I said that
suffering is actually a good
thing because it is the proper
response to the presence of
evil.

What is evil? How did we

define evil last week?

It is a lack, a privation, of the

good that is supposed to be
there. So, suffering is the
proper response.

So, there is a mystery to our

discussion tonight. Christ, who
is God, suffers, which means
that he, who is perfect,
experiences a lack.

We pass over, too readily and too quickly, over the passion of Christ, but we are
not going to do that tonight. Now, before I get into it I want to say, first of all, that
there is no way I can do justice to talking about the sufferings of Christ. So, you
are going to be disappointed. I’m telling you to take your standard and lower it
quite a bit because you are going to walk out of here saying, “Well, Troy didn’t
talk about this…He should have mentioned that…I didn’t hear him say this…” You
are right, I won’t. I will not know to talk about many things or I will forget to talk
about many things. But we will talk about some things, about his suffering and the
reason for his suffering.
As I said this is a 4-part mini class on suffering and we are building our case for
ourselves, because when we experience suffering it hurts and it can challenge our
faith. So, we are looking at Christ tonight and we are going to look at what the
saints, including our Blessed Mother (by the example of her life) say about
suffering next week. And then the final week, so let's apply that to our own case,
how do I understand my own suffering? Because I know that many are suffering
from financial hardships and sickness and death and all kinds of suffering. We all
suffer. It is inescapable.
Well, why does Pope Benedict, in referencing Luke 11, say that this passage
explains the mission of Jesus Christ and explains his baptism?

After he casts out the demon the Pharisees accuse him of being the devil. Now,
think about that for a second. They are the leaders of God's people and they are
accusing God of being the devil. They are not denying their eyes and the miracles
that they witness; in other words, they are not accusing him of tricking them, of
being a huckster. But, they are simply attributing his power, which they readily
acknowledge, to the devil. And so, his response in this gospel is:
"a house divided against itself cannot stand.”

Well, I want to focus in on this interesting passage here where he says: "When a
strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace; but when
one stronger than he assails him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in
which he trusted, and divides his spoil" (11:21-22).
Now I want to ask you a question, who is the strong man? Who is the strong man
he is talking about?
Answers from class: The Jews? No. The people of God? No. Ourselves? No. John
the Baptist? No. Satan?

Troy: That's it. Satan, the devil. He's the

strongman, guarding his palace. Where is his
palace?
Answer from class: The world.
Troy: The world, and he's protecting his
goods. Who are his goods?
Answer from Class: Us.
Troy: Us. We are! Our souls. So, the world is his palace and we are his goods. And
what is his armor that he uses to guard us, to keep us in his fold?

Answer from class: Temptation.

Troy: Temptation and sin. So, who is the stronger man?
Answer from class: God
Troy: God, Jesus. The stronger man is Jesus (God), and he comes and takes away
the armor in which the strong man trusts and divides his spoils; takes them back.
Pope Benedict says this is the mission of Christ. Because Christ is coming and one
of Christ's purposes is to conquer the devil. And how does he do this? By taking
on sin and temptation - the very power, the armor, of the strong man - that he
uses to keep his goods safe. . . you and me.
 Jesus, then, is going to take
on sin to defeat Satan, to
reveal the power of God,
and the face of the Father,
and to redeem us. So, in
order for that to happen,
he chooses to suffer and to
die. So, that is the answer
for the question “why does
Christ suffer?” - to redeem
us. Now, why that is the
case of the purpose of our
class tonight.

It is interesting to think about Jesus’ life. He lived to age 33. 30 years of his life,
the vast majority of his life, is hidden, at home with his mother and foster father,
St. Joseph (until St. Joseph goes to his eternal reward) and he worked as a
carpenter. His life is so ordinary, we know, because when he goes home to
Nazareth to perform miracles, he only performs a few there because most of the
people there respond with hardness of heart. They say, “Wait a minute, we
remember that guy! Isn't he the carpenter's son? Haven't we seen him sweeping
out his shop over there and sawing and hammering away? He's too normal, too
ordinary. This can't be the messiah.”

So, he spent a large part

of his life in the ordinary -
having a job, taking care
of Mom, working in
solitude and anonymity.
Then he starts his public ministry and
that lasts for only 3 years; only 3 years
out of his life. And then, the pinnacle of
his ministry, the very purpose for which
he has come, the height of his joy, only
takes 3 hours. . . while he's hanging on
the cross. And so that three hours sums
up his 3 years, and sums up his 33 years
on earth.

He began suffering and emptying himself right at the beginning.

We've got to train our minds to think of the events of Christ as one event. They
happen maybe in time, but it's one event. The Gospel writers think that way,
that's why they're not too concerned with chronology (He did this on this day, and
this on that day and then boom, boom, boom, following the days sequentially).
They're looking at the events of his life and they're deploying them for the
purpose of their audience. If it's all one event, then how it kind of comes about in
their book, is something they're not that concerned about because it's all tied
together; and his deeds and words are tied to his person.

Even at his birth, his birth is

accompanied by suffering. He
comes in the world to an inn, and
there's no room for God there, no
room for God in the inn; so, he's
got to be born in a stable.
Incidentally, the word Bethlehem,
do you know what that means in
Hebrew?

Answer from class: House of Bread.

Troy: Yes, and where is he born?

Answer from class: In a manger.

Troy: Yes, and what is a manger used for?

Answer from class: To feed animals.
Troy: It's a feeding trough, in a house of bread. The Eucharistic overtones of his
sacrificial life are there right from the beginning.
So, the Creator does not find any room in his own creation.

So he waits until the fullness of his human nature is developed and matured,
when it's perfect and lovely, when it has reached the height of all of its physical
potential, the height of maturity, he waits until that moment - and then begins
his public ministry to offer
that to God; to offer that up
to the Father - to be broken,
beaten, humiliated,
scourged, destroyed and
killed, so that he can rise
with it; the moment of his
purpose and the joy of his
existence, during this time
of suffering.

In Matthew's Gospel, Chapter Three, he shows that Jesus is baptized by John the
Baptist, in the Jordan. Jesus shows up to the Jordan River, John the Baptist sees
him and says "you should be baptizing me, I know who you are, I'm not fit to untie
your sandal." And Jesus says "it must be this way to fulfill all righteousness."

But before Jesus shows up we're told

that John has been baptizing
everybody, with the Baptism of
Repentance; we're told, everybody
shows up including the Pharisees and
the scribes. And John says that they're
just showing up to be seen and he has
some choice words for them. And finally, our Lord shows up and he enters in to
the water to be baptized by John.

Why does God, who is perfect, be baptized? (16:32)

Answer from class: So, God who was perfect, went in to the waters of the Jordan,
where the people that are experiencing this baptism were cleansed of their sins.
And so, by going into the waters of the Jordan, he takes on their sins.

Troy: Yes, that's it. John has been baptizing a baptism of repentance and the
people who have yet to receive the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit yet, are
coming for the sign of the repentance of their sins. And so, their sins, in a sense,
are being washed off them and they await the coming of the Anointed One.
The joke that I use in my classes, is the joke that wasn't so funny to my parents
because my they both grew up on farms is this. Saturday night was bath night
and, if you came from a large family, and you were the last kid in the tub, it was
pretty dirty. You went in dirty and came out muddy. There wasn't much bath to it.
And that's the image that we need to think about Jesus. He entered these waters
to do two things:
1. To now take on the sins that have been washed off (by John the Baptist’s
Baptism of Repentance). But, not just to take them on, but, in a sense, to
invade them. To invade the strong man's armory, because he's going to
despoil him of temptation and sin. And he invades it in order to take it on
himself.

2. And then as he rises out of the water he is anointed and the Holy Spirit
that anointed him, anoints the waters and they now become sacramental,
teeming with new supernatural life; which is why St. Paul says that we now
have this new life, we are a new creation. Once we're baptized into Christ,
we're baptized into his death, St. Paul says in Romans 6. And then now we
can walk in newness of life - this new supernatural life - because of these
transforming waters.

This is why Jesus tells Nicodemus in St. John's Gospel "unless you're born again of
water and spirit you will not have life within you” (John 3:5). It is the water and
spirit now, the sacramental waters, that give this new life, that prepare the
disciples for their home, their heavenly kingdom.

But he takes on their sins at that moment of his baptism. And from that moment
on, he begins associating his baptism with his crucifixion.

For example, in Mark's Gospel, Chapter

10, James and John are arguing over
who's going to have more power in
heaven, who does Jesus loves better,
and they say, “Can we sit we sit one at
your right and one at your left hand in
heaven?” (Mark 10:37). And Jesus
says, “That's not mine to give, it's my
Father’s. Can you drink of the cup with
which I am to be baptized with?” (Mark
10:38).

And they basically say, “Yeah, baptism, we'll get wet for that. Yeah sure, we'll get
our heads wet for that kind of power and authority.” They don't get it. And then
Jesus explains to them that baptism is his crucifixion and he says to them, “Indeed
you will drink from that cup.” They don't know what they've stumbled into
because all the apostles get martyred with the exception of St. John, the Gospel
writer, who is not physically martyred. He's the only one. But he's also the only
one who stood at the foot of the cross on that first good Friday and died
emotionally, psychologically, spiritually with Jesus at that moment. He was
crushed in spirit. He's the only apostle who wasn't physically martyred, but they
were all martyred.

So, Jesus unites his baptism, then,

from this moment on, and all of his
sufferings, with his crucifixion; he's
taking it on. And, when he performs
his miracles, it's interesting that Luke
often times has him sigh. Pay
attention to that in Luke's gospel, he
sighs many times as he's healing. The late Fulton Sheen pointed this out, that
Jesus is sighing as he's taking on the infirmities of the people that he is healing.
And in Matthew's Gospel, in Chapter 8, after some of the miracles that Jesus
performs, Matthew says this in chapter 8, verse 17, "This was to fulfill what was
spoken by the prophet Isaiah. He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.” The
next line says "By his stripes we were healed." This is the part of his book that is
called the Suffering Servant Section of his prophecy, because he portrayed the
Messiah as the suffering servant, he's coming to serve and he's suffering precisely
because he's taking on our sins and their consequences.

What might be some of the consequences of sin? What were the consequences of
sin for Adam and Eve in the garden?

Responses from class: They are banished from the garden. Death (the worst one).
They experience pain and toil.

Troy: Let's look at that in Chapter 3 of Genesis. After Satan seduces them, tempts
them, and they succumb, they are then cursed. And the Lord says to the woman,
“I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing.” So, giving forth life now is
painful, which all you Mom's in here can second that. “In pain you shall bring
forth children and your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over
you.” So now the reciprocal complementarity of marriage is disturbed by this sin.
Now we can all sometimes see that in marriage, can't we? And to Adam he said
"Because you listened to the word of your wife and have eaten of the tree which I
commanded you, ‘you shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in
toil, shall you eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring
forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you
are dust, and to dust you shall return."

So, these curses now involve the pain of bringing forth life, toil, sweat, suffering
and death, and a quick exit from the garden because of their disobedience. And
St. Paul says in Romans 5, that “because of the disobedience of one man now, all
have sinned” - we've all inherited that, we've all inherited that rebellion. We don't
trust our heavenly Father and we tend towards sin and hence commit actual sins,
often. And yet, here's the curse that awaits us, and we talked about this last
week. God creates the
world with no evil, but he
gives Adam and Eve the
choice, and because they
are moral agents and they
can freely choose, they
choose to disobey him. And
that choice takes the one-
ness, the unity of man with
God that exists in the
covenant as a family - a true unity, a bond of intimacy - and breaks it. And when
you take God out, all kinds of bad things are going to happen, because he's
created everything in harmony and unity and he's placed Adam and Eve at the top
(well he's at the top, but he's not a created being and he's got the angels, but
we’re speaking in terms of the world) which is why Adam gets to name all the
creatures. And when they say no to God, everything gets messed up, everything is
wrecked.

Notice in the Gospels, especially Matthew, Mark and Luke, when they point out
Jesus' experience before he's betrayed, where is he? When he leaves out from
the last supper and goes somewhere to pray, where does he go to pray?

Answer from class: The garden.

Troy: Yes, the garden, Gethsemane, where it all began. And what happens when
he's in the garden?
Answer from class: The disciples fall asleep.

Troy: Yes, the disciples fall asleep, they are not on guard, the are not vigilant.

Answer from class: The devil tempts him.

Troy: Yes, the devil tempts him. He sweats blood. He experiences the toil. Thorns
and thistles get placed on his brow. And he is hung, accepting the Father's will
until death. He faces Satan, does not take flight, and accepts the Father's will to
the last drop, unto his own demise.

You see, step by step, he is going to go through and replace Adam and Eve's
disobedience with his obedience; their servile fear of God, with the filial fear of
God. Do you know the difference? Servile vs. filial fear?

What is servile fear?

Servile fear is the fear of the servant for his master and he'll obey because he
thinks he'll get a beating if he doesn't. His not obeying out of love; not because he
sees that obedience is good for him. In fact, it's just the opposite. He obeys
because he's forced, and the minute the master turns his back, he's going to go do
his own thing. He's going to act up, when the master's not looking. And so if he
obeys at all, it's completely out of fear and it's with a heart of rebellion and he
can't wait to exert his own autonomy.

Okay, so what is filial fear?

The love within the family, the love of a child for their parent. In this case, an
eternal son for his eternal father, who would rather experience suffering, even
unto death itself, than offend his father. He obeys, not out of fear of getting a
beating (you know that is what he's going to get) but out of love. There's a reason
why we refer to this as the Passion of the Lord. We cannot understand it if we
don't understand love. It is love that brings him to the cross. It is love that brings
him to the earth. It is love that brings him to the point of taking on our infirmities,
our sicknesses, our sins; he who is God, who is innocent.
He replaces, then, the disobedience of Adam and Eve, in his return to the garden
and he does so willingly, to bring forth the kind of fruit, through toil and through
sweat, that will bring forth new life; and he agonizes to bring it forth, but he does
so, willingly.

Question: Did his agony at Calvary replace the curse of our agony?

Troy: It doesn’t replace our agony, because people still sweat and toil but
what he does with all of this, as we’ll see as we go through each of the types of
suffering that he fully experienced, is that when he assumes them, when he
invades them, they become redemptive. They become something now that Christ
has done. We cannot go anywhere in our human experience that he has not
already been. And if he's been there, then it's redeemed.

As St. Athanasius said

"What he did not assume he did not redeem."

So even child labor is redeemed now, this is why St. Augustine said "women are
saved by it," because he recognizes, that pain, when offered with Christ, is
saturated with his own power because he's been there, done that. Not in that
physical way but in the spiritual demises that he bore.

Now we are going to go deeper into the specifics of Christ’ sufferings and I want
us to act as we're coming to this for the first time, as if we're not Christians yet,
because we take it too lightly. We overlook the reality of the crucifixion. That's
why it's on all the walls in our churches and in our homes - the corpse of Christ.
It's rather gruesome, isn't it? It's kind of in your face and gory. And yet when Paul,
as I mentioned last week, was preaching in Athens and, at first, they took to his
teaching with excitement, and then it got boring, and he realized they're
interested only in the philosophical novelty of his teaching and when the newness
wore off they lost interest.
So, then he goes to Corinth and he says I'm not coming with eloquence, “I preach
Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentile.” That's it,
Christ crucified. So, let's set aside our preconceived notions, if that's possible, and
let's come to this as if we've never encountered it before, to see if we can learn
something new.

So, Adam and Eve by their sin wrecked human nature; by that we mean they
wrecked the three things that make us up: The body, the soul (or psychology,
Freud would say) and the spirit; they wrecked all three, because all three of those
make us up. We have a body, we have a psychology, we have a spirit that's
destined for everlasting life.

So, when they wrecked this, they incurred an un-payable debt at the same time.
How can one who is finite make up the debt to an infinite God? I tell you, it is
impossible because the debt is un-payable. God has created the world with a
certain structure, a certain ordering, and he is its source and summit, the alpha
and the omega, the beginning and the end. All things are created through him and
all things will be returned to him. That's the way it is. So, when that creation says
“no thanks to your alpha and omega-ness, we're going to go it alone,” then it's an
absurdity and it cannot survive without pain, without conflict, without problems,
without trouble, without death.
So, Jesus, point by point, substitutes his obedience where their disobedience was,
and step for step, he is going to enter in to their wreckage; into our wreckage. It's
not just theirs, we've furthered that wreckage with all of our sins, and he's going
to enter into – invade it.

Now, he who is God, has fully taken on our human nature; because sin entered
through our nature, salvation has to come through it. And he is truly wed, joined,
united, our humanity with his divinity – perfectly - without confusion, mixture,
division or separation, as the old saying goes. It's what we call the “Hypostatic
Union,” some of you old Baltimore Catechism folks may remember, those two
words - Hypostatic Union. It simply refers to the union of the divine and human in
Christ. And he's truly human, like us in all ways except sin. He has a human
intellect; he has a human will; he has human affections; as well as a divine
intellect, divine will, divine affections. Which means he has a human soul, as well
as a divine. He's fully human “because what he does not assume, he does not
redeem.” So, this is the price of redemption, when God becomes man he's going
to experience the separation of sin in his own members and in so doing, will
transform that sin and that suffering so that we may be saved.

PHYSICAL SUFFERINGS
So, let's walk with Jesus. Let's look at his physical sufferings. We make the
mistake, too often times, assuming that the physical, because it is tangible, is the
most real. That's the influence of a philosophy called Empiricism or Materialism,
as an attack on us, and we're influenced by it even if we don't know it or have
never heard of it. This idea that all we really know is what science proves to us.
And so, we think the physical is the most real. Thank goodness in the Church
we're given a much fuller look at reality and we see that what is most real is
actually the spiritual. God is the source and ground of all being and He is pure
spirit.

So, we're going to start with the physical, as bad as it is when we look at it,
because that is the least of his sufferings, not the worst.
How many of you, with a show of hands, have seen the movie "The Passion"?

Almost everybody. How many of you, after seeing the movie, found it beautiful
but also really difficult to watch? How many of you cried?

About the same. Yeah, me too. Why do we do that? Why do we cry?

There's that scene in the movie, the
Pieta, where Our Lady has Jesus
cradled on her lap - I'm already
crying because it hits me so hard -
and she looks at us. with kind of that
look of, “you did this, you did this.”
Now Our Lady is full of love and gave
birth to our Lord and she's our
mother, as we're told in the
scriptures, so there's a heart of a
mother's love that we can count on
from her. But that's a powerful
scene! We recognize this vicarious nature of his gift, he's doing it in our place. And
Mel Gibson, for all his faults, he's not a gore-monger in showing the goriness of
the passion of our Lord, that's what really happened. That's what makes it so hard
for me! To think, yeah, those whips that they used were really like that and they
whipped you so much that sometimes men would die from being whipped. They
were supposed to whip them 30 times and sometimes they only whipped them
29 times and they'd say “You owe us one, don't forget. We only whipped you 29
times today; we owe you one, so remember that! Now get out of here!” But some
men would die before the 29th one because it was so bad. This is why when
Jesus, and we'll look at this when we get to his psychological suffering, is weeping
and sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, he understands what is about
to befall him, he sees it clearly. So here, God, the perfect God, who is
unchangeable, somehow takes on our nature and, as God, is obviously
impenetrable, invulnerable, is made vulnerable, to the point where he literally
experiences this pain, the pain of loss of the harmony and integrity of his physical
body.

So, he's beaten, he's whipped, he's crowned with thorns, carries his cross and is
nailed to it, losing his very freedom, out of love for the Father and us! And as bad
as these physical beatings are, he takes the physical on because it is to be
redeemed as well. This is how we are going to get a glorified body, because he's
entered in to the wreckage of sin, it's physical wreckage; and as He plunges into
it, as he plunged in to the baptismal waters, and invades sinfulness, he does so in
his physical nature at the moment of his passion. He invades the depths of
physical suffering so that there is no person on earth who could suffer something
physically who could say "God has no idea how I feel." God could say “Oh yeah, I
do. Yeah, I do know. I suffered it.” He was ripped apart and beaten out of love.
We have a hard time imagining that kind of love! Most of us might say I'd give my
life willingly for my wife, for my children or a dear loved one; and we understand
that kind of love can motivate you to that kind of action. But, to love like this for
sinners, for enemies. He did this for the Jews, for the Pharisees, the very ones
killing him. “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

And so, the bodily dimension, now, is transformed and brought to this glory
because of his mercy and love, so that now physical suffering and ailments can
bring about grace; can bring about mercy and love in our lives. Physical sufferings
are allowed to remain in this world for that reason.

When we look at the saints next week we're going to see that they endured
physical sufferings and yet never lost their sense of peace and joy.

How can that be?

Because somewhere in their physical suffering, they encountered him, and

when they did, they found the peace and the joy that he promised.

“Cast your cares upon me” (1 Peter 5:7).

“My yoke is easy, my burden is light” (Matt 11:30).

Somehow, they encountered that at that moment, if they're open. And that's
how.

PSYCHOLOGICAL SUFFERINGS (MENTAL SUFFERINGS, SUFFERINGS OF SOUL)

Alright, so now let’s look at his mental suffering, his suffering of soul, his
psychological suffering.

You know, the more innocent you are, the more horrific the struggle. Isn't that
true? Isn’t it the hardest thing to see innocent children suffer? It’s the hardest
thing, because in their innocence, it's as if they don't have the defense
mechanisms to deal with it so they experience it full score. And Jesus was
innocent like a babe in the womb and he entered in to these mental difficulties,
taking on the inequities of the world, he truly became the sin-bearer, and in
addition to the physical, look what he has to endure psychologically:

He's mocked. He's stripped naked and mocked and He's embarrassed; God
experiences shame. Again, he does this willfully because he willfully says "no one
takes my life, I lay it down freely." Freely, he offers himself in this way.

He experiences conflict and apprehension in the garden, "Father if this be your

will, take this cup from me, but not my will, but thine be done." How can God
experience conflict and apprehension?
That question puzzled an early bishop, a man by the name of Arius, who because
of passages like that and others and of a false understanding of Christ, taught
that, therefore, Christ was not truly divine. Because how could a divine person
experience these things? He believed it was impossible. So Arius believed he
wasn't fully divine like God, he was sort of like a sub-God. That teaching was
known as Arianism, after Bishop Arius. But Bishop Arius was condemned at the
Council of Nicea and this is why, to this day, we recite the Nicean Creed at Mass.
“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth...” And
we down to Jesus, “light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made,
one in being with the Father. Through him all things are made.” He's not made, he
makes. He's creator. One in being with the Father. True God from true God. That's
why all that is put there, to correct Arius.

That the only way we can understand that Jesus experienced this conflict, this
apprehension, this suffering, this pain, his death, is if he were also truly and fully
human - the other error that is constantly made from his time until now. We
either want to deny his divinity or deny his humanity. Somehow, we can't believe
that humanity somehow had a role to play in salvation, but if he is fully human, it
does!
And so, anything that is fully human now has something in common with God in
Christ, and is therefore redeemable, including these sorrows of his - fear,
loneliness (one of the most painful mental struggles and anguishes we can
encounter). Loneliness, he encounters it, because his apostles fell asleep, and he's
alone when he wants comfort and company. And he experiences it, not by
weakness but by choice, so that the writer of the book of Hebrews in Chapter 2
says "we have a high priest now who understands temptation."

Somehow, he wills himself to encounter it, without leaning on his divinity (he
can’t desire it like: hmm… that sounds good) but nevertheless, encounters it and
invades it to penetrate with divinity, so that now sin itself is penetrated by divine
power. Which is why our sinfulness, when we repent from it, becomes a means of
drawing us closer.

Remember the story of Mary Magdalen, or whoever it was, the harlot, who
comes into Simon the Pharisee’s house and breaks the nard, the jar of ointment,
pours it on Jesus' feet and wipes it with her tears and Simon is just shocked? And
Jesus said “She wiped my feet with her hair and washed it with her tears and
kissed me and you didn't even shake my hand. Whoever then is forgiven much
loves much.” And Simon's over there pouting in the corner.

“Whoever is forgiven much loves much.” And so now the sin becomes the very
power of love because of this aspect of Christ. And this is what the writer of the
book of Hebrews is trying to get across, this high priest has experienced
temptation that in Chapter 4 he also experiences suffering. “Son though he was,
he learned obedience from what he suffered” is another phrase that St. Paul uses,
so that now he can understand and now those experiences are redeemable for
us; they're redeemed and we can unite them with him.

SPIRITUAL SUFFERINGS

Finally, his spiritual suffering. God on the cross says this "My God, my God, why
have you abandoned me?” Why have you abandoned me? Fulton Sheen says this
is why Christ can save the atheist, the person in mortal sin, the person who is so
far from God - there's still hope. Because even in the outer reaches of the
perimeter to sin and hell on earth, they can still encounter him and he can still
encounter them and bring them back.
You see he could have saved us any number of ways; he could have shed one
tear, one drop of blood and redeemed the whole human race, he's infinite! But he
chose to take on the fullness of the curse, to pay our debt and to redeem the
fallenness, the wreckage of sin in our humanity. So that now we can say with St.
Peter, that “we are partakers of the divine nature.”

Or as the early Christian Fathers said, “God has become man so that man could
become like God.” His humanity, our humanity, humanity itself, is now the
instrument of divinity, a cause of grace; which is why we can bring salvation and
salvific power to others.

This is the question I asked you

last week from Colossians 1:24
where St. Paul said "I make up
what is lacking in the sufferings
of Christ." This is how this is
possible, because what is
lacking?

Our will. Not everybody wills to be united to Christ, not everybody wills him, not
everybody accepts him. But now Christ wills that, my suffering united to his, can
effect salvation for them. Not because his is not powerful enough; on the
contrary, because it is so powerful, it charges ours.

Isn't that true for the moon? The

moon doesn't generate any
light. The sun is so powerful that
it shines off the moon and on a
full moon you could go for a
walk outside (in the
summertime anyway) without
any lights, because you can see
so clearly, from the light that it
generates.
He is so powerful his light generates light through us, so that we too can become
forces of salvific power and redemption for others. That's what it means to offer
it up. That's why you hear your Catholic grandmothers, mothers and fathers,
hopefully, telling you this when you're a kid. That's what it means. We are
coworkers with Christ as St. Paul says in 2nd Corinthians, coworkers, co-
redeemers. Co doesn't mean equal, it means with. We now can work with Him.
This is again why he tells his apostles in John's Gospel, “You're going to do greater
things than these.” You're going to do even greater, because I'm going to put my
Spirit in you and you will do even greater things” (John 14:23).

Now one final question and then we'll take questions.

Alright, so he's given us this wonderful gift of redemption and expiation of our
sins for us, taking on our curse, our debt, to repay what we could not, as our
Savior, as God and as man. How then do we get that sanctified humanity, that
resurrected sacred humanity and divinity together, in us? How?

Answer from class: The Eucharist!

Troy: The Eucharist. Indeed, all the sacraments. Isn't it interesting what Jesus says
in John chapter 6, when he tells his audience that he is the manna, the heavenly
bread that's come down to give life to the world. And unless we eat his flesh and
drink his blood we have no life in us. If we eat his flesh and drink his blood, he will
be in us, we will be in him, and he will raise us on the last day. We will experience
His victory over all three of these aspects of our person: Physical, mental and
spiritual - on the last day by receiving his victorious flesh in ours, literally. His
victorious divinity in our humanity, literally. Sacramentally. Mysteriously. So that
in him we become partakers of the divine life; children of God and so we are, St.
John says.

So next week and the ensuing week I want to be thinking about the suffering
you've endured and the reasons why you've wondered why that God allowed it.
And then think about Jesus. God the father allowed; Jesus himself chose – to
endure these sufferings for you and me. And if we're struggling to carry our cross,
our suffering, then pick up just a little sliver of what we can carry and bring it to
him and say, “this is it, help me to carry the rest.” And he will.

If you experience some anguish, some abandonment, know that he's allowing you
to carry that part of his cross with him. “God where are you in this?” He
wondered the same thing. “Why am I so conflicted?” He was conflicted. “Why am
I so apprehensive?” He was apprehensive. “Why do I struggle?” He struggled.
“Why do I fall?” He fell so that we can get up once and for all with him.

Nobody could invent the story I just gave you tonight. It's too fantastic. It's either
true or whoever invented it was a lunatic and got us all believing it as well.

So, any questions or comments?

Question from class: Why did God wait for Jesus and not do this in Elijah, or
Moses days and Noah's days? He kept having covenants that failed.

Troy: So, why did Jesus come when he did? Obviously, God was preparing but
only he knew what he was looking for when they were ready. As Isaiah says, “far
above our ways are God's ways.” They are inscrutable, we don't really understand
why he does what he does. He was looking for something and when it was there,
the fullness of time came, when God himself, the creator, entered creation. The
timeless one entered time and brought its fullness. It's a mystery. So, the answer
is, I don't know. But it's something God has not revealed to us, why he came when
he did. We know that he came when he did for a purpose, the time was right
according to God's time, God's plan.

Other questions?

Class: If you want to offer up your suffering but you might complain sometimes, is
it still offered up?
Troy: The more joyful we can carry it, the more we're going to participate in his
joyful gift of himself. But we're weak and it's a process of being drawn into him.
We start out in our baptism, where we're a new creation in him, and that just
means that we’re now capable of growing in him. Without him, we're not even
capable of that. But it's a growth. So, along the way, we're going to complain,
we're going to stumble, we're not always going to be so joyful. It doesn't take
away the redemptive value, it could diminish it depending on how bad or how
long we complain, but we wouldn't necessarily destroy it if we are offering to the
best of our ability. It still is effective in that regard; he's still present in it and
that's what makes it effective.

Class: Even if you totally upset, you're just angry about it and mad? It would still
have some redemption?

Troy: It could be. The only way that it wouldn't is if you refused to unite it with
him. So, if, in your anger, you did that, because he waits on our freedom, we still
have our free will and say, “I do not unite this with you,” then no. But if we're
trying but we're struggling and we're angry and it's painful, he understands that.
He accepts our weakness and he loves us in spite of it. And he’s there with us
anyway. So, we can count on that.

Class: Can you address about protestants and how they don't have
transubstantiation, that it's a symbol?

Troy: So, the question is, if redemption is receiving the redeemed body and blood
of Christ in the Eucharist. What about non-Catholic Christians?

One of my professors used to say this, “The sacraments are the primary vehicles
of God's grace but, the “Spirit blows where the Spirit wills.” He's not limited to the
sacraments. So, they're baptized, they have his Word, they believe in Jesus. The
Church does not teach that they are all going to hell. They have an imperfect, but
nonetheless, communion with the Mystical Body of Christ; but we recognize that
they don't have the fullness because they don't have the Eucharist; and so we
have hope and understanding that with the graces they are receiving, they can,
no doubt, be saved. But we desire that full communion with (and for) them
because we realize great gift of the Eucharist, that they don't have.

Class: You mentioned when Jesus said: "My God, my God, why have you
abandoned me.” That's always kind of bothered me when I hear it. On one hand
you're saying that Jesus had fullness humanity and the fullness of divinity. When
he speaks those words, he knows the answer to that. So, how is the spiritual
suffering taking place when many times the suffering is a result of not having the
answer?
Troy: So, the question is, “How can God ask that question when he knows the
answer?” But, it's the same question that he has for all his suffering. Why does he
say, take this cup from me, when he's God? He's strong enough to handle it. Why
does he have conflict? Why is he apprehensive? He's God, he can handle it. He
should have been like Conan (LOL). I don't really have a good answer. This is the
mystery of the Incarnation. St. Paul says in Philippians, “He empties himself of his
divinity, not having his divinity something to be grasped at.” In other words, he's
not clinging to it. He's willingly divesting himself of it, so he can experience
weakness. But that's a mystery, how did he do that? What does St. Paul mean? I
don't know. So you're getting it; you're getting the difficulty here. But that's a
fact, those are the words he uttered.

Class: Those words are from the Old Testament. There's a significance to those
words. There's meaning of those words in the Psalms.

Troy: Right. They are taken from the Psalms, and the section that they are taken
from is Psalm 22. David is saying that, but he's also recognizing the indication that
the Lord is coming. So, there is the truth that he understands what is coming, but
nevertheless, he's not just uttering it without meaning. He's not just giving lip
service is what I'm trying to say. He's experiencing agony, mental agony, anguish,
for all of his physical suffering. It's part of his humanity that he's experiencing.

Class: I think that we've all cried out in times without even thinking about what is
coming out. I think that was just a fully human part of Jesus coming out there. He
was indeed suffering all that agony, the human Jesus cried out. As we've all done.

Class: If you read the Psalm all the way through it's a very hopeful one. It turns to
a very hopeful sign. People would have recognized when he started saying it. It's a
hopeful Psalm.