Fifth of a seven-part series
BEFORE the headline topic and all related to it, an invitation to the Lenten exhibit of the relic of the True Cross, as well as replicas of the Shroud of Turin; the Crown of Thorns; and other sacred items of the Crucifixion and Mary, Joseph and other renowned saints.
Along with Holy Week recollections and the Stations of the Cross, viewing and pondering on the implements of “How Jesus Suffered and Died,” as the exhibit is titled, makes real to visitors the saving sacrifice of God becoming man to suffer and die for us.
To be held at the Santuario de San Jose Parish Hall in Greenhills, Mandaluyong City, from March 23 to 29, from 7:45 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., the exhibit is presented in partnership with the Missionary Sisters of the Holy Face of Jesus and the Works of the Saints Apostolate Movement.
Heaven here and now
Now, about the headline topic, Adam and Eve infamously disobeyed divine edict because they believed the fake news from a serpent they never met before that the Creator caring for them forbade eating a certain fruit so they wouldn’t “be like God knowing good and evil.”
Thankfully, after the disobedient couple brought sin and death into the world, God sent His Son to become man, suffer and die for our redemption, and reopen the door to eternal life with Him as He intended in creating man.
But more than saving us from everlasting damnation, Jesus made divine life possible right here on earth, for whatever he did in his life were nothing less than acts of God. Indeed, only by becoming human could the Divine be born; grow up; sleep and rise; learn the faith; make a living; be hungry, thirsty and tired; and suffer and die.
And since Jesus is “God is with us” — Emmanuel — then in following his way of living, we can have divine life here and now. It is not easy, of course, to “take up his cross and follow me,” as our Lord told his disciples. But it begins here and now, the eternal heavenly life with God.
Thus, Jesus’ words from the March 22 Mass Gospel passage for the Fifth Sunday of Lent (John 11:1–45) are true: “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” More explicit are our Lord’s words earlier in the Gospel (Jn 5:24): “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”
Thus, Jesus presents the two phases of eternal life. One happens after death; the other is divine life on earth as it is in heaven: “everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” If we truly live in Christ, we become one with God in spirit now, unafraid of bodily death.
Thus, saints embracing the Beatitudes — totally trusting, loving, seeking, and serving God in obedience to Him and mercy for others — have a foretaste of heaven, with even hardships and death becoming moments of loving joy in communion with the Almighty.
Divine joy in human pain
Is that really possible: joyful life with our Creator here and now, even in agony and anguish? How did our Lord deal with suffering and death?
In our seven-part reflection on who our Lord is as we divine in Mass readings on the Sundays of Lent, Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, plus his Seven Last Words on the Cross, his three desert temptations and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, we now ponder the crucified Christ’s fifth utterance: “I thirst” (Jn 19:28).
Add to that parched plea on Calvary his fearful prayer while sweating blood in Gethsemane in the Gospel of Saint Mark (Mk 14:36), echoed by Saints Matthew (Mt 26:39) and Luke (Lk 22:42): “Abba, Father, all things are possible to you, remove this chalice from me; yet not what I will, but what you will.”
Earlier, he told his Apostles: “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death” (Mk 14:34; Mt 26:28). Our Lord, of course, offered his pains to God in complete love and trust. The spitting, scourging, thorned crowning, cross-bearing, nailing, thirsting, and dying were lifted by the Trinity’s Second Person to the First, filled with the Third Person of Their Love.
So, is suffering a good thing if offered to God? Yes and no.
God the Son elevated to divinity the entirety of his earthly being and life, including hunger and thirst, Passion and Death. Thus is the human made divine, fulfilling the aspiration that lured Adam and Eve into disobedience — “you will be like God” (Genesis 3:5) — and God’s own plan in making man in His image (Gen 1:26).
We rise to the holiness of our Creator by loving and serving Him and our fellowmen as Jesus the God-Man did for His Father in heaven and all humanity.
But hang on: while it is holy and righteous to offer our difficulties and demise to God, our suffering and dying are not His wish, but the wages of sin. And we are called to eliminate hunger, thirst, oppression, violence, and other enormities to establish His Kingdom on earth.
This brings us to the Third Horseman in Revelation (Rev 6:5–6), astride a black steed, profiteering on grain, and hoarding oil and wine — the very opposite of God’s wish. He exploits human needs and urges for his racket to be hugely in the black.
And with our appalling global income disparity, our Lord’s thirst, hunger, and pain, seen in the least of our brethren, are daily denied the food, drink and succor God gives all humanity to share.
Miraculously, however, the poor faithful still believe. Hearing confessions after the Covid-19 pandemic, Jesuit theologian Fr. Arnel Aquino said no indigent penitents expressed disdain or doubt in God over their deprivation. They thirst, yet trust God.
May we constantly have such intimations of immortality. Amen.