Thursday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 338

He began to teach them
that the Son of Man must suffer greatly…

In Saint Mark's Gospel of sixteen chapters, this eighth chapter marks a turning point. The disciples have seen and heard enough to know that Jesus is “the Christ.” Their knowledge may be rudimentary but it’s a good foundation for what they must yet understand.

They should have noticed two things: that Jesus is extraordinary like no one they have ever met or heard of; and that opposition to him is mounting. As early as the second chapter there were questions about his authority to forgive sins. By the third chapter enemies are plotting to kill him. Jesus is like a lion who has come up out of the wilderness to take the sheep of the scribes, lawyers, Pharisees and Herodians; and there is nothing they can do about it. Wherever he goes the people flock to him while the erstwhile pastors stand by fuming and helpless.

As of the eighth chapter Jesus begins to complete the picture of the Messiah. He will not mount a defense against the rising tide of wrath; he must suffer…. Precisely because he is the Christ, the Son of God, he must suffer greatly. 

When Saint Paul learned that his gentile disciples in Galatia were being circumcised he was horrified. He railed against that effort to justify themselves, declaring, 

As for me, my brothers, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? If I did that now, would there be any scandal of the cross?

The scandal of the cross -- of suffering and death -- is as hard to accept today as it was at that time. And yet our religion is empty without it. We must never surrender it. 

The suffering of the Son of Man, even on its most basic level, confronts our suppositions. Why should anyone suffer and, more specifically, why should I (or my loved ones) suffer? Remembering that our salvation depends upon our willingness to identify with the suffering of the Messiah, each of us will ask, “Why must I suffer with him?”

Many of the Veterans I meet in the VA are stoic about pain. They face surgeries, amputations, debility and death. They say “I haven’t any choice.” Some will say, “Why me?” or “Why now?” 

Ice

Occasionally I meet the patient who says, “Why not me?” That is certainly Jesus attitude, “Why should I not suffer as a human being, like any other human being?” Saint Paul understood:

…though he was in the form of God, (Jesus) did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:7-8)

In every Catholic church and (hopefully) in every Catholic home we hang a crucifix in a prominent place. Our eyes should gaze upon its mysterious beauty often. Why the Lord must suffer cannot be explained in a flood of words but we know it is necessary. We see that and know that in the vision of the cross. It is the narrow gate through which we see eternal life – and joy and beauty.