He Must Suffer

Saturday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time C-2

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Sir 36: 18 Give peace, O Lord, to those who wait for you, that your prophets be found true. Hear the prayers of your servant, and of your people Israel.

Collect Look upon us, O God, Creator and ruler of all things, and, that we may feel the working of your mercy, grant that we may serve you with all our heart. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever.

Scripture today: Ecclesiastes 11:9-12:8; Psalm 89; Luke 9:43b-45

While everyone was marvelling at all that Jesus did, he said to his disciples, Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. But they did not understand what this meant. It was hidden from them, so that they did not grasp it, and they were afraid to ask him about it. (Luke 9:43b-45)

He Must Suffer Gaius Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul extended the Roman sphere to the North Sea. In 55 BC he led Rome’s first invasion of Britain. These were great achievements, and his military power threatened to surpass that of Pompey the Great. The subsequent stand-off between the two led to Caesar’s famous crossing of the Rubicon with his army in 49 BC, a violation of Roman law that amounted to treason and sacrilege. It was an unparalleled mutiny by the leading general of the day, fuelled by ambition. He prevailed, and was eventually declared dictator of Rome in perpetuity. In his mind, of course, humiliation and death would have constituted total failure. The very thought of his subsequent assassination would have been a meaningless horror to him. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, Napoleon Bonaparte marched against the powers of Europe and smashed them. By the end of the decade, France dominated Europe and glowered across the channel at Britain as the economic war between the two intensified. Bonaparte’s idea of success was dominance. To be dominated and rejected and to fail, let alone to end in confinement and oblivion, would have been an absurdity. His six years of jail on the distant island of St Helena, and death by stomach cancer in his fifty-second year, was nothing other than the ultimate disappointment. What would Mahomet have thought if he had been told that his course would entail rejection in both Mecca and Medina, and, indeed, crucifixion? He would have perceived it as an absurdity and to be avoided at all costs. Success meant prevailing over his enemies — and he did prevail spectacularly. Thus Islam went from strength to strength. If we take the great prophets of the Old Testament, we see that they were prepared to suffer for God and his word, but suffering and rejection was scarcely seen as a supremely necessary step in their mission. Success consisted in the word of God being accepted and lived by the people, and if they had to suffer for it, they accepted it. But it hardly had a positive value in itself.

Our Lord’s words in today’s Gospel are situated in the context of high admiration for him among the people. He was supremely good and of effortless power. He was besought to expel the demon from a man’s son, and his disciples had been incapable of doing so. There and then the demon threw the child down in a violent paralysis. At a word Christ expelled the demon, and the people were left in awesome wonderment. But during this very amazement at his unique qualities, our Lord hastened to say emphatically to his disciples that, whatever about what they had just seen, he was soon to suffer and be rejected. They must bear this in mind, he said. “Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men” (Luke 9:43b-45). He who was being victorious, had the mission to be overcome. But they simply could not understand. It was beyond their comprehension. How could such a thing happen, and why was he, who showed himself invincible and above every problem, speaking of having to be defeated? This is one of the several distinctive things about the Gospel, that the mission of the Messiah would involve rejection, suffering and death. There were prophecies which included it — the most notable being that of Deutero-Isaiah, but they were forgotten. It needed the event to recall them and to bring them into the focus they required. The Servant of the Lord would suffer for the many. He would be pierced through for their offences, be like a lamb led to the slaughter, and be smitten for the sin of the people (Isaiah 55). Christ would have seen the incomprehension of his disciples. One wonders whether it was teaching such as this that disillusioned Judas, together with other teachings such as that on the Eucharist, in which Christ laid it down as necessary that his flesh be eaten and his blood be drunk. The ways of God for our salvation and sanctification are completely contrary to the ways of the world. It requires faith in Jesus to accept them, and a revolution of mind, such that we put on the mind of Christ, as St Paul writes.

The Cross is perhaps the toughest thing about Christian discipleship. If we wish to grow in that perfection planned for us by God, we must detach our hearts from everything else and follow Jesus Christ. This includes accepting his doctrine of the Cross, the Cross which he embraced and carried to the end, and by which he redeemed the world. Our sanctification entails carrying the Cross. Let us give our hearts to Jesus Christ, understanding well that whatever be the glory, the Cross is its necessary means.

(E.J.Tyler)

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A Second Reflection: (Luke 9:43-45)

The Meaning of Christ's Sufferings One leading British anthropologist of primal religions (Pritchard) once wrote that one way of considering and understanding primal religions is to ask how they deal with the problem of suffering and evil. That is a useful key to the understanding of the world's religions. It also indicates that the problem of the meaning of evil and suffering is a perennial one that has been at the forefront of man’s life and his culture through the ages. Our Lord repeatedly referred to his own sufferings in his conversations with his disciples. It was at the forefront of his mission and of God’s plan. In our passage today (Luke 9:43-45) he says that as the promised Son of Man, the Messiah, he was "going to be handed over into the power of men." But they could not understand the meaning of it, and they were too afraid to ask him.

This is a most important grace to ask for, that we be granted to understand that the Cross was necessary for Christ, and necessary for his disciples. We are called to follow in his footsteps along the path of the Cross. If we aspire to be his true disciples, we ought ask God to give us the grace to accept the Cross, and to unite ourselves with the crucified and risen Jesus.

(E.J.Tyler)

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