Most readers of Human Flourishing are aware that I am Catholic, though the focus of my writings here tends to be secular rather than spiritual themes. However, today I feel compelled to share with you some thoughts on suffering—and a prayer that the world needs to learn if we are endure difficult times ahead and overcome our adversaries. I ask that my non-Christian readers consider this post with an open mind and heart. In another recent post, I introduced these themes by sharing my remarks on the occasion of receiving an award from the Tepeyac Leadership Institute. Consider listening to that 9-minute talk if you have not yet heard it.
In those remarks, I predicted that—regardless of recent political developments in the United States—there are challenges in store for us that will lead to suffering. “But that is good,” I said on that occasion, “for in suffering we can find the Cross, and in the Cross we find God’s love for us. Suffering with Christ is co-redemptive.” We will only overcome these challenges, individually and collectively, by means of prayer and union with God.
We tend to flee suffering, to avoid the cross at all costs. But at the center of the Christian claim is God who became man, and as a man suffered all that could be suffered—for you and for me, for each of us alone and individually. And he taught us not to seek a life of comfort and ease, but to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily and follow him (Luke 9:23). The American “prosperity gospel”—a distortion that infects so many of our parishes, both Catholic and Protestant—is false because it ignores the cross of Christ, which is at the center of our redemption. It’s not that Jesus suffered so we don’t have to; on the contrary, Jesus suffered so that our suffering can unite us to him. We cannot shun the crosses he sends us daily if we want to follow him.
Christians tend to sanitize Christ’s passion. That is why I chose the image above of the bloody crucifixion, which shocks contemporary sensibilities: the corpus on the cross there is a bit closer to what the actual scourging, the crowing with thorns, and the crucifixion would have looked like, as depicted, for example, in the film, The Passion of the Christ. This image is meant to arrest us, to shock, for Christ’s sufferings involved every pain, every agony, every horror—physical and psychological—that any of us have or could possibly experience. In addition to the Gospels, Gibson’s realistic passion film drew upon the mystic Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich’s book, The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which I commend to you for spiritual reading. Henri-Marie Boudon’s classic, The Holy Ways of the Cross, can also help you understand this.
To go deeper into Our Lord’s passion and death, I recommend to you a brief prayer, an aspiration consisting of four simple words, which you can repeat a hundred times every day: Doce me passionem tuam— “teach me your suffering,” or literally, “teach me your passion.” (See the audio of my speech at minute 3:40 for pronunciation of the Latin: the “c” in Doce is pronounced “ch”). As I said on that occasion to my fellow Catholics, “We have all read the Gospels, but perhaps we do not yet really know Christ’s passion. We must learn it. He must teach us. We must live it more deeply in order to find him.” As I explained:
Paradoxically, it is in suffering that we find freedom. It is in Christ’s passion—with all its horrors, all the blood, the dirt, the grit, the sweat, the tears—it is there that we find peace. Interior freedom and interior peace are not found in politics. They are not found in elections, as important as these things are. Freedom and peace are found only in the Cross of Christ. There is no Easter Sunday without Good Friday. Doce me passionem tuam, “Teach me your suffering, Lord.”
Try this simple prayer and see what happens in your life when you begin to pray it. If this aspiration begins to change you for the better—and I think that it will—then consider sharing this post with others.
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.
Obviously I love this, because it is the Truth. Jesus died because the shedding of blood was necessary for the forgiveness of our sin, He rose again to prove He is the Living God and promises to deliver us from sin, death and the power of Satan, who brings all suffering. Jesus does not willingly afflict the children of men. His resurrection and position of being at the Right Hand of God shows he is the exulted Christ and with that He gave us the gift of His Holy Spirit-which not surprisingly is “the comforter.” Praise the LORD who comforts us in all troubles. Solzhenitsyn said he heard the old people saying: “Men have forgotten God, that is why all this evil has befallen us.” Suffering helps us to see, we are weak and we need a Savior. Jesus never demands, but simply says: Come unto me, all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Let us all pray for a great revival. Amen.
Thank you Dr. Kheriaty for posting this sacred truth. Many Blessings and Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.