What then is this change that God has decreed for the real person? It is to replace the purely human nature with that which is divine, or better still, to put the divine body over the physical edifice that we now inhabit.
"No wonder we do not lose heart! Though our outward humanity is in decay, yet day by day we are inwardly renewed. Our troubles are slight and short-lived; and their outcome an eternal glory which outweighs them far. Meanwhile our eyes are fixed, not on the things that are seen, but on the things that are unseen: for what is seen passes away; what is unseen is eternal. For we know that if the earthly frame that houses us today should be demolished, we possess a building which God has provided - a house not made of human hands, eternal, and in heaven. In this present body we do indeed groan; we yearn to have our heavenly habitation put on over this one - in the hope that, being thus clothed, we shall not find ourselves naked. We groan indeed, we who are enclosed within this earthly frame; we are oppressed because we do not want to have the old body stripped off. Rather our desire is to have the new body put on over it, so that our mortal part may be absorbed into life immortal. God Himself has shaped us for this very end; and as a pledge of it He has given us the Spirit" (II Corinthians 4:16-5:5).
In this remarkable passage St Paul reaches one of his greatest mystical peaks. He has, in a heavenly vision, glimpsed and charted the whole course of human evolution from the purely animal nature to the resplendent effulgence of spiritual transfiguration. And yet this humble nature in which we groan in the pangs of perpetual suffering is not simply to be discarded as a worn-out piece of clothing fit only for the rubbish heap. It is to be changed by the imposition of the Spirit of God so that it enjoys a complete resurrection to eternal life.
This vision sharply distinguishes between the predestined immortality of the soul, which is a measure of God's love for all He has created, and the raising up of the material universe from corruption to splendour, which is the meaning of the resurrection of the body. For this resurrection to take place, there is full collaboration between the Creator and His creatures, notably the human being in our little planet. The Mediator of this divine-human covenant is the Word Made Flesh who dwelt among us, and demonstrated this bodily resurrection when He groaned pitifully under the accumulated suffering of all creation.
This change from the purely personal human mode to the transpersonal mode of the aspirant for God is a gradual process. It may manifest itself assuredly in sudden spurts of renewed spiritual grace and inner illumination, but these tend to be episodes of ecstasy that punctuate spiritual development rather than typify it. The change is essentially an inward one, and its fruits are initially more evident to the outside observer than to the person himself. Indeed, if one believes that one is making constant spiritual progress and especially if one talks confidently about it and boasts about one's developing spiritual gifts to others, there is every probability that one is being directed along an aberrant psychic pathway which leads not to the vision of God, but to ego-centred delusion and stultification. The change that is real concerns the deflection of the personal will from self-gratification to a greater participation in the life of the community and the knowledge of God. In other words the ego is shifted from its accustomed seat of authority in the world of man to its cloister of service in God's Kingdom, whose ruler is the Holy Spirit and whose place of operation in the human personality is the apex of the soul.
In the life of suffering the essential change that occurs in the personality of the one who is growing under its hard tutelage is a shift from egocentricity to charity. Whereas previously the centre of awareness of the sufferer was firmly based on himself, he himself making the complaints to God and demanding an explanation in the manner of Job among his comforters, he now starts to see that the real life is one focussed on God and his own existence has to be subordinated to God's will. Whereas earlier he felt he knew God's will in terms of scriptural authority appropriately interpreted to fit in with his own view of life, now he does not attempt to define the deep things of life in terms of human reason. Instead he realises that the beatific vision consists in a perfect relationship between himself and God - Who is best defined as "He who is" - in which subject and object are transformed beyond the polarities of discursive thought to the unity of identity in love. "By love may he be gotten and holden, but by thought never" says the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing. It is through the transformation wrought by intense suffering - on the few, the very few, it must be insisted - that universal love takes the place of those constant demands for personal satisfaction that mark the way of the unenlightened person.
In the great theophany that forms the summit of the saga of Job's afflictions, God reveals His magnificence as the eternal creator who is ceaselessly making all things new, but He gives no account of the inner workings of the divine mind nor does He explain the deeper springs of Job's terrible suffering. And Job would have no interest in having the heavenly wager between the light and darkness of God's providence explained to him. He has passed beyond the polarities of good and evil, light and darkness, happiness and suffering, to the ultimate realm in which the being of God is the only reality. When Job says at the vision of God's revelation of Himself: "I know that thou canst do all things and that no purpose is beyond thee. But I have spoken of great things which I have not understood, things too wonderful for me to know. I knew of thee then only by report but now I see thee with my own eyes. Therefore I melt away, I repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:2-6), he has learned the full lesson of his suffering. The "I" that was the authentic Job, worthy of eternity, has become established in the vision that God vouchsafed to Job. This true self transforms the whole personality into something of the nature of God. Thus it is said: "The first man, Adam, became an animate being, whereas the last Adam has become a life-giving spirit" (I Corinthians 15:45). Indeed, I am convinced that St Irenaeus was inspired by eternal wisdom when he saw that all human life was to be a recapitulation of the life of Christ, both in this world and in the greater world that lies beyond the veil that we call death.
This change of attitude from regarding life as a possession and a right to one of being joyously thankful for the privilege of participating in it, comes slowly in the understanding of any one individual. We are schooled in the belief that the measure of successful living is the attainment of definite ends: a place of esteem among our fellows, material possessions and a respectable income, a family responsibility which we parade proudly to the world and in which we can find inner security and repose, a means of employment by which we can affirm ourselves. None of these requirements is contemptible, nor to be disregarded. But they are all subordinate to something even more needful for immediate salvation and eternal hope; a fixed centre within oneself that radiates the fire of God which in turn integrates the personality and leads one on to mental and bodily health. Even on a purely material level the first requirement for a satisfactory life is a healthy body; all the money that the world is able to offer can in no way compensate for defective sight or hearing, a painful, inefficient limb, or the inability to breathe comfortably. It is only when we are checked by some bodily infirmity that we begin to realise how dependent we are on the humble physical mechanism that we take shamefully for granted day after day. We can now fully articulate the praise of the Psalmist: "When I look up at thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars set in their place by thee, what is man that thou shouldst remember him, mortal man that thou shouldst care for him? Yet thou hast made him little less than a god, crowning him with glory and honour" (Psalm 8:3-5).
Man's destiny is indeed to partake fully of the divine nature, but this means putting away the superficial logic and expectations of the humanistic man-god and taking on the humility and suffering of the God-man who came to raise the world from suffering to eternal life. Suffering starts by bringing us to see ourselves clearly in our present situation and showing us what we may become in the life of eternity. Suffering ends when we and the whole creation have been lifted up from the illusory world of separation and division to the unity of the divine nature whose essence is love.
This statement is not to be seen merely as a sermon on the meaning and end of suffering, such as might be delivered by an impassioned preacher. It reflects rather something that suddenly comes to the aware sufferer at the zenith of his agony when he can contend no more with the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune", when he comes to his breaking-point. He can either give up the apparently unequal struggle and quit this mortal life, or else he can remain in control of himself and continue to wrestle with a "sea of troubles" as Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord in the pitch-black obscurity of the long night. Only then does the blessing come - his name is changed, which means that his fundamental nature is transformed. Just as Jacob is renamed Israel, which means God strove, because Jacob strove with God and with men and prevailed (Genesis 32:28), so the sufferer who has passed beyond mortal breaking-point and still maintains his integrity emerges with a changed perspective on life. The things he previously regarded as of cardinal importance, such as affluence, the opinions of other people, material success and intellectual certainty, now fade into the background. They are seen to be childish illusions, mere idols of the mind. Instead the triumphant sufferer knows a peace that passes all understanding. He has, without fully realising it, moved from the death that we mistakenly call life to the only real life, which is the eternity of love in God. Would it be so strange if what we call this mortal life were really only a dream and its awakening the moment of bodily death! The peaks of suffering and the ecstasy that accrues from it make this inverted vision of reality the ultimate truth. But we must be worthy of this vision.
Peace is not a state of perpetual immobility or inertia in which nothing more need ever happen. It is a relationship of intimate communion with God, and it manifests itself outwardly in harmonious activity in whatever situation the person finds himself. This ranges from the cosmic harmony known to the greatest mystics to the workaday co-operation between two simple souls in the common round of earthly life. Peace is the strength that is given to the weak who have accepted their present impotence and are not ashamed to give themselves, in their apparent uselessness, to God. Thus it comes about that intense suffering is the most powerful stimulus to confession, and the inevitable way to absolution and healing. When the tax-gatherer gives himself unreservedly to God in his worthless sinfulness, he goes home acquitted of his sins. The Pharisee, by contrast, though much more worthy in the world's eyes, has seen his good works as a means of separating himself from his less acceptable brethren. His good works have in fact been performed without charity. He is still ego-centred, and believes that his works justify him in God's esteem. There can in fact be only one valid end in performing any good work - that of offering it as a pure gift to God and one's fellow men. The impulse is unconditional love. All alleged good works that feed the ego of the person who performs them turn sour and are a stumbling-block both to that person and to others who are expected to benefit from them. It is noteworthy that two essentially similar works may have diametrically opposed results. One, performed in the disinterestedness of universal love, will transform the consciousness of those who benefit from the action. The other, performed with the ulterior motive of self-justification, merely separates the agent from his brethren and brings in its train the fruits of condescension, division and resentment. It is not surprising that some types of well-intentioned social activities, based on purely rational grounds, fail to produce happiness or satisfaction among those whom they are designed to help. We dare not set ourselves above even the meanest of our brethren, for we are all one in the vision of God. The mighty shall be abased and the humble exalted. Suffering brings this great truth down from the realm of thought to the heart of life. Its apogee is the cross on which the Lord of Life was killed in the company of two criminals with whom He identified Himself unconditionally.
The contemporary existentialist psychotherapist, Viktor Frankl, has written what is for me the most significant book about suffering in our century. His book, Man's Search for Meaning, describes his own experience as a Jewish doctor in various Nazi concentration camps, and he writes about suffering, as indeed do those few who write authentically about this harrowing subject, from the inside, having traversed the pit of hell and emerged bereft yet entire. He found that those who survived this most terrible of all experiences, terrible both by virtue of the unparalleled cruelty visited on the prisoners and the vicious injustice of their indictment, owed their preservation to the inner meaning that they found in their lives. He quotes Nietzsche's words: "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." He also quotes Dostoievsky: "There is only one thing I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings." He describes the moving instance of a young woman who was dying in a concentration camp. She was cheerful in spite of a clear knowledge of her impending death. She said she was grateful that fate had hit her so hard because previously she had been spoiled and had not taken spiritual accomplishments seriously. She said that now the only friend she had in her loneliness was a tree that she could see outside the window of her hut. She often spoke to this tree. When Frankl asked her, thinking that she was suffering from hallucinations on account of her mortal sickness, if the tree replied, she said: "Yes, it said to me, 'I am here - I am life, eternal life.'"
It must be admitted in clear realism that the heroes and martyrs of prison camps form a spiritual elite. The majority of us, lesser mortals, would behave as Jesus' disciples did when He was arrested: we would run away as far as we could and seek to save our own skins at any cost. But even if we do show ourselves in this baser light on one dramatic occasion, there is still hope for our future growth into fully divine humanity. Poor Peter, who denied his Master three times, eventually reached a stage of spiritual development when he could sacrifice his life with courage in the way his Master had shown during His ministry on earth. The meaning Peter had attached to his life had risen from mere survival and the enjoyment of bodily pleasures, to the beatific vision known in a life given unconditionally to God. Paul, who relied entirely on a punctilious obedience to the Law which condemned rather than saved its devotees, had to learn about the supremacy of faith based on yielding love. "But all such assets (as the Law could provide) I have written off because of Christ. I would say more: I count everything sheer loss, because all is far out-weighed by the gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I did in fact lose everything. I count it so much garbage, for the sake of gaining Christ and finding myself incorporate in Him, with no righteousness of my own, no legal rectitude, but the righteousness which comes from faith in Christ, given by God in response to faith. All I care for is to know Christ, to experience the power of His resurrection and to share His sufferings, in growing conformity with His death, if only I may finally arrive at the resurrection from the dead" (Philippians 3:7-11).
It is in fact through this God-given faith that love springs into the heart and the works done by the person may really be good. The crucial point is that works done under the direction of the human will are perverted no matter how laudable their intention. Works that are really good spring from the heart of a person who functions, not from the ego consciousness, but from the spark of God set deeply in his soul. Such works, far from being contrived and deliberated upon, issue spontaneously from the heart. They amaze the agent no less than those to whom the work is dedicated. St Paul says: "I have been crucified with Christ: the life I now live is not my life, but the life which Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:19). This crucifixion with Christ is enacted sacramentally at the time of baptism, but there has to come a time in the life of every person, whether or not he is a believer in God, when he is literally crucified on the cross of suffering. Only then does he come to know God, rather than merely believe in Him. And the proof of this knowledge is that the Word of God lives in him and performs the works of salvation. Every sacramental act in every religious tradition is an earnest, a presage and a preparation, for that supreme act of self-renunciation that is the essential gateway to the changed life of the person in God.
"They also serve who only stand and wait." So wrote John Milton in the last line of his moving sonnet dedicated to his blindness. The greatest of women was Mary, the mother of Jesus. She was indeed the God-bearer, for in her womb the Spirit and the flesh united completely in one body. She was chosen not because of any outward attribute or gift, but because of the purity of her heart and the openness of her spirit. In the words of the Magnificat: "the hungry he has satisfied with good things, the rich sent empty away." She was the most favoured one: the Lord was with her. When she was apprised of the role in salvation history that she was chosen to fulfil, she said: "Here am I, I am the Lord's servant; as you have spoken, so be it." Her Son was also to say: "So be it," in the moment of His greatest agony in Gethsemane not so many years later. When her time was fulfilled and the child Jesus was born, Mary's great role faded into the background. When Jesus was twelve years old He left His parents after the Pass-over festival in Jerusalem and tarried behind, discoursing with the teachers of the Law. When His mother remonstrated with Him, He said to her rather perfunctorily: "Did you not know that I was bound to be in my Father's house?" She likewise was put in her place during the miracle at the marriage at Cana, in Galilee: "Your concern, mother, is not mine. My hour has not yet come" (John 2:4). In the early part of Jesus' ministry it is recorded that His mother and brothers arrived and asked Him to come out to them. He asks rhetorically: "Who is my mother, who are my brothers?" And looking round at those who are sitting in the circle about Him, He says: "Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God is my brother, my sister, my mother" (Mark 3:31-35). So the woman who had the supreme privilege and pain of bearing the Christ now is shown her unobtrusive place among the body of believers. But she too, in the account of the Passion according to St John, has her final moment of remembrance. When her son was being crucified, there she stood with her sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and with Mary of Magdala. And there Jesus commends her keeping to the beloved disciple, and that disciple's welfare to her. These three women were probably the ultimate human support of Jesus in their steadfast loyalty despite the horror and the incomprehensible tragedy of the occasion. In its meaninglessness, according to the expectations of Jesus' followers, they too must have floundered in dismay. But they stayed on till the end. To Mary of Magdala was given the supreme privilege of being the first witness of the resurrected Lord. To Jesus' mother belonged the work of welding the early little community of believers together, long before they were called Christians. We meet her for the last time in the Acts of the Apostles (1:14), when the disciples came together in the upper room where they were lodging. There they prayed constantly together with a group of women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and His brothers.
And so it is that the mother of Jesus became the mother of the earliest community that met around the resurrected Lord. When He ascended to His Father and the Holy Spirit descended upon the body of believers, she took her place as queen of the communion of saints. She is known to millions of Christians as their greatest intercessor. But more important even than this is her role in human life. Mary represents the soul, the aspect of the personality that is eternally close to God. Mary's great work is to be herself as she was, both in the moment of her greatest glory when she bore the God-man and in the time of her greatest agony when she saw her Son, of whom so much had been predicted at the time of His birth, now suffering a shameful death between two criminals. Her stillness was a part of Jesus' strength before His great descent into hell to redeem that which was lost. The spirit of contemplation is the one thing necessary for healing. When one knows this spirit one can be still before one's trial, and emerge full of the power of God's Spirit. True contemplation is a fruit of suffering and the purification which follows that travail's searing scrutiny of all our inner deviations and idolatries.
When a person is old and decrepit, there is nevertheless some meaning left in his life. He can be still and listen to those in need. The art of silent communion with another person is also the essence of the healing process. Most of us are so active about our own business that we have no time to listen even to the inner voice of God that tries to make itself heard in the depths of our being. We are about our own business, but God's business of creation and redemption simply does not enter the range of our consideration. But when we are old, superannuated and infirm, we have the remainder of the time before we die in our own hands. As long as we have a mind that can respond and senses that are able to participate meaningfully in communication with other people, let us give of ourselves as counsellors to the perplexed and distraught. To counsel means to listen and to be available to the promptings of the Holy Spirit who "fills the hungry with good things". When we are at last at home in ourselves, we can open the door of our souls to the One who knocks and has waited so long for admission. He was always there, but we were not available.
Suffering concentrates our attention on the one thing necessary for healing: the Spirit of God who alone can deliver us from the body of corruption to the place of freedom. The transition may be painful, but the destination is beyond all description in its splendour and completeness.
MeditationHelp me, O Lord, to cease from comparing my lot with that of other people, but rather to see each circumstance, however adverse, as my opportunity for growing into authentic spiritual knowledge. May I thereby be a constant source of inspiration to those around me. One true witness of sanctity is worth all the world's scriptures inasmuch as that person embodies the truth of all written testimonies.