Seeing Jesus
Nestled on a sizable plot of land in bucolic Chester County, Pa., sits a retirement home and nursing care facility for the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a (mostly) teaching order of religious women who have dedicated their lives to the Church and the education of young people for more than 175 years.
I was privileged to spend a week with them last week, leading their annual retreat and praying with them throughout their structured day. In so doing, my heart was broken open to the stories of women who gave all to Christ, and as a result, changed the world in his name:
Women who brought Catholic schools to the state of Virginia for the first time; women who spoke out against abuses that the hierarchy sometimes overlooked; women who loved the orphans and broken families back to wholeness; women who invited all they encountered to authentic holiness, no matter what age they were.
What I noticed this time around, though, is something a bit different than the years when I had these Sisters as teachers and fellow-educators: where once these Sisters were racing to build the Kingdom wherever they were sent, now they were building the Kingdom by staying in one place: at the Cross.
There’s a lot of Cross-and-suffering imagery in the readings proclaimed this Fifth Sunday of Lent, especially as we head toward Palm Sunday and Holy Week.
Jeremiah speaks of writing the law of God on people’s hearts. (He didn’t say how, mind you, except to drop this hint: all will one day know the Lord and be freed from sin). The Letter to the Hebrews, meanwhile, expresses that same covenantal love of God by stating: “the Son offered prayers and supplications (for us) and learned obedience from what he suffered.”
After all, it’s in suffering offered back to God in which we truly learn to love as God loves. There’s no other way.
Yes, we hate it. Who loves to suffer? Even Jesus himself in today’s Gospel states: “I am troubled now, but what should I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour?’” For John the evangelist, this was Jesus’ Agony in the Garden moment. Our Savior who came to be like us in all things but sin looked squarely at the Cross that awaited him and said “I am troubled now.” In other words, Jesus understands our fears around pain, suffering and death.
And yet, he faced it: for us. For love.
And as He, so must we.
All of us have, are or will suffer. And whereas I used to ask God why he allowed it, now I am catching glimpses of the gift it actually can be, IF we offer it back to Him and ask Him to use it and transform it.
While with the IHMs on retreat, one sister at Camilla Hall touched my heart in a powerful way. For decades she taught Catholic school girls the beauty and power of the written word; Sister herself wrote copiously and read voraciously. Now, she is mostly blind and experiencing many other painful physical ailments, and the things she once embraced as gift are now being stripped from her.
I asked her in a conversation one rainy afternoon how she is doing with the letting go.
“Father, I do feel the loss,” Sister said with honesty, “but I am blessed. He has given me so much, and now I give back to Him what He asked me to use for others. It was always His in the first place, wasn’t it?”
I agreed that it was, and then Sister went on to say: “I finally understand the statement Jesus shared with us about the grain of wheat dying – we must die before we die.”
I remained quiet. Sister couldn’t see my expression, so she gently continued, “I spent most of my life ‘doing,’ and it was all good, but these past years here, I have spent my life being emptied. I think a lot of us look at this cross of suffering and dying as punishment, but it is so much more than that – I am now being filled completely with Him. We can’t go Home to Eternity unless we are emptied to be filled.”
Perhaps, then, when Jesus tells us to hate our lives in this world, he’s really asking us to surrender it all to the Father. To accept what He sends and not cling to what He might be taking away. To offer the loss and the grief surrounding such diminishment to instead be used by the One who transforms it all and brings forth new life.
We must die-to-self before we die-to-rise in Him … to be filled with Him. And lest we think this only comes at the end of this life’s journey, I believe we are being invited to live this Cross-centered emptying throughout our lives:
The job offer or the college acceptance letter that never arrives could be an invitation to trust that God has something better waiting. In the meantime, we die to self and offer-back the disappointment to Him.
The relationship that ends or never really takes off might be God’s way of saving our hearts from further ache or our souls from an eternity without Him. Again, we die to self and offer the grief to Him.
The vision or hearing or physical abilities that we once enjoyed might be an invitation to surrender our loss for someone else’s intentions. Our Lord uses everything we offer at the foot of our Cross, and whatever is offered in love – even when fear and other emotions are mixed in – can and are used for God’s glory.
In the offering, God’s glory is revealed. In the offering, suffering doesn’t have the final word and Satan – the ruler of this world – loses his grip on us. The victory of Christ is made present in us and we ourselves are filled with Him.
It’s a radical way of learning and listening and “be obedient through suffering,” as the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us. But it is the narrow gate and the road we must follow if we want to be the servant of Jesus Christ. As the Teacher, so the disciple.
Before I left her room that afternoon, Sister shared with me one final thought, and it remains with me often now as I go about my days and strive to live my faith. She said: “I wholeheartedly believe that the Father expects to see His Son reflected in our hearts when our souls go back to Him.”
She paused a moment and then added: “I really believe God expects from the moment of Baptism to see our hearts and lives transformed by grace so that, even now, we look like His Son -- that it would be hard to tell the difference between Jesus and me.”
It is true: A grain of wheat will only bear much fruit if it first dies to self.