Breaking Open the Word - 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A (2023)
6th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A — February 12th, 2023
In our Scripture sharing this week, we were particularly drawn to discuss and reflect on Sunday’s Second Reading, where St. Paul writes to the Corinthians about the “mysterious, hidden wisdom” of God. One Sister summed up what many of us were feeling when she declared that this reading “really captured my Passionist heart!” The wisdom that Paul describes here is, as he declares earlier in this Epistle, the wisdom of the Cross. In fact, Sister shared, we could say that the Crucified “Lord of Glory” is the wisdom of God made visible. By His death upon the Cross, Jesus conquered the Devil’s schemes by the superior logic of love. What’s more, Christ Crucified and Glorified embodies and shows forth the incomprehensible destiny that God has in store for all of us who love Him. Per Crucem ad Lucem – through the Cross to glory!
Another Sister focused in on St. Paul’s assertion that this wisdom is for the spiritually “mature.” As anyone who has followed the Lord for some time can attest, there are certain aspects of our Faith that simply cannot be grasped right away. It takes time, prayer, and spiritual growth to ready our hearts for these more mysterious realities. One of the greatest of these mysteries is the wisdom of the Cross – that is, the intimate connection between suffering and love.
The natural human response to suffering is distress and resistance, and this can lead us to question God’s love. “If God is infinitely good, how could He allow this to happen to me?" But those who have learned the lesson of the Crucified see things in a very different light. God Himself has entered into our pain and sorrow and even death, and He has thus consecrated suffering. In union with the Paschal Mystery of Christ, the pain endured by every human person acquires redemptive value and the promise of ultimate victory. It is this astonishing mystery that led St. Paul of the Cross to see sufferings, not as evidence of God’s cruelty, but as evidence of His love! Those souls chosen to carry the Cross with Christ are truly receiving a precious gift from the hands of the Father, if they but choose to accept it.
“In the cross of Christ not only is the Redemption accomplished through suffering, but also human suffering itself has been redeemed.”
With all this said, the wisdom of the Cross will always appear as “folly” in the eyes of the world. The connection between suffering and love is far from obvious to most observers, and even those who embrace the message of Christ Crucified can struggle with the apparent lack of fruit coming from their own pain and that of others. God truly does ask for a profound act of faith, for a willingness to cling to Him and to His promise even when all around us seems like total darkness. Yet, those who have surrendered to this mystery – above all, the Saints – can powerfully affirm its truth and life-giving power. The wisdom of the Cross is not something we can “figure out,” but we are promised the help of the Spirit, “who scrutinizes all things, even the depths of God.” It is He who takes our hand and leads us through the darkness, strengthening us by the power of His grace. How often His power is most evident when we are at our weakest!
“Who would believe what we have heard? Or to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?” (Is. 53:1) These words of the Prophet Isaiah well express the bafflement of our human mind in the face of such mysteries. God became man? God suffered and died? Our suffering and death have value? Truly, “eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it so much as entered into the heart of man” – and yet, “this God has revealed to us through the Spirit.” (1 Cor. 2:9-10)
May the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ be ever in our hearts!