Posted on 08/27/2005 5:56:56 AM PDT by Desdemona
Suffering is not an absolute evil. In this Sunday’s Gospel, St. Peter provides Jesus with the opportunity to teach that suffering can in fact be a good thing. It can be used by God to bring about a greater good. Therefore it should not be avoided at all costs.
This passage follows Peter’s proclamation that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Jesus praised Peter, gave him a new name, affirmed that his statement of faith had come from the Father, and gave him supreme authority over His new Church. Now, we see Jesus rebuking him, "Away from me Satan."
What a stark contrast. Jesus’s words are harsh. Clearly, He had a very important lesson to teach that day.
Peter loved Jesus very much. He did not want Him to suffer. Peter’s reaction to his friend’s prediction of His impending suffering would be a reasonable one in most circumstances. However, Peter’s understanding of Jesus and His mission was incomplete. Peter still needed what Paul described in Romans: to be transformed by the renewal of his mind so that he could judge what is God’s will, what is good, pleasing and perfect. He did not understand that Jesus had to suffer. Jesus’s mission was to embrace the will of His Father, become sin for us and sacrifice His life on the Cross for the salvation of the world. It would be the greatest act of love the world would ever know.
As Christians, we need to be willing to embrace suffering. We do not go looking for it; we are not masochists. However, we must be willing to embrace it when it is sent by God as a means to a greater good. Just as we suffer when exercising our bodies for our physical and emotional health, so we suffer when exercising our soul for our emotional and spiritual health. When we say no to our sinful desires, we build virtue and avoid spiritual diseases. When we fight laziness or fatigue in order to pray, we nourish our relationships with God and give Him fitting worship. When we sacrifice making purchases in order to give money to the poor, we suffer for the sake of the Kingdom.
But Jesus is here to help us. He invites us to unite our suffering with His on the Cross. St. Paul reminds us of this beautiful reality of our faith when he says: "I beg you...offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, your living worship."
We are invited to make such a sacrifice in a very profound way at Mass during the offertory. The Mass recalls and represents Christ’s sacrifice to the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ’s sacrifice becomes our sacrifice in two ways: first, when we consciously choose to recognize what Christ has done and offer a sacrifice of praise to the Father; and second, when we chose to unite our own suffering with Christ’s suffering on the Cross and offer it to the Father as an act of love.
God our Father, transform me by the renewal of my mind that I may know what is Your will, what is good, pleasing and perfect. Help me to grasp in some fashion the supreme beauty of Christ’s gift to You of His life on the Cross. Grant me the grace to consciously and lovingly offer my suffering to You at Mass so that I may worship You in spirit and in truth.
Part of a discussion from yesterday.
ping
Maybe for a link to the Mass readings tomorrow.
Ping
BTTT.
And it is the Gospel reading for Sunday!
Definitely!
To attribute evil conjured in men's minds to "Satan", seems to me antithetical to monotheism.
"For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? ...."
That deal about "provided we suffer with him" oftentimes gets forgotten.
"Satan" literally means a "stumbling block". Christianity has always recognized the existence of the fallen angels, Satan being the lead. These purely spiritual beings, created good by God but confirmed in evil by their own free choosing, can and do in fact prowl about the world trying to tempt souls away from God. It is our duty, with the help of the Grace of God, to resist them and turn to God. Failure to do so on our part essentially puts us "in league" with Satan.
Satan is the tempter (and a powerful one at that). If we fall into his trap, we retain full responsibility for doing so. I fail to see how this is antithetical to monotheism.
"If I knew God, I'd be Him." Though I doubt that man needs any agents to lead him into evil, which God creates, as One.
Hmm, don't know the source of the quote, but it is worthy of questions. Certainly, the one true God can be known in a general, natural sense through His Creation. OTOH, God can only be known in a personal manner if He so chooses to reveal Himself to us (in whatever manner He sees fit). That is precisely the claim of Christianity, that He revealed Himself to us through the Incarnation of His eternal Son, and the founding of the Church, etc., etc.
Though I doubt that man needs any agents to lead him into evil, which God creates, as One.
Somewhat baffling. Creation is one, but Evil is not a created "thing". Evil represents a "lack", or disorder, in God's Creation. Time is a part of Creation and will come to an end as Creation runs it's course to the fulfillment of the goals that God has set for it.
From a Christian perspective, the effects of Original Sin are those which turn our incomplete nature at war with itself. That is, our physical side against our spiritual faculties (mind and will). St. Paul refers to our lower nature as "the flesh" whereas this includes our emotions, etc. pitted against our minds and wills.
This war allows for easy temptation among various sources including one another, an inordinate desire for temporal goods over eternal ones, and the evil spirits who try to sway us through these.
From a Christian perspective, it is the Grace of God obtained through the Life, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord Christ Jesus, and given through (primarily) the sacraments, in union with our free consent of mind and will by Faith, that we work out our salvation, crushing evil down in the process. From God's perspective, glimpsed at through His revelation to us, this process is worked out "till the close of the age" with each of us playing a role, either for good or evil. And it is in this perspective that one can say that evil ultimately will work out for the overall good.
Evil is, in a sense, a necessary concept if for no other reason that our - and the angels - freedom is at stake. God has given us the ability to reject Him and the Good that He has planned for us. His Graced is never "forced" on us. We have to say "Yes".
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.