Salvifici Doloris on the Suffering Servant

From No. 17 - No. 19, Salvifici Doloris examines Suffering in the context of the Suffering Servant, especially focusing on Isaiah's Fourth Suffering Servant Song. This is the "5th Gospel," and finds a special place in the Good Friday liturgy, and in St Alphonse Liguori's Way of the Cross.

No wonder. Oh what a moving, moving Proto-Gospel of the Cross ... and of the Man of Sorrows ...

"He had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions,he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all"

Salvifici Doloris points out how very vivid, how very realistic this description is of this God-Man who has "borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." Jesus Christ in His Life, Passion, and Death bears the full weight of the world of human suffering. He is, truly, Job ... or Job is an Ikon of the Man of Sorrows, Christ-Jesus. Salvifici Doloris links (once again) Christ and Job, now finding in the Suffering Servant / Man of Sorrows the nexus of the two "moments" in the the History of Human Suffering that these two men exemplify.

Now No. 18 says that the Song of the Suffering Servant is fulfilled in Gethsemani and Golgotha. And in this fulfillment, we are given what the Pope calls the definitive answer to that existential question of Why. So, Salvifici Doloris tells us that "Christ gives the answer to the question about suffering and the meaning of suffering not only by his teaching, that is by the Good News, but most of all by his own suffering, which is integrated with this teaching of the Good News in an organic and indissoluble way. And this is the final, definitive word of this teaching: "the word of the Cross", as Saint Paul one day will say."

So the Redeemer in whom Job hopes (Job 19:25) becomes in His Suffering the answer: Christ saves us through His Redemptive Suffering.

Moreover, in No. 19, Salvifici Doloris says, "One can say that with the Passion of Christ all human suffering has found itself in a new situation. And it is as though Job has foreseen this when he said: "I know that my Redeemer lives ...", and as though he had directed towards it his own suffering, which without the Redemption could not have revealed to him the fullness of its meaning.In the Cross of Christ not only is the Redemption accomplished through suffering, but also human suffering itself has been redeemed."

From here, the Holy Father goes on to describe how all human suffering is taken up in Christ's Suffering, and Christ's Suffering is present in all human suffering. Christ redeems us; and we in turn participate in His Redemptive Acts through our own redemptive suffering that participates in Christ's redemptive suffering. For, "The Redeemer suffered in place of man and for man. Every man has his own share in the Redemption. Each one is also called to share in that suffering through which the Redemption was accomplished. He is called to share in that suffering through which all human suffering has also been redeemed. In bringing about the Redemption through suffering, Christ has also raised human suffering to the level of the Redemption. Thus each man, in his suffering, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ."

My suffering becomes that of Christ; and His becomes mine. And Mom's suffering ... ? Mom's suffering too becomes that of Christ; and His became hers. And: Her suffering became mine and mine hers. This truly I think both of us were aware of and felt at an existential level ... maybe this is at the core of Caregiving.

And this does to me give my Suffering ... and hers ... a meaning I couldn't begin to find without this intimate connection described by the Holy Father.

The Cross of Christ becomes therefore the definitive and final answer to the question of Why this Suffering? And explains why, in looking at the World of Suffering, and the History of Suffering, those who embrace the Cross and embrace the Suffering as a gift do suffer enormously, to be sure, but ... are not destroyed thereby. The Holy Father quotes in this connection St Paul from 2 Cor: "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh .... knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus"

So it all comes back to the Way of the Cross, for Christ and for me; for me and for Mom; for Mom and for every other mortal ... the Way of the Cross for the Alone Passing into the Alone, and also for the Church of Christ in the History of Passion passing into the Church Triumphant.

Oh Lord help me to see in Your Passion the Passion of my mother; and my own glad privilege to be allowed a small part in such a true Historical Drama that is my mother's Way of the Cross, and Your Way of the Cross, O Lord.

I love you and miss you Mom. In my Here and Now and in the Here and Now of Gethsemani and of Golgotha.

In Christ,

Charles Delacroix
Eve of the Feast of St Denis & Cos.