Suffering is the necessary deep feeling of the human situation. If we don’t feel pain, suffering, human failure, and weakness, we stand antiseptically apart from it, and remain numb and small. We can’t understand such things by thinking about them. The superficiality of much of our world is that it tries to buy its way out of the ordinary limits and pain of being human. Carl Jung called it “necessary suffering,” and I think he
Neilos the Ascetic (died ca. 430) was probably from Constantinople and a follower of St. John Chrysostom. He became abbot of a monastery in what is now Ankara, Turkey, and is the first writer known to make unequivocal mention of the Jesus Prayer. “In the biblical story Elisha then threw a stick into the Jordan and brought to the surface the axe head his disciple had lost (cf. 2 Kings 6:6); that is to say,
Regarding the two accounts handed down to us describing the discovery of the Holy Cross by St. Helen, St. Dimitri of Rostov writes: The various authorities do not agree concerning the details of the miracle whereby the true Cross of Christ was discovered. Some say that it was a dead maiden being brought to burial who was raised by the power of the Cross; others claim that a widow lay ill in her house and
“I am the Resurrection and the Life” (Part III) The very death of the Incarnate reveals the resurrection of human nature (St. John of Damascus, De fide orth., 3.27; cf.Homil. in Magn. Sabbat., 29). “Today we keep the feast, for our Lord is nailed upon the Cross,” in the sharp phrase of St. John Chrysostom (In crucem et latronem, hom. 1). The death on the Cross is a victory over death not only because it
“I am the Resurrection and the Life” (Part II) The ultimate reason for Christ’s death must be seen in the mortality of Man. Christ suffered death, but passed through it and overcame mortality and corruption. He quickened death itself. “By death He destroyed death.” The death of Christ is therefore, as it were, an extension of the Incarnation. The death on the Cross was effective, not as the death of an Innocent One, but as
“I am the Resurrection and the Life” (Part I) The Incarnation of the Word was an absolute manifestation of God. And above all it was a revelation of Life. Christ is the Word of Life, ho logos tês zôês (I John 1:1). The Incarnation itself was, in a sense, the quickening of man, as it were the resurrection of human nature. In the Incarnation human nature was not merely anointed with a superabundant overflowing of
Picture yourself before the crucified Jesus and recognize that he became what we are all afraid of and what we all deny: nakedness, exposure, vulnerability and failure. He became “sin” to free us from sin (Romans 8:3), the Cosmic Scapegoat who reveals our worst and best souls to those who will gaze long enough (John 19:37).
Our age has been called the age of anxiety, and I think it’s a good description for this time. We no longer know where our foundations are. When we’re not sure what is certain, when the world and our worldview keep being redefined every few months, we’re going to be anxious. We want to get rid of that anxiety as quickly as we can. Yet, to be a good leader of anything today—a good pastor,
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