Our ‘live now’ philosophy tends to become completely disengaged from a vibrant Christian faith that invites us to contemplate life beyond. Yet Christ challenges us to “first seek the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all things shall be added unto you”. (Matthew 6:33)
We are in an age of ‘quick fix remedies’ which sometimes seeks not to alleviate pain and suffering but to eliminate such conditions completely. Yet pain and suffering are an innate in our fallen nature, an inherent part of our biological, physiological and psychological make-up.
In the words of C.S. Lewis: “The most beautiful people are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
We go to great lengths to prepare the splendour of marriage ceremonies but as soon as relationship conflicts start to emerge, we opt for exit paths through separation or divorce instead of seeking help to resolve them. We are tempted to opt for flight the moment we face difficult life situations instead of fighting our way through.
In his concluding address at the synod on the family, Pope Francis reacted strongly to the “temptation to a destructive tendency to goodness that in the name of a deceptive mercy, binds the wounds without first curing them and treating them; that treats the symptoms and not the causes and the roots. It is the temptation of the ‘do-gooders’, of the fearful, and also of the so-called progressives and liberals”.
It is a temptation to come down off the cross, to please the people, and not stay there, in order to fulfil the will of the Father, to bow down to a worldly spirit instead of purifying it and bending it to the Spirit of God. We fail to realise that the cross is not the end. It if were so we would have no hope. Christ did not escape it, although he cried out: “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me”. (Luke 22:42) He did not run away from it, but conquered it and opened the way to the eternal kingdom for all who dare to believe.
The most beautiful people are those who have known defeat, suffering, struggle, loss, and have found their way out of the depths- C.S. Lewis
To bind the wounds without first making every attempt to cure them and to treat them is a disservice. It is like prescribing off-the-shelf drugs without any medical screening. It is like suggesting coping skills without treating the symptoms, the causes and the roots. It is simply a way of finding the fastest way out of facing the cross.
Yet the cross purifies. The cross may be our only wake-up call, a means of severing our attachments or of purifying our intentions, an opportunity to make reparation or to find healing, whether in our marriage relationships, whether with our extended family and friends, whether in our work or career or in any other situation in life.
Escaping our cross, binding the wounds without treating them may sound attractive and suiting, but in the process we are missing perhaps the only route towards our own spiritual transformation.
It is in this context that Pope Francis calls for the Church not to be afraid of rolling up its sleeves to pour oil and wine on people’s wounds, and not to be afraid to eat and drink with prostitutes. He calls for a Church with doors wide open to receive the needy, the penitent, the faint-hearted, the doubtful and confused. He calls for a Church to spread the healing message of the Gospel with joy and fervour, to accept in its fold the imperfect, the fallen and the weak.
This is the healing Church. It is not another institutional organisation of do-gooders providing illusive customised solutions far from the Gospel truths, but a Church that seen as a ‘field hospital after the battle’.
gordon@atomserve.net
Gordon Vassallo is an accredited spiritual guide at the Centre of Ignatian Spirituality.