Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

I have been reading a bit of Archbishop Fulton Sheen lately in helping out with the immense amount of material to review for the Archbishop’s cause. In The Life of Christ, Sheen observes that after His Resurrection, Jesus still bears the marks of slaughter. Scripture attests to this truth both in the upper room when He shows them to the doubting Thomas, and in Revelation 5 when the Lamb in glory still appears as He did when He was slain. In other places, Sheen describes this as a reminder that there can be no Easter Sunday without passing through Good Friday.

Another interesting point the Archbishop raises is with the ancient tradition of Satan appearing to a saint, the latter of which confounded Satan by asking him where were his marks of crucifixion. Satan could not bear these because they are the antithesis of what Satan has made himself. In this regard, I find that Archbishop Sheen and John Paul the Great both seem to have happened upon many of the same insights, but apparently independently. In this context Sheen explains the meaning of Jesus’ Sacrifice and the meaning of these sacrificial marks in terms like that of JPTG in his Theology of the Body. The Sacrifice is a reminder of love and in His resurrected body these marks become a reminder that love is stronger than death. I would say that the Cross’s unification of Sacrifice with Love explains the reason that Satan who made himself the antithesis of love now rages at the new meaning of sacrifice. Likewise, it is the reason that the nations rage at authentic, self giving love. By nations, of course I mean New Testament gentiles—non-Christians. The Sacrifice of the Cross also reveals another truth that makes the Cross hard to look at. It reveals the great horror of sin.

This is one reason that Satan would want to avert Christian attention from the Cross but it would not explain his rage or that of those who have adopted his rejection of his Creator. I suspect that the revelation of the horror of sin then explains the rejection of the Mass as a Sacrifice by so many modern theologians. Of course this rejection had its start in that novel Reformation Soteriology–salvation by faith alone–which made meaningless the continued suffering of humanity after the Cross.

In terms of rage reacting to the manifestation of Self-giving love, one thinks of such raging atheists as Christopher Hitchens, and his copy cats Penn and Teller, who raged at Blessed Theresa of Calcutta for her daring to suggest that there is meaning to be found in suffering. This is nothing new and the inability of even believers to come to terms with it is not uncommon.

This was apparent during the release of the Passion of the Christ and the outcry of many, even some Catholics, over the “excess” of emphasis on Jesus’ suffering. In fact, many others thought that especially the scourging in The Passion also thought it a bit extreme. For example, when she was still writing for Zenit back in February 2004, Delia Gallagher expressed the belief that the suffering was overdone by Mel Gibson. She explained her thinking in an e-mail responding to my question about this assertion in her article:

Thank you for your message. I said the violence was probably exaggerated because it was the opinion of several of the Vatican officials and others with whom I saw the film and because it was my opinion. It seemed to me any man, even Jesus, flagellated to that extent - before even beginning the Via Crucis - would have died. It also seemed to me that Gibson deliberately lingered on the flagellations, to effectively bring home his point of the very real suffering of Jesus.

That being said, you are right to take me up on the statement, because the climate in which it is being released is so tense, that any description of it as an exaggeration could be misleading. It is also difficult to know just how bad flagellations were at that time, and so a difficult claim to sustain.

Best wishes, Delia Gallagher

It is not unnatural for us to recoil from the horror of sin, especially when we view it from the perspective of our personal responsibility. In fact, I heard one commentator exclaim that she was not responsible for the suffering she saw Jesus go through in the film. Theologically speaking though, because Jesus’ suffering reveals to us the horror of the sins of every person for all time, what was depicted in the film could never do justice to what He actually suffered. Add to this, the effect of Satan and his minions urging the antagonists on to a fever pitch such given that here he thinks that he has the chance to finally crush the One of whom he said non serviam. This is the One Whom he had been looking to kill since the advent of man and the One he blames for his eternal misery (see Rev. 12:1ff).

In Psalm 42 and Revelation 11, the inspired authors talk of the nations raging in anger against God and His people until the time of God’s triumph over sin. Well, until the final triumph in the eschaton we will continue to see the nations rage, fueled by Satan’s rage against everything that would remind them of Jesus’ redeeming love. Jesus’ total Self-gift—His Sacrifice—shows that authentic love conquers death. Death is the only power that pride and selfishness can muster but death is non-being and in the face of Being itself, death withers away. Any reminder that in the end death loses out to love, by necessity will bring on this rage.