26 Sunday OT, Year A
Suffering can change the way we see ourselves, others, and even God, but St. Paul offers a different way of understanding it in his Letter to the Philippians. In Christ, God does not remain distant from human pain but empties himself, enters into our suffering, and brings the hope of resurrection. Like the cracks Leonard Cohen writes about, our wounds can become places where God's light enters us and then shines through us for others.
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I think many of you will have seen the now classic movie Life Is Beautiful, directed by Roberto Benigni and released in 1997. It is an incredibly moving film, but also a painful one to watch at times. The story centres on a man named Guido, who marries in Italy shortly before the Second World War and has a young son with his wife. Guido is Jewish, and during the war he and his family are eventually taken to a concentration camp.
Guido finds himself there with his young son, who is too little to understand fully the horrors unfolding around him. He cannot comprehend the violence, the suffering, and the terror taking place day after day. Guido, as a father, wants somehow to spare his son from this pain and preserve his innocence. So he convinces him that everything happening around them is part of an elaborate game. The soldiers, the forced labour, the rules of the camp, all of it becomes part of the story Guido creates for his son.
The film is so striking because of the contrast between the brutality surrounding them and the extraordinary love of this father. Guido goes to incredible lengths to protect his son and to teach him, through his actions, that hatred does not have the final word. He wants his son to believe that goodness and love are ultimately stronger. In the end, Guido gives his own life while continuing to protect his son, showing him, in the most painful circumstances imaginable, that life can still be beautiful.
I was thinking about this film as I reflected on the second reading we heard at Mass today from St. Paul's Letter to the Philippians. Paul speaks about what Jesus has done for us, about the descent and humility of Christ so that we might have life. In doing so, Paul touches on something universal: the reality of suffering.
Each one of us carries disappointments, struggles, and pain. For some, it may be the death of someone we love. For others, it may be a serious illness, difficulty finding work, struggles with mental health, family problems, or the uncertainty of an immigration process. We all carry suffering of one kind or another. And if we are not careful, that suffering can begin to change the way we see our lives, the people around us, and even God.
St. Paul writes to the Philippians precisely to give hope to people who are struggling. This is an extraordinarily hopeful letter, and that becomes even more remarkable when we remember Paul's own circumstances. He is writing from prison, facing an uncertain future. Yet one of the most famous lines in the entire letter is: "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice." Paul himself is suffering, and the Christian community in Philippi is experiencing its own difficulties, tensions, and opposition. Yet Paul can still speak about joy.
How can he do that?
The answer comes in the passage we heard today. Paul points the Philippians toward Christ. He gives us this beautiful hymn, often called the kenotic hymn, from the Greek word kenosis, meaning "self-emptying." Though Christ was in the form of God, he emptied himself. Jesus is God, and yet he becomes human. And he goes further still. He does not enter human life as someone wealthy or powerful. He takes the form of a servant. He humbles himself and becomes obedient even to the point of death on a cross.
Jesus is, in a sense, the true obedient Son. He listens to the Father and actually does the Father's will. His humility leads ultimately to exaltation. His path passes through suffering and death, but suffering and death do not have the final word.
This is Paul's message to the Philippians, and it is his message to us. Christ comes very close to us in our suffering. That is at the heart of the Good News. God does not promise that we will be spared every difficulty. Jesus does not simply remove suffering from human life. Instead, he enters into it. He walks with us through it. In his self-emptying love, Christ comes close to us precisely where we are wounded.
And because Christ is with us there, suffering does not have to remain meaningless. Just as Christ's suffering and death are transformed through the Resurrection, he can also transform the suffering and struggles we carry. This does not mean that suffering suddenly becomes good, or that we should pretend pain does not hurt. It means that even suffering can become a place where God's grace is at work.
That is a challenge for us, just as it was for the Philippian community. Can we really believe that Jesus is close to us in our suffering? Can we believe something even more difficult, that the wounds and struggles in our lives can become places where God's goodness enters not only our lives but also the lives of others?
Leonard Cohen expressed something of this in his song Anthem when he wrote about the cracks through which light enters. All of us are, in one way or another, cracked by what we have experienced. We carry wounds from disappointment, grief, failure, illness, or loss. Those wounds can make us turn inward. They can make us bitter or afraid. But when Christ is present in our lives, those same wounds can become openings through which God's light enters.
And there is something more. The places where we have been wounded can sometimes become the very places through which God's light shines out toward others.
Perhaps you have had this experience. You went through something difficult and, at the time, you could not understand why it was happening. Then, years later, you encountered someone going through something very similar. Because of what you had experienced, you were able to listen differently. You could understand their pain in a way someone else perhaps could not. You were able to offer a word of encouragement, patience, or compassion. Your own wound had somehow become a source of healing for another person.
Perhaps only then did part of your own suffering begin to make a little more sense.
Today, then, let us bring before God the struggles and wounds we carry. Let us ask the Holy Spirit not to allow our pain simply to become something that closes us in on ourselves. Instead, may Christ meet us in those wounded places. May the cracks in our lives become places where his light enters us, heals us, and then shines through us to bring hope to those around us.
