Well, I'm recording these words on Holy Thursday, so we come to the beginning of the tritium the most sacred time of year for
Christians and I must say my mind's been drifting a lot during this time to
The issue of pain it might seem a little bit strange
but it may be its condition in part by a recent conversation I had with
Jordan Peterson the psychologist who said
You know in many philosophical and religious traditions
pain is metaphysically basic and what he meant was it's like the
Unavoidable fact of life, even the most skeptical philosopher think of a descartes, you know, you can't really deny
pain that pain
Exists, then we spend a lot of our lives trying to deal with it and overcome it, but you can't deny it. It's so fundamental
anyway, I've been thinking about that because
Let's face it
the most sacred time of the year, especially the church puts before our eyes an
image of
someone at the extreme limit of pain
I'm talking about now the crucified Jesus were meant to contemplate this person at the limit of
suffering
Now let's just think about suffering and it's different dimensions
there's physical suffering and we all
Experience it even I mean little kids with cuts and bruises and broken bones and everything
But you make your way through a human life. I mean everyone experiences
Physical suffering. I remember the first time I spent substantial period in a hospital and what that was like that awful
experience anyone's been through surgery
anyone that's listening to me right now that's in chronic pain and a lot of people that just their bodies are always in sort of
Constant rebellion against them
Physical suffering just accompanies us throughout life
But that's only one dimension of it, isn't it?
in many ways more acute and more more difficult and dangerous is
psychological suffering
And again it begins with
Little kids the beginning of life we experience
You know rejection and an isolation humiliation even think of it like a little person who I am
Still in vivid memories of being lost as a kid probably just for a few moments
But it feels like an eternity when you're a child and where are my parents?
Kids that that weren't chosen for games they have that that sense of being rejected
You know now you move through your life and it becomes of course more intense more acute
I think for me the greatest psychological suffering I've been through is
Loneliness those times when in my life when I'm started in a new city or a new school
maybe most powerfully when I went to Paris for my doctoral studies and
You know here I was in the new language new city
Didn't know anybody when you start your day and you think there's no real prospect of
A meaningful human connection for me today. There's something just kind of hellish about that, you know
anyone that's been through the experience of losing a loved one knows this very
particular texture of psychological suffering when you know
At least in this life. I'm never gonna see that person again who meant so much to me or think of the experience of being
betrayed
you know by someone that you thought was a good friend and a supporter and suddenly they turned on you in a way that just
Surprised you and left you flummoxed. These are all different types of
psychological suffering
But having looked at that
We still haven't looked all the way down to the bottom of the well of suffering because there's finally what I'd call existential suffering
This is a loss of meaning a loss of purpose. So
Some people they might be physically fine. It might even be psychologically
balanced but they're experiencing this loss of meaning a
sense of a wider purpose
Think here of you know, jean-paul Sartre and the founder of existentialism Lafayette observed, you know life is absurd
That's someone that's that's experiencing existential suffering and anxiety or a, you know, Friedrich Nietzsche whom I often quote
His is God is dead again. I agree there with Jordan Peterson. That's not an exultant cry
That's a kind of despairing. Cry. God is dead. I mean, there's there's no
Transcendent reference to my life. No ultimate meaning
Now one more step. So these different dimensions of pain this this sort of metaphysically unavoidable fact
But here's the next step. I want to take there's a tight connection between
pain and
Sin, and the slightest reflection of it reveals. It just think it real practically
How do you behave toward other people when you're in a lot of pain?
Generally not so good
Much of life is trying to avoid pain
trying to
Get around it to prevent it or when we're in pain to
Respond to the one who put me in pain by getting back at him
It's often inflicting pain on others is a function of the pain that I'm in right and we all know that whether it's physical pain
psychological pain existential pain it tends to give rise to
The worst of our behavior pain and sin are linked
Okay now perhaps you're wondering why is this bishop and holy week talking so much to me about suffering and pain and all this
Well, go back to the cross of Jesus, right?
the church placing before our eyes at this holiest time of the year this man in
literally
Excruciating pain right so X crew che from the cross
Jesus on the cross is that the limit of physical suffering so think of all the physical suffering of your life?
well, here's someone who is
Pinned to this instrument of torture. That is slowly
asphyxiating him and
Exsanguinating him while he's in excruciating
Torturous pain covered in cuts and bruises lacerations. I mean the limit of physical suffering is there
But press it
There's also on that cross
terrible psychological suffering
Jesus who is betrayed by his friend
abandoned by his friends
denied
Denied by st. Peter that the chief of his apostles
Who's being a spat upon by pastors by being mocked and humiliated?
the leaders of a society both religious and political
Humiliating him publicly. I mean, it's the limit of
psychological pain
But then press it
That that utterly mysterious cry of Jesus on the cross, right God my God
why have you abandoned me I say what you want about that and it's it's been examined from a hundred different angles, but
something like
Existential pain is being manifested
there is some sense of of a loss of connection to God the point is that cross is
Someone who's at the limit of all these different forms of pain right now
now
If that's all he were just a man in
Intense pain we'd say well there's a great martyr or there's a great poor poor soul, you know
What's the hinge upon which this whole thing turns and the reason why the church puts that rather horrific
Vision before our eyes is that it's not just a man on that cross. It's a man who's also God
It's God who experiences the limit of physical suffering?
It's God who experiences the limit of psychological suffering?
Even even God who experiences the limit of existential suffering and see there's the whole point
God has entered into our pain and has thereby
Wrapped it up in the ever-greater Divine Mercy
God's love and this is what's revealed. Of course on Easter Sunday
What's revealed in the resurrection is that God's love God's mercy is
greater than
the
Totality of human pain now take a last step
Remember the link between pain and sin
whereas income from it comes from our own pain if God's
Mercy has wrapped up and conquered pain in a very real sense
He's wrapped up and conquered
Sin, that's why we say he became sin on the cross. Why sin was dealt with on the cross?
Okay
If I could sum this up, I would say I mean, I'm building on Jordan Peterson who said pain is metaphysically basic
But I'd say no no
finally the Divine Mercy is
metaphysically basic
the divine mercy that accompanied our pain all the way down and
enveloped it and in that we find our
Redemption