Isaiah 53
1 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-james-martin-sj/the-churchs-easter-what-n_b_524349.html
ReplyDeleteFor conversion is not simply a surrendering of what you can afford to give up. It means giving up things that are so much a part of you that you couldn't imagine yourself without them.
The story of Jesus does not end on Good Friday. This is what those who believe that the Catholic Church is already dead, already a bankrupt project, already devoid of any meaningful future, may not be able to see. What spiritual writers call "dying to self," painful as it is, always leads to something new. And surprising. Jesus's willingness to die--and turn himself over to a future that perhaps not even he could not imagine--led to everlasting life on Easter Sunday.
If we can let those old patterns die, the Catholic Church can be reborn. It can be a church more willing to confess its sins, more willing to seek forgiveness, more willing to do penance. Simple, humble, poor -- like Jesus.
This is not to say that God intended abuse for the "benefit" of the church, any more than God intends any other kind of suffering. That is a monstrous idea of God, and one that I reject.
And many readers will think that the idea of new life coming from a hopeless situation, in the wake of terrible crimes, is either misguided, ignorant, laughable, ridiculous or plain wrong. But the image of dying and rebirth is at the heart of the Christian message: It is the final meaning of Easter.