In Part 1 of this series we looked at the Epistle of James’s revolutionary teaching on the value of suffering upon our souls, and in Part 2 we saw how St. Paul expands upon this insight to show how our sufferings also benefit the souls of others. In this final article we want to explore these apostolic insights were faithfully communicated to the next generation of Christians.
Ignatius’s sacrifice consisted of more than the act of
martyrdom. It had already begun in the mistreatment he suffered at the hands of
his Roman captors (Rom 5:1). Kenneth Howell, in his masterful translation
and commentary on Ignatius’s epistles, highlights the bishop’s use of antipsuchon, or “substitute soul.”[2]
Appropriating Paul’s words to the Colossians, Ignatius knew that his suffering
benefitted more souls than just his own. He told the Smyrneans: “My spirit and
my bonds are your substitute soul”; and their bishop Polycarp, “I and my bonds
that you love are your substitute soul in every way.” To the Trallians he
wrote, “My spirit makes you pure not only
now but also when I attain to God.” He expounded upon Paul’s theology of
the mystical body in his letter to the Philadelphians, “My brothers, I am being
completely poured out for love of you and with exceeding joy I try to make you secure. It is really
not I but Jesus Christ who does so.
In him, as a prisoner I am all the more afraid because I am still incomplete.
However, your prayer will make me
complete for God so that I may obtain a share in the lot where I received
mercy.” Ignatius made it clear that it was Christ
who accomplished all of this in his
body. Union with Christ would make the Philadelphians’ prayer for Ignatius
efficacious and his perseverance in suffering meritorious for them.
The early Church knew that God’s providence extended to
every area of their lives. The Didache,
or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles
(c. AD 100), directed readers to “accept as blessings the casualties that
befall you, assured that nothing happens without God.”[3]
Cyprian of Carthage (d. 258) taught that God made use of calamity to correct
the erring; but he also recognized some sufferings as no more than the
consequence of life in a fallen world: “[W]e are all, good and evil, contained
in one household. Whatever happens within the house we suffer with equal fate,
until, when the end of the temporal life shall be attained, we shall be
distributed among the homes either of eternal death or immortality.” It is our
union with Christ that injects meaning and purpose into these common
sufferings.
The Church’s meditation upon suffering has continued down
through the centuries. In the thirteenth century, for instance, St. Anthony of
Padua sagely remarked, “God sends us afflictions for various reasons: First, to
increase our merit; second, to preserve in us the grace of God; third, to
punish us for our sins; and fourth, to show forth his glory and his other
attributes.” In our own time, Pope St. John Paul II reflected deeply upon the subject
in his apostolic letter Savifici Doloris,
or On the Christian Meaning of Human
Suffering. John Paul was intimately acquainted with suffering. His mother
died when he was only eight years old, and his father and brother before he
turned twenty-one. He lived decades of his life under Nazi and Soviet
occupation. He survived an assassin’s bullet and endured the debilitating
effects of Parkinson’s disease. John Paul descended into some of the darkest
experiential places known to man, only to discover that he was not alone; the
Crucified was there, awaiting him:
Christ does not explain in the
abstract the reason for suffering, but before all else he says: “Follow me!
Come! Take part through your suffering in this work of saving the world, a
salvation achieved through my suffering! Through my cross.” Gradually, as the individual takes up his cross,
spiritually uniting himself to the cross of Christ, the salvific meaning of
suffering is revealed before him. He does not discover this meaning at his own
human level, but at the level of the sufferings of Christ. At the same time,
however, from this level of Christ the salvific meaning of suffering descends to man’s level and becomes, in
a sense, the individual’s personal response. It is then that man finds in his suffering
interior peace and even spiritual joy.[4]
This article was adapted from James: Jewish Roots: Catholic Fruits
(Angelico Press, 2021).
[1]
Kenneth Howell, Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna:
A New Translation and Theological Commentary (Zanesville, OH: CHResources,
2009); all subsequent quotations from the epistles of Ignatius were taken from
this source.
[2] Kenneth Howell, Ignatius of Antioch, 14.
[3] Johannes Quasten, ed., The Didache, The Epistle of Barnabus, the
Epistles and the Martyrdom of St. Polycarp, the Fragments of Papias, the
Epistle to Diognetus, Ancient
Christian Writers, trans. James A. Kleist (New York: Paulist Press, 1948).
[4] John Paul II, Savifici Doloris, 26.
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