Redemptive Suffering & the Early Church

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, the Bishop of Antioch, Syria, wrote of suffering and martyrdom during his transport to Rome, on his way to die in the Colosseum (AD 110). Many of Ignatius’s statements echo Paul’s teaching on suffering. In Ignatius’s Epistle to the Ephesians he wrote, “My spirit is in sacrificial service for the cross, which is a scandal to unbelievers [1 Cor 1:18]”; and he told the Magnesians, “If we do not willingly embrace dying for his passion, neither is his life in us [Rom 8:17].”[1] When Ignatius wrote to the Christians in Rome, he asked that they not attempt to intervene on his behalf: “Permit me to be an imitator of the sufferings of my God. If anyone possesses [Christ] in himself, let him consider what I want and let him suffer with me.” Like Paul, he saw his life being poured out as a “libation,” a drink offering (Phil 2:17; 2 Tim 4:6). He linked his martyrdom to the offering of Christ, re-presented to the Father in the Church’s Eucharist: “Permit me to be food for the beasts, through them I will reach God. I am the wheat of God and I compete through beasts’ teeth to be found the pure bread of Christ.”

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 is the wisdom of the Cross (1 Cor 1:23–24)—the rich fruit borne of the Epistle of James’s admonition to “count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials” (1:2). The Church of the twenty-first century needs to re-appropriate this wisdom. Praise be to God, who gives generously to all who ask (James 1:5).

This article was adapted from James: Jewish Roots: Catholic Fruits (Angelico Press, 2021).

 

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[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.

St. Paul in the Garden of Gethsamene

In an earlier post I looked at the Epistle of James’ revolutionary teaching on the value of suffering. In this article we want to build upon those insights, seeing how closely St. Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” paralleled the Lord Jesus’s experience in Gethsemane (2 Cor 12:7-10). Take a moment to unpack this with me, because it ties directly into our own experiences of suffering.

In Gethsemane we see Jesus as we’ve never seen him before. He collapsed to the ground and cried through tears, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to you; remove this chalice from me; yet not what I will, but what you will” (Mark 14:35–36; Heb. 5:7). Mark’s Gospel tells us that Jesus repeated this prayer three separate times. “Sorrow” pushed him to the point of death (Mark 14:34). Jesus had stepped into the place of sinners, taking, as it were, the weight of our sins upon his shoulders. He witnessed every betrayal, slander, rape, and murder from history’s dawn until its end and offered the Father all the sorrow and contrition that mankind should feel, but does not. He offered the Father the love of which those sins robbed Him. An angel was sent, not to whisk Jesus away but strengthen him so that his body and soul could endure more than humanly possible. The Son learned what it was to put one foot in front of the other in painful obedience; and his Passion redeemed us. The Epistle to the Hebrews goes so far as to say that Jesus was “made perfect” by this obedient acceptance of suffering (Heb 5:8-9). It was the means by which his humanity was “perfected” (teleioō  in Greek, “completed,” or “brought to fullness”); the “indestructible life” of the Resurrection was reached by way of the Cross (Heb 7:16).

Now look at Paul’s account of his “thorn in the flesh.” Although Paul does not spell out the difficulty, a number of commentators suggest a chronic physical ailment. Whatever its nature it must have been a source of great pain for Paul to have characterized it as “a messenger of satan meant to buffet me and keep me from becoming puffed up” (2 Cor. 12:7). Paul petitioned the Lord to remove the thorn – not once, but three separate times. And like Jesus’ three petitions, Paul’s were not met with a cessation of pain but an infusion of strength – and not from an angel, but Jesus himself. The Lord spoke to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” This revelation led Paul to say, “I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:9-10).

Saint Paul reveals another element of the mystery: Not only can suffering be redemptive for us personally, but the grace we receive at such moments spills over to other members of Christ’s mystical body. Many Christians are unacquainted with this belief, but it is grounded in Scripture and Tradition. From prison Paul wrote the Colossians, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church” (Col. 1:24). First, let us be clear that Paul was not placing a limit on the redemptive scope of Christ’s Passion. Paul held Jesus’s sacrifice to be absolutely sufficient. Christ, and he alone, has redeemed us from the guilt of our sins and united us to the Father. Second, we have also seen Paul’s conviction that we must suffer with Christ if we are to be raised with him (Rom 8:16–17) and that it is in times of suffering that Christ imparts additional grace to the soul and advances us toward final justification (2 Cor 12:9; Phil 3:10–12; Acts 14:22).

These two truths harmonize to explain how Paul’s sufferings could benefit the Colossians: Christ’s obedience in suffering paid the eternal debt of sin and won redemption for the human race. United to him, the sufferings of his Church are a divinely ordained means for appropriating the grace of redemption. Grace descends not just upon the individual bearing his or her suffering, but upon other Christians. That is what Paul communicated, in a shorthand way, when he told the Colossians that he rejoiced in the sufferings he underwent for their sake. This is but another facet of Paul’s well-known teaching that Christ and the Church form one mystical person, wherein each member enriches the others (1 Cor 12:12–27; Eph 4:11–16).

Jesus is the redeemer, and baptism unites us to him. He lives in us, and we live in him. This makes it possible for our sufferings to be drawn into his and offered to the Father. It is a mystery analogous to that of the Eucharist: Christ presents us to the Father, “This is my Body, this is my Blood.” If Christ’s obedience while suffering the Passion merited the redemption of our race, then his suffering in us—the trustful surrender to the Father that he produces in our souls—can merit the application of redemptive graces to our brothers and sisters. The Redeemer makes the sufferings of his members redemptive. This teaching in no way denies Christ’s position as the sole mediator between God and man. As members of his body, we Christians intercede from “within” him (1 Tim 2:1–5). The thought that we play a role in others’ salvation may seem scandalous to some, but it is thoroughly biblical. Did not God make the world’s salvation dependent upon the preaching of the apostles? They extended Christ’s teaching ministry beyond the borders of Israel: “we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us” (2 Cor 5:20; cf. Rom 10:14; 1 Tim 4:16; Jude 22–23). If the Church can participate in this aspect of Christ’s redeeming work, then why not his work of suffering?

Christ unites our earthly sufferings to his and transmutes them into spiritual sacrifices. The Father accepts such sacrifices and reciprocates with unmatched generosity: “[give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be put into your lap” (Lk 6:38). All of this explains why Paul could rejoice in his experience of Gethsamene: it was a priestly offering, supernaturally valuable, and beneficial for his brothers and sisters.

This article was adapted from James: Jewish Roots: Catholic Fruits (Angelico Press, 2021).

What Can James Teach Us About Suffering? (Part 1)

Martyrdom of James the Just

James places redemptive suffering, this revolutionary element of the gospel, right at the beginning of his epistle. “Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (1:2-4).

Like the books of Psalms, Proverbs, and Sirach, James reminds us that difficulties have always been part believers’ lives. In speaking of “various trials” that test our faith, he speaks of not just religious persecution but sickness, crime, loneliness, poverty – whatever tests our faith in God’s love, goodness, and justice. What is revolutionary in James’ statement, however, is the idea that Christians should look upon trials with intense joy. The Greek text helps us understand his rationale: “Joy” is charan, from the root word charis, or “grace.” Our trials are occasions for joy precisely because God’s grace is at work to bring us successfully through the period of testing and perfect the image of Christ in our souls. When James says that the testing of our faith produces “steadfastness,” or “endurance,” he uses the Greek term hypomonēn. Etymologically, it points to “remaining under” a heavy load. This load is Christ’s Cross that, like the Master, we must carry (Mt 16:24) if we are to become “perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (Jas 1:4).

We Christians are not masochists. We don’t embrace suffering as an end in itself. Rather, through it, we embrace our crucified Lord so as to arrive with him at the glory of the Resurrection. James continues, “Blessed is the man who endures trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him” (1:12). When we persist in faith in the Father’s love for us, committing our lives into his hands despite the pain we endure, it is then that we most resemble the Lord Jesus – and that is what makes our suffering redemptive for us personally.

You see, when an Israelite was ordained to the priesthood, his hands were anointed with oil. In the Greek translation of the OT, teleioō was used in place of the Hebrew idiom, “fill up the hands” (Ex 29:29, 35; Lev 8:33; 16:32; 21:10; Num. 3:3). With this in mind, Hebrews 5:8-9 takes on added significance, “[Jesus] learned obedience through what he suffered; and being made perfect [teleioō ] he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek” (Heb 5:8-10). Jesus was consecrated to the priesthood via obedience in the midst of suffering! Hebrews applies the same term, teleioō, to the spirits of the just in heaven (Heb 12:24) – the same spirits the Book of Revelation shows participating in Christ’s priestly intercession before the Father’s throne (Rev 5:8; Heb 7:25).

As members of his Mystical Body, the Church participates in Christ’s self-offering to the Father. For those of us still on earth, Christ unites our earthly sufferings to his and transmogrifies them into spiritual sacrifices. Further, we recognize that the Father accepts such sacrifices and reciprocates with unmatched generosity; “[G]ive, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be put into your lap” (Lk 6:38). We receive abundant grace and take on the image of our Crucified Lord – the very goal of discipleship.

I would further suggest that the manner in which we endure our trials – committing ourselves, via the movement of grace, into the Father’s hands with our eyes fixed on the resurrection – is an important way that our faith is manifested in works. James tells us that it was Abraham’s response to testing that brought his faith to completion (2:22). Abraham placed his son upon the wood of sacrifice – in effect, joining himself to the Cross – with faith that God could raise the dead (Heb 11:19). We embrace the Cross in the same conviction! Therefore, as James says, “Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (1:2-4).

In Part 2 of this article, we’ll look at how Paul builds upon James’ insight, rejoicing not just in the value suffering had upon his own soul, but the benefit Paul’s sufferings had upon the souls of others. 

James, Paul, and Justification at the Council of Trent

Justification means being put into right relationship with God; or as the Council of Trent declared, it is “the change from the condition in which a person is born as a child of the first Adam into a state of grace and adoption among the children of God through the Second Adam, Jesus." A great number of people, both inside and outside of the Church, are confused as to how we believe this comes about. One of my goals when writing James: Jewish Roots, Catholic Fruits was to show how James’ view of justification is in agreement with St. Paul’s and how this biblical teaching is exactly what the Catholic Church enunciated in Trent’s Decree Concerning Justification (DCJ hereafter). While a chapter allows me to go into much greater detail, I at least wanted to put together a meaty summary for blog readers, showing how justification is a process with a beginning, middle, and end – with every stage completely dependent upon God’s grace.

 

Initial Justification

God is the source of our justification. The Father sent his Son in the power of the Holy Spirit to announce and enact the gospel of our salvation. Faith in the gospel is the beginning of our salvation. James tells us, “Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights…Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.” Paul is of the same mind: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God — not because of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph 2:9). And Trent could not be more emphatic: “[N]one of the things that precede justification, whether by faith or works, merit the grace of justification. For, if by grace, it is not now by works, otherwise, as the Apostle says, grace is no more grace [Rom 11:6].” (DCJ, 7); and again, “in adults the beginning of that justification must proceed from the predisposing grace of God through Jesus Christ…without any merits on their part, they are called” (DCJ, 5).

We cooperate with this predisposing grace and receive baptism, the sacrament of faith: “He saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:4-7). Baptism is our birth into the family of God.

 

Progress in Justification

Once born, we are expected to grow; and that requires our cooperation. Just as physical growth requires proper nutrition, the normal functioning of the muscles, and avoidance of danger; so growth in the supernatural life requires attentiveness to prayer, the willingness to live as Christ, and the avoidance of grave sin. Without these, we whither. James asks, “What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead “(2:14-17). This actually continues St. Paul’s thought from above, “by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God…For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:9-10).

Every good work originates in God but is actualized in us, and thus requires our cooperation. That is why Paul tells the Philippians to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil 2:12-13). The Council of Trent says the same: “For since Christ Jesus Himself, as the head into the members and the vine into the branches [Jn 15:1], continually infuses strength into the justified, which strength always precedes, accompanies, and follows their good works, and without which they could not in any manner be pleasing and meritorious before God……[F]ar be it that a Christian should either trust or glory in himself and not in the Lord [1 Cor 1:31; 2 Cor 10:17], whose bounty toward all men is so great that He wishes the things that are His gifts to be their merits” (DCJ, 16).

Martin Luther famously saw conflict between James’ statement that “a man is justified by works and not by faith alone” (2:24) and Paul’s “a man is justified by faith apart from works of law” (Rom 3:28); but this simply isn’t the case. James wrote to Jewish Christians who he had reason to believe were lax in living their faith. Paul, on the other hand, wrote to mixed communities in which Jewish believers insisted that Gentiles who came to faith in Christ were not truly justified until they were circumcised and began living under the Mosaic Law’s cultic and dietary stipulations.

Christians do live under a law, but it is not the Law of Moses. It is what James calls “the royal law,” or law of the kingdom (2:8-9) and what Paul calls the “law of Christ” (Gal 6:2; 1 Cor 9:21). Paul makes a distinction between “works of the law” and other “works” which must be manifest if one is to obtain final salvation:

[God] will render to every man according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life…. it is not the hearers of the [Mosaic] law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles who have not the law [of Moses] do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. (Rom 2:6–7, 13–16)

Paul makes the same point in Galatians: “[T]hrough the Spirit, by faith, we wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, but faith working through love” (Gal 5:5-6). There is no true conflict between Paul and James. They even make the same distinction between those who hear and those who do (Rom 2:13; James 1:22)!

We progress in justification as we remain faithful to Christ in the midst of trial and temptation. Listen to James: “Blessed is the man who endures trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him…[E]ach person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full-grown brings forth death.” (1:12-15). “What causes wars, and what causes fighting among you? Is it not your passions that are at war in your members? You desire and do not have; so you kill. And you covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war” (4:1-2). Paul called this our struggle against “the flesh” (Rom 7:21-23; 8:12-13). But as James assures us, we receive power to overcome, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you men of double mind…Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. (James 4:6-10).

The Council of Trent wrote of these same realities: “[I]n the one baptized there remains concupiscence or an inclination to sin, which, since it is left for us to wrestle with, cannot injure those who do not acquiesce but resist manfully by the grace of Jesus Christ; indeed, he who shall have striven lawfully shall be crowned [Eph 4:22, 24; Col. 3:9]. This concupiscence, which the Apostle sometimes calls sin [Rom 6-8; Col. 3], the holy council declares the Catholic Church has never understood to be called sin in the sense that it is truly and properly sin in those born again, but in the sense that it is of sin and inclines to sin” (Decree Concerning Original Sin, 5).

“Venial” sins impede the flow of Christ’s life within us but do not completely sever our union with the Lord. James says, “For we all make many mistakes” (3:2); and Trent notes, “during this mortal life, men, however holy and just, fall at times into at least light and daily sins, which are also called venial, they do not on that account cease to be just, for that petition of the just, forgive us our trespasses [Mt 6:12]” (DCJ, 11). Venial sins, if not repented of, can lead us into mortal sin; or as James says, “desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full-grown brings forth death” (1:15). Paul lists such deadly sins in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and Galatians 5:19-21, warning that “those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” (And yes, “modern” world, sexual sins are among them.)

“But God, who is rich in mercy,” will restore every child who repents (Eph 2:4). James writes, “whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (5:20). This healing is normally effected through the sacrament of reconciliation, or penance; and James may well make reference to the public celebration of the sacrament when, after his discussion of presbyters anointing the sick, he counsels readers to “confess your sins to one another” (5:16; Cf Jn 20:22-23). Trent highlights the role of grace in reconciliation: “Those who through sin have forfeited the received grace of justification, can again be justified when, moved by God, they exert themselves to obtain through the sacrament of penance the recovery, by the merits of Christ, of the grace lost” (DCJ, 14).

The bottom line is that we must grow in the divine life. As Paul wrote, “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Phil 3:12).

Final Justification

Our perseverance in grace will be rewarded when we stand before Christ the judge and receive the fullness of justification in the resurrection of our bodies. James tells us, “Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it until it receives the early and the late rain. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand” (5:7-8); and Paul writes, “we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom 8:16-17). Trent insists that even this result of grace:

“…with regard to the gift of perseverance, of which it is written: He that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved [Mt 10:22; 24:13], which cannot be obtained from anyone except from Him who is able to make him stand who stands [Rom 14:4], that he may stand perseveringly, and to raise him who falls, let no one promise himself herein something as certain with an absolute certainty, though all ought to place and repose the firmest hope in God's help. For God, unless men themselves fail in His grace, as he has begun a good work, so will he perfect it, working to will and to accomplish [Phil 1:6; 2:13]” (DCJ, 13).

So there you are my friends, a scriptural and magisterial “cheat sheet” on the doctrine of justification.

Book Review: "An Economics of Justice & Charity"

I have spent the past year delving into the Epistle of James, looking at the epistle's Jewish roots as well as how its inspired author's thought has continued to unfold within the Church's meditation and subsequent teaching. James had a number of things to say about the proper relationship between capital and labor, the rich and the poor; and it left me wanting to understand the Church's social justice teaching, specifically in regards to economics. I had heard phrases such as, "a preferential option for the poor," and "just wage." I knew of the Church's opposition to communism and that Leo XIII's Rerum Novorum began a series of papal teachings on the topic of social justice; but I felt ill-prepared to dive immediately into such deep waters. I needed a trustworthy guide - ideally an orthodox, one-volume overview of the subject. Archbishop Sheen's Justice & Charity (TAN, 2016) was, of course, excellent; but Sheen penned his lectures in 1938, before John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI made their decisive contributions.

I couldn't help but feel that Providence intervened when I received Angelico Press's email blast announcing the release of Thomas Storck's An Economics of Justice & Charity: Catholic Social Teaching, Its Development and Contemporary Relevance. It was exactly what I was looking for. Storck takes readers through all of the pontificates from Leo XIII to Francis, providing historical context and explaining the key points of their social justice encyclicals and speeches.

As an already-accomplished author and contributing editor of The Distributist Review, Storck's prose and analysis is impeccable. When I finished the book I felt like I had a decent enough grasp on the salient points to begin tackling the papal encyclicals for myself. (Links to the encyclicals at the Vatican website are provided after this review.) Prior to reading An Economics of Justice & Charity, I had no idea that the Church defined a "just wage" as one that allowed a man to care for his family, without need for his wife to work outside of the home. I was amazed to find Pope Pius XI advocating for "profit sharing" in the 1930s! I appreciated the popes' analysis of socialism as a reaction to laissez-faire capitalism. Storck's analysis of John Paul II's Centesimus Annus was especially detailed, and he supported his points well. He also provides an appendix wherein he seeks to explain the Church's ongoing opposition to usury.

If you want to delve into the untapped treasure of the Church's social justice teaching, An Economics of Justice & Charity is the place to begin. Storck is an ideal guide to explore the papal magisterium on this subject.
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Links to Papal Encyclicals:
Rerum Novarum (1891)
Quadragesimo Anno (1931)
Divini Redemptoris (1937)
Mater et Magistra (1961)
Populorum Progressio (1967)
Laborem Exercens (1981)
Centesimus Annus (1991)
Caritas In Veritate (2009)
Laudato Si (2015)