Teaching on Wisdom, Part VII Suffering: Solidarity Under a Good and Gracious God
Speaker Notes
Joseph Ratzinger – “Eschatology” (Death and Eternal Life) (pg. 101)
4. SOME CONCLUSIONS ON THE ETHOS OF DEATH IN CHRISTIANITY
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(b) The Meaning of Suffering
Christian faith knows that human life is in a higher and more comprehensive sense than mere biology grants. Spirit is not the soul’s enemy but a richer and greater life. Man finds himself only in that measure in which he accepts truth and justice as the locus of real living, even though the opening-up of life to these wider dimensions always takes on, in human history, the character of martyria. While faith does not deliberately seek out suffering, it knows that without the Passion life does not discover its own wholeness, but closes the door on its own potential plenitude. If life at its highest demands the Passion, then faith must reject apatheia, the attempt to avoid suffering, as contrary to human nature.
James 5:13-20
The Prayer of Faith
13 Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
17 Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18 Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.
19 My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, 20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.
W.H. Auden – “September 1, 1939” (Selected Poems, pg. 95-96)
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We must love one another or die.
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David is a Theologian and Ethicist.