Mother Rebecca
June 28th 2015
Mk
5:21-43
In chapter today I am going to
share what I am personally studying and reading these days but in the end try
to incorporate that into today's gospel.
So what comes out of this
combination may seem a bit strange but hopefully not too incoherent! I have been reading bits and pieces of Julian
of Norwich's “Showings” or “Revelations of Love”. For those who do not know her that well, she
had a visionary experience in 1373 when she was 30 years old. From
this she received 16 revelations centered on Jesus’ Passion. In chapter 2 of the “Showings”, Julian
expresses a desire for three gifts from God.
“The first is the mind of (Christ's) Passion.” She explains in this first desire, wanting to
experience being at the foot of the cross with Jesus’ mother and Mary Magdalene
in order to more deeply understand the sufferings of Christ's Passion. Our Cistercian Fathers talk frequently about
the more we know God the more we love God.
Here with Julian, the more she loves God the more she desires to know
Him. The second gift she requested was
bodily sickness in her youth – to experientially know the sufferings of
Christ in her own body. She explained
that her deeper desire in this request was, through this suffering, to be
cleansed by God’s mercy and open her heart to a greater longing for Him. The more she understood His suffering for
her; the more she would understand God’s love.
The third gift she longed for was to be given from God three
wounds. The 3 wounds she desired were
the wounds of compunction, compassion, and greater longing for God. (ch 2) So with that background, I would like to
reflect briefly on these three wounds.
A
wound implies an opening...a painful one.
The first wound she requested was compunction. The word does not mean just “a pin prick” but
to be pierced through completely. The
Hebrew word “saw-reed” means to puncture. One use of the word is found in Jeremiah 31 (vs1): “The people who ‘survived’ {or
punctured by} the sword found grace in the wilderness; when Israel sought for
rest the Lord appeared.” The remnant of
Israel was not a people who escaped
disaster but who were able to persevere through them to the other side…and not
only found rest, but the Lord! Compunction is to puncture the heart that has
become hardened by sin, distorted desire, or disordered loves. Yet it is a piercing, or repentance, that is
full of joy. Merton calls compunction “the
great poverty that is the beginning of joy” - repentance through knowledge of our
sin; joy through knowledge of God’s love.
We can think compunction is for beginners in monastic life or the
spiritual journey – but it is all through our life, changing us forever. We are never w/o God’s mercy holding us up.
This
compunction opens us to understand other people’s sufferings with compassion. This is because it is the false self that has
been pierced through. We could say compunction
is about me; compassion is about others – expanding the circle. According
to Merton, the only way to transform from self-centeredness is if God pierces
through me to act and love in me. This opens
the door of the heart to universal compassion.
No longer judging others, but in solidarity, we see we are all together
in need of God’s mercy and healing. So the wound of the heart opens wider through
compassion - softening the heart - and this leads to Julian’s third wound or
gift: a greater longing and union with
the Body of Christ and the whole world in all its suffering.
In Chapter 75 Julian speaks of God’s longing for us. “Ever He draws and drinks and yet ever He
thirsts and longs”. In her revelations,
she saw “3 longings in God”. The first is that He longs to teach us to
know him and love him. Second, God longs
to bring us joy. Third, God longs to
complete that joy in total union with Him.
But I was reading an article by Domenico Pezzini and he brought up an
interesting observation. He said “it is
only natural that what is inferior, and as such wanting, should tend towards
the one who is supreme, complete, and infinite:
this movement is what we call desire.
But if we consider desire only, or mainly, as an expression of want or
lack, it may seem scandalous to associate desire with God, who is fullness of
being and in need of nothing.” But,
while desire means that we want what we do not have, it may also express the
longing to share what we do
have. “In this case, desire is not a
lack, but a vigorous dynamic power, which...draws all created things towards
union.” Longing becomes a love that
wants to share everything.
Whereas
Julian, a healthy woman, longs to experience suffering and sickness as the
means of intense longing and union with Christ, the woman with the hemorrhage
in today’s gospel is the opposite. She
has had chronic suffering and sickness and longs for healing as a means of union with Christ. Then we have Jairus who displays compassion –
a desire for the healing of another who suffers. We see how compunction heals our soul,
compassion heals another, and longing for God heals our world. It is
faith that brings about healing for all three.
Julian, in suffering through compunction, reveals God’s mercy and love. Jairus’, suffering through compassion, seeks
wholeness for another through the healing power of Jesus' love. Then there is the hemorrhaging woman, suffering
illness, seeks for a healing that will bring her the completeness of joy.
Faith
here is the key and they are all changed forever. Julian 20 years later re-writes her
revelations because through meditating on them all her life she gained more and
more knowledge of God and love of Christ manifested in the Cross. The bleeding woman no doubt is changed
forever though she is never mentioned again.
Jairus through faith changed not only himself but brought new life to his
daughter as well. They each sought out
Jesus in mercy, love, and union.
Do
we realize the power of these 3 things – compunction, compassion, and
longing? Do we experience them –
meditate on them - and so change our life forever!...Opening the door ever
wider – entering into the wounds of Christ.
Do we use our suffering to unite us deeper to Christ?...and to others
who suffer in the world? Does our
suffering lead us to compassion for the whole Body of Christ? Or do we look for escapes to suffering? or
focus on our self? Do we embrace them with the passionate desire
of Julian? When we suffer it doesn’t
suffocate desire; rather it opens the door wider. Meditating on Christ on the cross puts our
own sufferings into perspective and makes our love for God boundless. This is our joy. This is our longing.
All three of them had different
journey. Julian desires suffering to
know God’s love; the bleeding woman desires healing to understand God’s love;
Jairus desires healing for others because he himself has experienced God’s
love. What do we do with our suffering? (Not only the suffering that pierces through our
heart, but the pin pricks.) St Therese
spoke of these daily pin pricks as a martyrdom of love. Let us not waste them!
Today
we learn from these three that our wounds are doors opening us even wider to
union with God. Let us be like Julian
who sits at the foot of the cross, or the bleeding woman desiring to just touch
the cloak of Jesus; or Jairus seeking Jesus for consolation and joy not for
himself but the whole body of Christ.
This is the challenge of today’s gospel…do our wounds lead us to
Christ? To greater Love? To intense longing for God? To fullness of joy?
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