notes for "seven last words"

[prismaticbleed]

notes written in the margins of "seven last words" by james martin, s.j., while in the hospital.
some notes have been expanded for the sake of heartfelt elaboration.


1) "When the sick encountered [Jesus], they were healed of their illnesses... when the poor encountered Him, the Good News was preached to them."
+ Money is NOT healing-- but total dependence on God's Providence IS. Jesus STILL "healed" their poverty by turning it from lack into RICHES IN GOD.

2) "...Jesus says... "Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.""
+ This is SUPER DEEP-- we, NOW, still bring Christ into the world, and are linked to Him BY BLOOD!

3) "[This statement] expresses an alienation, or even separation, on Jesus's part from His own family."
+ Ironically EXPANDING His family beyond mere genetics, to a truer family born from LOVE OF GOD THE FATHER!!

4) "Now [on the Cross] Jesus goes to [the Father for comfort] and feels alone. It may be the loneliest any human being has ever felt."
+ But, for our sake, for His love of us, He HAD to understand that; how else could He ever offer consolation to lonely believers, if He didn't know this suffering firsthand? (EMOTIONAL INTIMACY)

5) "...This [dark night of the soul] moves close to, but does not accept, despair. In time... this searing experience [becomes] an invitation to unite [oneself] more closely with Jesus in His abandonment on the Cross and with the poor, who also feel abandoned."
+ Like all temptation, only ACCEPTANCE of the creeping despair is fatal!
+ The "dark night" teaches us profound, direct empathy, and such close empathy DEEPENS LOVE and makes it TRULY SINCERE!

6) "[Mother Teresa] made a radical act of fidelity based on a relationship she still believed in-- even if she could not sense God's presence. She trusted [her] earlier experience [of His Love]. In other words, she had faith.
+ THIS IS MY ENTIRE LIFE concerning love, and the fact that GOD GETS IT means the world to my poor heart, aching yet faithful.

7) "...Jesus understands... our spiritual suffering in these feelings of abandonment. He was like us in all things, except sin, and He experienced all that we do... you are praying to someone [Who] understands you fully."
+ A VITAL REMINDER that having such feelings ARE NOT SINS. Just do not give in; do not despair! Christ is our model and our hope in ALL distresses!
+ Jesus understands ALL of our human struggles. Reflect on this PROFOUNDLY.

8) "The Risen Christ carries within Himself the experiences of His humanity, and that includes suffering. Remember that in one of His first appearances after the Resurrection He showed the disciples His Wounds."
+ This means SO MUCH to me. I remember once being told that there was "no suffering in heaven" and jumping to the terrible conclusion that all of my scars of love would be erased. Jesus is LIVING PROOF of the TOTAL OPPOSITE. "Suffering teaches you to love," and "the greater the suffering, the purer the love." True, there is no active suffering in heaven, but the marks it left in our hearts remain as a testament TO THE LOVE IT ACTUALIZED. THAT is what I always knew, deep down-- that pain suffered for the beloved is not pain at all in the end, but even deeper love.

9) "The Risen Christ remembers His Suffering."
+ That is HUGELY IMPORTANT. His Resurrection DOES NOT ERASE HIS PAIN, of body, mind, and soul. BUT it TRANSMUTES it, mysteriously, without invalidating or mitigating it. The pain stays, and yet it becomes something else, something divinized, something extant within LIFE instead of death... and we can hope in that, too. But even then, the scars stay. And I, personally, thank God for that.

10) "God wants you to pray to Him. God desires a relationship with you, so much so that God came down to earth and suffered physically for you."
+ THESE ARE LINKED. LOVE SUFFERS FOR THE BELOVED, and THEREFORE, ANY TRUE & HEARTFELT RELATIONSHIP MUST HAVE A CORE OF SUCH GENUINE PAIN-MARKED EMPATHY-- FOR WITHOUT WOUNDS, THERE IS NO INTIMACY.

11) "It's important to meditate on [the unanswered] questions [about Jesus's feelings on the Cross], for they invite us into a deeper understanding of Jesus, and therefore a deeper relationship with Him."
+ Such wondering is not inherently heretical, if one with reverence. We SHOULD think about Jesus more often like this-- not as just in "rote memory" of the Gospels, but also in genuinely IMAGINING Him AS A LIVING PERSON-- as in the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius. Only then can Christ become a true part of our inner life, as it were. We often wonder, "what was it like for Him?" BUT you must "BE THERE" to "get an answer!" You must imagine yourself THERE, with Him, transcending space and time-- you must SEE WITH YOUR HEART!!

12) "Jesus... may have wondered what was going to happen to His disciples after His death. Would they continue to strive to live as He did? Would they put into practice His Words? Would they believe in the miracles they had witnessed? Would they love one another?"
+ WE, TOO, MUST DO ALL OF THIS NOW, ESPECIALLY WHEN THE WORLD INSISTS JESUS IS STILL DEAD! Our lives MUST be living testaments TO HIS LIFE-- a Life that CONTINUES NOW, both in His Resurrection AND IN THE CHURCH. Good Friday finds its real meaning in Easter Sunday, for both Him and for us... without the latter, you will never see the true depths and purpose and victory of the former. We have seen and believe: "Death has NO power over Him!!" And WE MUST BE HIS BODY, IN ALL WE DO.

13) "...God can use everything we bring to Him and magnify it-- even our dashed hopes."
+ This has always blown my mind-- our judgments and inability CANNOT AND DOES NOT HINDER GOD'S OMNIPOTENCE! To Him, it's all just RAW CREATIVE MATTER-- raw potential! And HE CAN AND WILL RESHAPE IT into something greater, IF WE GIVE HIM THE MATERIALS!!

14) "We may feel that hope is dead, but God is the source of all hope!"
+ This is KEY because PURE HOPE HAS NO OBJECT BUT GOD; otherwise, it's just a self-oriented wish. REAL hope banks EVERYTHING on God's Will, and TOTALLY SURRENDERS TO IT-- even, and especially, when all earthly hope is gone.

15) "Gethsemane is one of the clearest windows into [Jesus's] humanity, for Jesus doesn't immediately say, "Oh yes, God, whatever You want." No, first He says, "Remove this cup from me." Only then does He say, "yet, not what I want, but what You want." This is an utterly human response to impending suffering."
+ Such a quick, "automatic" response as the first example, however ostensibly pious, is more robotic than human as it doesn't consider FREEWILL OR EMOTION. Jesus was HONEST & OPEN about His fears, to the point of pleading total deliverance... BUT, HE STILL SURRENDERED!!! HIS LOVE WAS GREATER THAN HIS FEAR, and THAT is what both allowed Him TO be so candid with His Father, AND to nevertheless trust in HIS understanding Love so completely AS to surrender so entirely to EVEN what He feared!!

16) "...Jesus gave of His Body in another way [than the Cross] during His time on earth. He took His body throughout the land... He [was constantly giving] of Himself in His public ministry."
+ Remember: You CANNOT genuinely love ANYONE unless you love GOD FIRST... AND you must ALSO love God IN LOVING PEOPLE! Otherwise "love" loses its divine connection and risks becoming carnal and self-serving-- pride & ambition & praise-seeking disguised as love. In giving yourself to help others, you MUST ultimately and CONSCIOUSLY be giving yourself TO GOD first, through that act, or it will be tiring and spiritually hollow. ONLY LOVE TRULY FULFILLS THE LAW; ONLY FAITH MAKES ONE'S DEEDS RIGHTEOUS!

17) "...We usually withhold a part of ourselves from God... but we are asked to turn it all over to God, [and to surrender] to the future God has in store for us... as Jesus did. What will happen when we surrender? We don't know."
+ But trusting love means we don't need to. TRUST GOD. He knows what's best for our soul, ALWAYS. As for the holding nothing back, THAT is also our Gethsemane. Jesus did not hide His fears, doubt, or pain! His Self-gift was ABSOLUTE, and because of that, God could use His Life ABSOLUTELY. We cannot lose anything by giving it to God-- truly, giving Him our ugly parts ALLOWS Him to heal & fix & transmute them into beauty & peace! Don't be afraid of how ugly it is. God won't judge your worth by it. He loves you and can't wait to help you with that thing! Besides-- those damaged parts of you NEED the love of God, His healing touch. If you want to have Him mend your soul, you must give Him ALL of it. Even a mechanic can't fix your car unless the whole thing is in the shop! So it is with God. He does nothing halfheartedly, so don't give Him only half of yours!

18) "The more we give of ourselves, the more we know who we are: the more we give of ourselves, the fuller lives we will lead."
+ We only SEE our true self BY "taking it out of ourselves." We do not shrink, but EXPAND, as we open our hearts.

19) "...When Jesus encountered suffering of any kind, His first response, after listening to the person's problems, was to alleviate the suffering."
+ HE'S STILL LIKE THIS, FOREVER. Jesus LISTENS, LOVES, & HEALS, no exceptions. The only thing that can prevent His work is OUR LACK OF FAITH-- closed hearts, eyes, ears, hands, & minds. He can only heal what you trustingly let Him touch.

20) "For those who were suffering at the time, an encounter with Jesus meant the end of suffering. So it is misleading to focus on Jesus's life as a kind of glorification of suffering or sadness."
+ Jesus DID suffer & mourn WITH OTHERS, but FOR THE SAKE OF LOVE, EMPATHY, & HEALING. He never left a hurting soul unhealed, IF they asked AND BELIEVED in His healing touch! If there was ever a time He did not relieve someone of their suffering-- like in His hometown, when He could not work miracles although He wanted to-- it was because He was coming up against a lack of faith, a lack of trust, a refusal in some way to open their heart to His love, to His joy. That is the very foundation of suffering, after all.

21) "Jesus's preaching was meant to bring joy to those who followed Him. His words, were, after all, Good News... He says, "I have said these things to you so that My joy may be in you..."
+ WHY DO WE FORGET THIS STUNNING FACT?? Why do we dwell so much on the "do nots" and warnings and criticisms, forgetting that they are only HALF of Jesus's message-- truly, they're meant only for those who REFUSE the joy & love of Christ! Is it just our keen awareness of our sin, our weakness, our propensity to fall? Yet Jesus SAYS, RIGHT HERE, that He tells us these things SO WE CAN SHARE HIS JOY!! He doesn't want to condemn us! He WANTS even those He rebukes to REPENT and leave their joyless ways behind! SAME WITH US. So do not despair. Christ comes to restore your hurting heart to joy-- His joy, true and real and forever.
+ JOY & SUFFERING DO NOT CANCEL EACH OTHER OUT!!! Honestly, they FULFILL each other mysteriously. Christ proves this to us! Suffering is human, Joy is DIVINE. And CHRIST UNITES THEM!!!

22) "...You are never alone in your suffering. The Risen Christ-- alive and present to us in the Holy Spirit-- is with you in your suffering. He is with you in His divinity-- that is, He knows all things and therefore understands your suffering fully. And He is with you in His humanity-- He experienced all of these things [personally]."
+ The phrasing of his is a GAME CHANGER for me; previously, the phrase "you're not alone" was empty & obligatory, with no real meaning-- not only that, but it didn't matter to me if I "wasn't alone," because even if I was in a room with three hundred people going through the same problem, they still didn't know MY suffering. I was still isolated, maybe even morseo, surrounded by people who "understood," because in the end, they don't. It just gets shoved through a filter, and everything gets confused. Sometimes it even feels violatory-- the pain is so close & personal & raw, that having someone else attempt to "empathize" can be traumatic, like they're trying to dig out my heart and claim it as their territory. BUT JESUS DOESN'T DO THAT. He doesn't stay separate. He doesn't guess or meddle. He IS WITH ME, IN MY HEART, AS I SUFFER. Saying I'm "never alone" with Jesus is not a paltry reminder that He's standing by in support, but a bold revelation that WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER, as close as blood. The Holy Spirit sticks around. He gets it. He knows what I can't even express. And He LOVES ME EVEN THEN, as completely and honestly as I could ever be loved-- but not just as God. That would feel too distant to the most aching, lost soul. No, Christ also loves us humans as a human. That's STAGGERING. Our personal agonies are not just abstract ideas to Him. Our unique suffering is not too strange for Him to grasp. I repeat: HE GETS IT, because He TAKES OUR PERSONAL HUMANITY INTO HIS OWN and lives it WITH us, IN us, AS us even... but without sin. That's important. Sin won't admit pain. It's too proud, too arrogant, too hateful of heaven. It's only when we are stabbed by contrition that the pain crashes into us in waves, and we cry out to God... only to realize, in the depths of that sea of tears, that He is already holding our hand.