Seeing the Suffering Jesus

Caryll Houselander has indeed become a new friend.

She died 50 years ago to the day that my mother died. Caryll died at age 53 on October 12, 1954. I was three years old then. She died of cancer but had been sickly much of her life.

And she is an oddball. An oddball is the term people in some places, such as where I reside, instead of using the word "mystic." In a biographical blurb on her life, Caryll is referred to as an "eccentric mystic." I ask, "What mystic is not eccentric?" Then I laugh!

Caryll suffered much, and not only physically. The physical suffering was often brought on by neuroses, and who could blame her with the childhood she lived, and with her natural sensitivity. She existed in the world but viewed it much as I can sometimes describe: as if crouched behind the Crucifix, peering out at the world and people in it. The view from behind the base of the cross is a different kind of view.

As a child, Caryll nearly died from a kind of spiritual awakening and trauma. In the final hours, it was the reception of the Eucharist, of the Blessed Host, which saved her. She knew this as fact, others were dumbfounded but couldn't embrace the miracle as she could, having lived it. From then on, suffering took more a form of rejections, losses, poverty, and sense of isolation.

Caryll experienced three life-altering visions. The first was of a Belgian nun, veritably alone and outcast during WWI while living in a British convent. Caryll saw her cleaning the children's shoes, tears silently rolling down her cheeks; and Caryll saw the crown of thorns on her head.

The second was the night of the Russian revolution and the massacre of Czar Nicholas and his family in their cellar. She saw, while on the way to the market in London, a huge icon of Jesus Crucified--and vividly described in her autobiography beyond what I can transpose here. The next day she found out about the massacre and the revolution, and for the first time saw a photo of the Czar: His was the face of Jesus in the icon. And she had never seen an icon previously. She then realized that Jesus exists and suffers for the whole world.

The third was as a young adult, despairing over aspects of people in the Catholic Church and on the verge of leaving the Faith. She felt so alone, and so disconnected, and saw inconsistencies and superficialities in people--in the Body of Christ. One day in an underground train, she saw Christ in people. And it isn't the typical Christ-in-others awakening. And it lasted three days. I include it here, although it may seem too long to read for some; but it is critical to my soul's next progression.

“I was in an underground train, a crowded train in which all kinds of people jostled together, sitting and strap-hanging—workers of every description going home at the end of the day. Quite suddenly I saw with my mind, but as vividly as a wonderful picture, Christ in them all. But I saw more than that; not only was Christ in every one of them, living in them, dying in them, rejoicing in them, sorrowing in them—but because He was in them, and because they were here, the whole world was here, too, here in this underground train; not only the world as it was in that moment, not only all the people in all the countries of the world, but all those people who had lived in the past, and all those yet to come.

“I came out into the street and walked for a long time in the crowds. It was the same here, on every side, in every passer-by, everywhere—Christ.

“I had long been haunted by the Russian conception of the humiliated Christ, the lame Christ limping through Russia begging His bread; the Christ who, all through the ages, might return to the earth and come even to sinners to win their compassion by His need. Now in the flash of a second, I knew that this dream is a fact; not a dream, not the fantasy or legend of a devout people, not the prerogative of the Russians, but Christ in man. It belongs therefore to the Catholic Church; Christ in His perfect human nature, Christ in His risen glory and Christ in His need and His suffering on earth, are reconciled. We have the whole Christ.

“The vision lasted with that intensity for several days, and each of them revealed the mystery and its implications for me a little more clearly. Although it did not prevent me from sinning ever again, it showed me what sin is, especially those sins done in the name of “love,” so often held to be “harmless”—for to sin with one whom you loved was to blaspheme Christ in that person; it was to spit on Him, perhaps to crucify Him. I saw too the reverence everyone must have for a sinner; instead of condoning his sin, which is in reality his utmost sorrow, one must comfort Christ who is suffering in him. And this reverence must be paid to those sinners whose souls seem to be dead, because it is Christ who is the life of the soul, who is dead in them; they are His tombs, and Christ in the tomb is potentially the risen Christ. For the same reason, any of us who have fallen into mortal sin himself must ever lose hope.

“It would be impossible to set down here all the implications of this “vision” of Christ in man; it altered the course of my life completely, and in a sense took away my difficulty with the Blessed Sacrament’s being put into the hands of sinners. I saw that it is the will of Christ’s love to be put into the hands of sinners, to trust Himself to men, that He may be their gift to one another, that they may comfort Him in each other, give Him to each other. In this sense, the ordinary life itself becomes sacramental, and every action of anyone at all has an eternal meaning.

“I knew, too, that since Christ is One in all men, as He is One in countless Hosts, everyone is included in Him; there can be no outcasts, no excommunicates, excepting those who excommunicate themselves—and they too may be saved, Christ rising from death in them.

“Christ is everywhere; in Him every kind of life has a meaning and has an influence on every other kind of life. It is not the foolish sinner like myself, running about the world with reprobates and feeling magnanimous, who comes closest to them and brings healing; it is the contemplative in her cell who has never set eyes on them, but in whom Christ fasts and prays for them—or it may be a charwoman in whom Christ makes Himself a servant again, or a king whose crown of gold hides a crown of thorns. Realization of our oneness in Christ is the only cure for human loneliness. For me, too, it is the only thing that gives meaning and purpose to every life….”

I am particularly impressed, at this phase of my own life, with comprehending how Christ suffers in people. This helps me accept and have more compassion for the mean-spirited Catholics who receive Jesus even daily, and yet do not seem to cooperate with His grace. Jesus is suffering in them, as He suffers in me when I am ugly and hurtful to Him, to His Body, to all of mankind who He desires and contains in His Body.

This morning I went to confession. The priest is the least likely, I had thought, to comprehend the world in which I exist and this view from behind the base of the cross. Yet, I have realized the intellectual priest cannot comprehend, for this kind of world requires thinking with the heart.

I commented upon how critical I have been of others and how Caryll's experience has helped me see the Suffering Jesus in many people. Seeing Him suffering in nasty people (and in myself when nasty) brings me to a deeper compassion--not dissipating the fact that we can be horrible acting, hypocritical, and this even after receiving His Body and Blood sacramentally. Caryll's experience has freed me from the ridiculous attempt to see Jesus joyful and risen in nasty people. For He isn't happy inside these souls. He is there suffering, dying for them to change their ways so He can rise in them.

For my part, I can have compassion for seeing Jesus suffering, and also for the people who would act in such ways as to require Jesus to suffer so in them.

In confession, I did not mention a specific instance. Last night a certain priest came to the Little Flower Holy Hour. I arrived early at the chapel, and he was there, in the second pew, alone before the Tabernacle. I guess he didn't recognize me when I walked in. Somehow, I found myself walking to the third pew, coming from the back, and sitting directly behind him. We were the only two living beings in that chapel.

This priest was possibly the most cruel person I've encountered in my Catholic existence. He inflicted terrible sufferings upon me which affected my children's lives and view of the Church. He lied, he said hateful and hurtful words, and he did underhanded--sinful--acts involving using other people for his gain. At other times, he could be extremely charming. Most would not know the prevalent dark side of his soul. And I wasn't the only person he hurt. He is at it now, emotionally brutalizing yet another parish secretary.

He was one of my first assignments. After some time and much suffering, I was removed from the assignment when two enormous and capable angels took over. I have no reason to doubt that they weren't there last night, sitting on either side of their charge.

I sat directly behind him, in the dimly lit chapel. I prayed right through his back for Jesus to have mercy on this man. I also prayed a thanksgiving that it didn't affect me to be alone with him. There were times past when I could not have been in the same room. I prayed and prayed and prayed. I prayed he would be healed of what it is that allures him to act sometimes so outwardly good and other times to be, well, downright evil. I thought about Jesus suffering in this priest, and how He must suffer. I thought about the Blessed Mother weeping for this priest and how he behaves at times.

I prayed that my intentions were as pure as possible, sitting there directly behind this man and praying through his back, gazing sometimes at his head, and wondering what thoughts he had right then.

I could tell he was becoming unnerved. Suddenly he turned full around in his pew, and asked, "How'r you doing?" He hadn't had time to digest who it was who sat behind him when he spoke; but recognition dawned in a split second as I said with a quiet smile, "Fine-thank-you."

As if in one sweep he turned back around and we resumed our prayer in front of the Tabernacle. After awhile, I began reading The Panagyrics of the Saints and as soon as the sacristan arrived, he seemed relieved to get up, gather his coat, beret, and briefcase, and enter the sacristy. Later, the chapel filled and we prayed the rosary and other prayers constituting the Holy Hour.

The talk he gave (for it was not a homily) dealt solely on a young man he is following about the country and now world, hoping for a late-in-life chance at renown. Instead of sharing his ideas, he said what Matthew says. He said where he was with Matthew, and the conferences they give, and what Matthew did and said then and there and this and that.

I could not look at him as he spoke. Why look at someone who can't be himself, who can't say what he thinks regarding God and faith and souls? So I looked at the Tabernacle and the Crucifix above the dwelling place of the Real Presence of Jesus Himself. And I thought about this man speaking, and prayed more and more. Jesus was right there, suffering.

I do hope and pray I wasn't displeasing to Jesus. Part of me thought maybe I was being rude, only looking at the suffering Jesus on the cross, listening to the man talk about how Matthew told a story about a rattlesnake that eventually bit a little boy after promising him he wouldn't hurt him. The man told how Matthew told this story, and that in the end, Matthew said that the snake said to the little boy, "But you knew when you first picked me up, just what I am. The priest then said that Matthew had said that we should recognize the rattlesnakes in our own lives, and they may be grudges or lack of forgiveness or anger. And the man repeated lack of forgiveness again.

This was the only time I glanced away from the Crucifix and looked at the man who was telling what Matthew said, and I said inside myself, to Jesus and silently to this man, "You are a rattlesnake." But I didn't know who you were, not at first. I didn't want to believe that you would hurt me even after you did. And I don't like it that you still hurt people very, very much and are doing so even this day! Then I began praying for one secretary he bit and then the current one who he is biting and inflicting the poisonous venom of hurt. I also prayed not only for mercy for him, and conversion, but that there would be justice, too. Jesus can rise in His loving justice!

This is perhaps what Caryll described as seeing Jesus in others, and in this case, of seeing the suffering Jesus.

I might send a card to this priest, telling him it was good to see him. For it was. I saw him from behind the base of Jesus' cross. I can honestly tell this priest and man that I have great hope and faith and love for him.