Florida Catholic | Bishop Barbarito's Column

‘Christ made himself poor for you’

Published: 02.22.08

God has decided to suffer with us and even the slightest realization of the depth of his love enables us to love in return.”

Pope Benedict’s XVI’s Lenten message this year is titled “Christ Made Himself Poor for You” (2 Cor 8:9). The message is on the practice of almsgiving and the Holy Father emphasizes that we are to give to others because God has so generously given to us. To reflect upon the love of God for us and to respond to the love is indeed the essence of all we do by prayer, fasting and almsgiving during Lent.

There is a magnificent painting that was used as an altarpiece during the Middle Ages that depicts well the selfless love of God for us. The painting has taken many forms but it is basically one of God the Father holding out to us, in his outstretched arms, his Son on a crucifix with the Holy Spirit represented as a dove between the Father and the Son as the Father’s breath. One of the titles of the altarpiece is “The Throne of Mercy.” It portrays in a vivid manner that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son and the Son so loved us that he became poor and died for us. From that total giving, the Holy Spirit gives us life. God did not send his Son to condemn the world, but to save it.

Another title for the painting is “The Passion of the Father.” This title captures the meaning of the phrase “God’s mad eros,” which Pope Benedict XVI used to refer to God’s love for us in his Lenten message of last year. God so loves us and so much desires our love that he chose to suffer with us that we might have life and that he might always be with us even in our deepest suffering. In this regard, the Holy Father is quite fond of quoting the words of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, “God cannot suffer, but he can suffer with.” To suffer with is a translation of the Latin word for compassion. God is compassionate because he suffers with us. The pope most recently quoted St. Bernard’s words in his encyclical on hope and further commented, “Man is worth so much to God that he himself became man in order to suffer with man in an utterly real way — in flesh and blood — as is revealed to us in the account of Jesus’ passion.”

In the year 2000, then-Archbishop Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan conducted the annual Lenten retreat for Pope John Paul II; Archbishop Van Thuan was later named a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2001. The archbishop literally proved himself a man willing to shed his blood for the sake of the Gospel, the meaning of the cardinal’s red robes. He had been a prisoner in various communist facilities for 13 years, nine of them in solitary confinement. He faced the agonizing pain of humiliation, isolation and abandonment, but grew in his love for Christ, his church, but, most amazingly, even for those who imprisoned him during that time. He knew the compassion, the “mad eros” and the poverty of God, and it was these that fed his love for Christ.

At the beginning of the pope’s retreat, Cardinal Van Thuan told the papal household that he was a follower of Christ because of the defects of Christ. He then went on to describe what he considers these defects. Christ had a terrible memory: He forgave lavishly and then forgot the sins he pardoned, as he did with the sinful woman who anointed his feet (cf. Lk 7:36-50). Christ did not know math: He equated one lost sheep with 99 (cf. Lk 15:4-7). Christ did not know logic: He praised the woman who lost a silver piece, found it and then held a celebration in which she spent more than the worth of the silver piece (cf. Lk 15:8-10). Christ was a risk-taker: He did not attract followers with many promises, but only sure sufferings (cf. Mt 5:3-12, 8:20). Christ did not understand finances: He was pleased with the landowner who paid the same generous wage to all regardless of what hours they worked (cf. Mt 20:1-16). At the conclusion of the retreat, the cardinal spoke of the ultimate defect of Christ: He was a poor examiner, as he revealed the answer of the final exam before God at the last judgment — LOVE (cf. Mt 25:31-46).

Raising the question as to why Christ had all these defects, Cardinal Van Thuan answered, “Because he is love (cf. 1 Jn 4:16). Real love does not reason, does not measure, does not create barriers, does not calculate, does not remember offenses and does not impose conditions. Jesus always acts out of love. From the home of the Trinity, he brought us a great love, infinite, divine, a love that reaches — as the Fathers of the Church say — ‘ever to the point of folly, throwing our human measurements into crises.’”

Indeed Cardinal Van Thuan’s words capture the meaning of the altarpiece, “The Throne of Mercy.” From “the home of the Trinity” Christ brings us a love that is “mad eros” to the point of folly. God has decided to suffer with us and even the slightest realization of the depth of his love enables us to love in return.

In his Lenten message this year, Pope Benedict XVI tells us that “Lent offers us a providential opportunity to deepen the meaning and value of our Christian lives, and it stimulates us to rediscover the mercy of God so that we, in turn, become more merciful toward our brothers and sisters.” As we continue our Lenten journey, may whatever practices we have chosen help us to appreciate more that “Christ became poor for us,” and in His compassionate love for us revealed the profound depth of the love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit for each of us in our poverty and weakness. May this realization help us to love others with a more compassionate love.

Return to the Diocese of Palm Beach Front Page

‘Christ made himself poor for you’

Other Stories