Have you ever had one of those times in life when you are faced with the hardest thing you have ever had to face? Maybe it was the loss of a spouse or a frightening diagnosis. Maybe you learned that your child is depressed or that your parents can no longer take care of themselves. And then when you think that things couldn’t get any worse, they do, and you find yourself crushed under the weight of just how badly things can be. But then you get a tiny reprieve, a whisper of hope, where you think that maybe you’ve turned the corner. But then something happens making it clear that not only have you not turned any corner at all, there isn’t even one up ahead to be found
You try to keep the faith, but then, against all odds in a universe that you always believed to be inherently good, things get unspeakably worse. Not only did you lose your spouse, but you now must shepherd your young children through their grief while trying to manage your own. Not only did you have a frightening diagnosis, but you now have no hope of a cure. Not only was your child depressed, but you now realize she also has a serious alcohol addiction. Not only do your parents need more help than you can provide, but you now must face the fact that you do not have the resources to pay for it.
In general, I think most people can deal with that initial disaster. We cry a lot and lean on our friends and pray for guidance, which helps. A beautiful thing about life is that it is so powerful. Life wants to go on living. Wounds want to heal. And in time, they often do. But sometimes our repeated woundedness seems to make healing appear impossible. That’s the time that we can lose our faith completely. That’s the time that hope seems unimaginable. It’s a place of great darkness.
I know that place well. There’s a crazy miracle story in the Gospel of Mark. In it, Jesus cures the deaf man by placing his hands in the man’s ears and on his tongue. He shouts, “’Ephphatha!’ – that is, ‘Be opened!’ And immediately the man’s ears are opened, his speech impediment is gone, and he speaks plainly” (Mark 7:34-35). Afterward, Jesus gives his disciples the greatest challenge of all: “’Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it’” (8:34-35).
While these two readings may seem completely different at first glance, I can see why they follow each other as Gospel reading during the liturgical year. In them, I hear Jesus saying that, like the deaf man, we too must “be opened” to the hardest thing in the world – to take up our cross and willingly face death. Our deaths – the one at the end of our early lives as well as all the others, like the betrayal of a friend or the struggle of unemployment – are the kind of wounds that appear impossible to heal when we experience them over and over. In those moments, I think life is asking me, “Can you be open to the love of God even in this unending pain you are experiencing? Can you remain open to life when death appears to have won?”
I will be honest and say that there are days I can’t always say a confident “yes.” But on most days, I don’t say “no” either. Because I know that life wants to go on living, that wounds want to heal. I know that the fabric of the universe is the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. I see it in the change of seasons and the passage of time. I see it in the unexpected victories that follow crushing losses and the new opportunities that come after horrible failures. And in my clearer moments, I remember that deliverance from pain and hardship I long for may not be the healing that I need. When I am at my lowest, being “open” to the Paschal Mystery in my own life is both the hardest and the most sacred thing I can do.
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