Lectio
“I know now that true charity consists in bearing all our neighbors’ defects — not being surprised at their weakness, but edified at their smallest virtues.”
— St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul
Meditatio
It is not lost on me that I’m in the final “week” of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises* — months of being led through the life of Christ, arriving now at the passion — and I’ve been walking around with a grievance against life and my fellows, and what I selfishly perceive as being fair and unfair, just and unjust, loving and unloving toward me. As though I have eaten again from the fruit of the forbidden tree, and appointed myself the sole arbiter of what I am owed — by life, by others, by God. It is the sin of pride, of impatience, short-sightedness, and false understanding, and of the desire to play God, instead of letting God be God. And, just as it was Adam and Eve’s sin so long ago, it is mine today.
Ignatius intends the fourth and final week of the Exercises as a time of consolation — of resting in the joy of the risen Christ, freed from disordered attachments, love received and returned. And here I am, in that week, reaching for the forbidden fruit again.
Jesus tells a story in Matthew 18 about a servant who owed his king an impossible debt — ten thousand talents, an amount so absurd it was practically a joke. A lifetime of labor wouldn’t pay it back. And the king, inexplicably, forgives the whole debt.
And then, he finds a fellow servant who owes him a hundred denarii — a real debt, not a trivial one, but nothing compared to what he’d just been forgiven — and he seizes him by the throat. Pay what you owe. When the man can’t, he has him thrown in prison.
The king’s response, when he hears of it, is fury. I freely forgave you everything — so much more than what you are owed by this man or anyone else. Could you not have forgiven in kind?
I’ve read that parable many times, always convicted that it is about me. And while I want to change, while I want to forgive others — to forgive life and God — as I have been forgiven, this thorn remains in my flesh, the pain of which I often forget, but am reminded of when I feel unjustly accused, betrayed, or burdened, and which teaches me how far away Christly perfection really is from my instinct toward sometimes petty, sometimes well justified, gripes and grievances.
Then the cross interrupted me.
Because here is what the cross says about my grievances:
It’s not fair. It’s not fair that the Son of God, perfect in every way, whose perfect yes to the Father’s will leads him to betrayal, arrest, mockery, false accusation, abandonment by his friends, denial by his closest companion, an unjust trial before men who had already decided the verdict — it’s not fair that the one who emptied himself for our sake, who took on the form of a slave, should then be treated as one: stripped, beaten, paraded before a crowd, his fate decided by sinners, his body no longer his own. A flogging that should have killed him, a crown of thorns pressed into his flesh, a reed used to drive it deeper, spit on his face, a cross laid on his torn and bleeding back, nails through his hands and feet, and then — hanging there in the dark, forsaken even by the Father he had never once disobeyed — offered nothing but vinegar and contempt. It’s not fair that the only perfectly innocent man who ever lived died the death of a criminal, and that a spear had to be thrust into his side just to make sure the job was done.
It’s not fair.
And that’s exactly the point.
He absorbed all of it — not because he had to, but because he wanted to be with us. Irenaeus, Duns Scotus, Rahner — each in their own way insists that the incarnation was not God’s reluctant response to our sin, but the inevitable expression of his desire to be with his creation. The cross is what that love looks like when it meets a world that has chosen otherwise. The debt was impossible, and he paid it anyway.
And I walked out of that into my life — this ordinary, undeserved, grace-saturated life — loved beyond all measure, forgiven beyond all reason, and found something to complain about. But grace turned my gaze to the cross — the horizon of holy mystery — reflecting back to me what true love, true forgiveness, and true justice look like, that I may bow my head in thanks instead of raising my voice in protest.
*The Ignatian Spiritual Exercises are traditionally made in a thirty-day silent retreat. The 19th Annotation is Ignatius’s provision for those who cannot leave ordinary life — spreading the same material across several months of daily prayer, spiritual reading, and regular meetings with a director. The “weeks” are not calendar weeks but movements of the spirit, each with its own character and focus. The fourth and final week contemplates the risen Christ and the consolations of divine love.
Oratio
the rotten fruit
of false expectations
bitter to the taste
leaves me empty
hungry
aching
longing for living bread
living water
the body
broken for me
the blood
poured out for me
the Spirit
breathed into me
that I may love
live
forgive
as He
leaving nothing of myself
demanding nothing for myself
all I need freely given
by the fruit of life
ripe and sweet
leaves me full
grateful
overflowing
Contemplatio
What would it mean for you to stand at the foot of the cross with your grievances — not to be shamed by them, but to see them differently?
Related Scripture
“We love because he first loved us.” — 1 John 4:19 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Given For Love: What The Cross Teaches Us About Love, which explores the cross as the ultimate act of self-giving love — and what it means for us to love others in kind.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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