Jesus, Source of Temperance

Gospel of Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

I – The Mystery of Suffering

In this day and age medicine has attained extraordinary success, curing diseases that were formerly considered mortal. In the past, the transplant of an organ—heart, liver, kidney—, was unthinkable, but today it is a relatively common and straightforward procedure. What marvels science has achieved! Despite this, it is impossible to entirely eliminate sickness and suffering.

If the eradication of physical ills is not feasible, the same can be said—and even more emphatically—of spiritual ones. We are often faced with disappointment, tragedy, anxiety, doubt, perplexity, quarrels, and the discords that destroy families… Life is fraught with difficulties and we cannot flee from them entirely, nor can money buy complete satisfaction on this earth. How, then, should we respond to suffering?

Man needs to suffer

Let us consider man’s happiness in Paradise, where the plants and inanimate beings were under his dominion, and the animals obeyed him. Admirably balanced, he enjoyed truly ineffable pleasure to the fullest degree, for nothing caused him suffering—it was pure joy. There were no storms, the climate was always agreeable, enhanced with gentle breezes. The tranquillity of nature was an image of man’s temperamental serenity, for, endowed with the gift of integrity, he was untouched by disorderly movements of his sensible appetites. He was, therefore, unacquainted with suffering.

Within this perspective, let us imagine that Adam and Eve had not fallen, and that society had developed in Earthly Paradise, with people interacting harmoniously, experiencing perfect joy exempt from all suffering. Going a step further, let us suppose that an individual with original sin were introduced into this setting. He would coexist with the others without the least possibility of misunderstanding arising; he would be treated with courtesy and consideration, and enjoy a deep sense of well-being on account of being surrounded by attention, care and affection. But, as absurd as it may seem, this man would experience keen suffering… the pain of not suffering!

Let us now imagine another situation: a prince whose every wish is promptly heeded and all annoyances are done away with. If he thinks of eating, he is presented with an array of delicacies; if he dreams of a bed, a plush goose down mattress is brought to him; if he feels thirst, he is provided the finest beverages that the world offers, at just the right temperature! Now, based on the teachings of Catholic spiritual writers, we may conclude that this or any other such hypothetical person would experience intense bitterness of soul, more than anyone else. Why? Because after original sin, the human creature thirsts for suffering.¹

The need our bodies have for exercise and movement is a reflection, determined by God, of the spirit’s analogous need for suffering. When, for example, a person breaks an arm and is obliged to stabilize it for a time, he is astonished, when the cast is removed, at how thin and flaccid the arm has become. Physiotherapy is needed in order for the arm to recover its strength. By the same token, without suffering, the soul becomes sickly, languid, and loses its strength.

What suffering means for a Catholic

Therefore, philosophical schools which seek an explanation for suffering that differs from the Catholic view are mistaken when they affirm that it must be avoided at all cost or be accepted with a self-destructive spirit. The only religion with the right attitude toward suffering is the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church. She shows that suffering is necessary and should be understood. We only truly comprehend it by looking to Our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross. He took on flesh with the goal of making reparation for the sin committed by humanity, to restore the glory of God and order; and He desired to accomplish this through the torments of His Passion.

All of us have sinned in our parents Adam and Eve, and throughout life we have also contravened the glory of the Creator by falling into countless actual faults. We know that the Seventh Commandment is not only violated by stealing the money or property of another, but also by withholding the glory that belongs to God. And if, in the first instance, in order for the transgression to be pardoned restitution must be made of that which was stolen, it is no less imperative to return to God the glory that sin has denied Him.

This is precisely the trial to which God submits intelligent creatures, Angels and men: that of never attributing their successes and triumphs to personal effort, never imagining themselves as the source of the qualities which they were granted, such as vitality, intelligence, or capability to work. It is our duty, rather, to acknowledge that merits come from God, for it is He Who gives us everything, in the natural and especially in the supernatural realm, as Our Lord said: “without Me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5).

Taken in this sense, suffering is a way of moving the soul to make restitution for what it has received, thereby successfully passing the test. Suffering makes it clear how dependent we are on God, and compels us to turn to Him. It is easy, in success, to close in on ourselves and, blinded by self-sufficiency, forget the Creator, ultimately dissociating ourselves from Him. “Illness and suffering”—the Catechism affirms—“have always been among the gravest problems confronted in human life. In illness, man experiences his powerlessness, his limitations, and his finitude. […] Illness can […] make a person more mature, helping him discern what is not essential in his life so that he can turn toward that which is. Very often illness provokes a search for God and a return to Him.”²

Furthermore, suffering is the best purifier of our souls, since through it we repent of our faults, acknowledge our misery and our state as mendicants of grace and divine pardon. “Taking up one’s cross each day and following Jesus is the surest way of penance.”³

The role of the virtue of temperance

To remedy, in some way, the loss of the gift of integrity which man possessed in Paradise and the inevitable sufferings that followed this loss, there is a virtue which, introduced into the soul with the retinue of the others that are infused at Baptism, is known as one of the four cardinal virtues: temperance. It “signifies a certain temperateness or moderation, which reason appoints to human operations and passions […]. [And it] is chiefly concerned with those passions that tend towards sensible goods, viz. desire and pleasure, and consequently with the sorrows that arise from the absence of those pleasures.”⁴

Temperance, then, is the virtue that regulates the states of spirit and furnishes well-being and happiness amid suffering, and self-control in the euphoria of joy. It thereby confers to the soul extraordinary dominion over itself.

Amid sufferings, Job seeks his consolation in God

These teachings prepare us for a deeper understanding of the Liturgy of the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, whose first reading (Job 7:1-4, 6-7) is an expressive passage from the Book of Job.

The beautiful story of this righteous man portrays satan coming before the Almighty, Who asked him if he had considered His servant Job, “a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil” (Job 1:8). The devil replied that those virtues were due to the fact that Job had never been tried. Then, the Lord authorized the devil to do whatever he wished with Job, under the condition that he: “only spare his life” (Job 2:6). The trial of Job was, thus, permitted by the Most High, but directly instigated by the devil. As a result, he lost his ten children, all his property and animals, and was afflicted with “loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head” (Job 2:7). In that sorrowful situation, Job sat upon the ashes and scraped his sores with a potsherd (cf. Job 2:8).

Things only worsened: he lost the support of his social circle, his friends interpreted his misfortune as a chastisement, believing he must have strayed from the Commandments of the Lord, and his own wife, instead of comforting him, joined those who attacked him. Completely isolated, unable to open his soul to even those closest to him, he felt abandoned by God, without knowing the reason why. Then Job utters this exclamation, which appears in the first reading: “Is not man’s life on earth a drudgery?” (Job 7:1). He then proceeds to narrate his sufferings with vivid images, in a very characteristic Middle Eastern manner: “I have been assigned months of misery, and troubled nights have been allotted to me. […] then the night drags on; I am filled with restlessness until the dawn. My days […] they come to an end without hope” (Job 7:3-4, 6).

But Job did not fall into despair, but confidently sought his consolation where, in fact, he would find it: in God! “Remember that my life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again” (Job 7:7). If he invoked the Lord, it was because his soul possessed a resource that sustained it: the virtue of temperance… He was temperate.

II – Jesus’ Action Re-establishes Order, Equilibrium and Peace

In today’s Gospel we find Jesus first curing Peter’s mother-in-law and, later, freeing a multitude that surrounded the house where He was lodged, from their ills. Does this denote a contradiction? Did Our Lord do these things because He thought that suffering should be eliminated? Let us analyse the text of St. Mark to find an answer.

The Divine Master had only recently begun His public ministry, and we already see how exhausting it is. As He goes with James and John, from the synagogue to the residence of Simon and Andrew, it might be imagined that this would be a place where He could rest, sheltered from the flow of people. But no; Peter’s mother-in-law “lay sick with a fever,” and Jesus, always eager to good to all, did not stop to rest; He went to her immediately.

The fever of the passions

We know that, when suffering from a very high fever, a person generally loses control of self, that is, the ability to have “my life in my hand” —“Anima mea in manibus meis semper” (Ps 119:109). Indeed, it even impedes the effective practice of the virtue of temperance. The Church Fathers say that the physical fever of Peter’s mother-in-law is a symbol of the passions. “In that woman” — writes St. Ambrose—“[…] our flesh is represented, which languishes under the various fevers of sin, and burns in the uncurbed excesses of diverse cravings.”⁵ St. Jerome concurs with this thought: “Each one of us has been stricken by a fever. When I allow myself to be carried away with anger, I suffer from fever. The diversity of fevers corresponds to the number of vices.”⁶ And St. Rabanus Maurus adds: “Every soul dominated by the concupiscence of the flesh is like a person who suffers from fever.”⁷

Spiritual fever keeps its victim bedridden, rendering him unable to work and incapable of action, for his entire being is occupied in the inclination to evil, desirous of sensuality and, in this way he is rendered powerless to serve God and others. How many people become neglectful in their apostolate because they have lost the notion of the grandeur of their vocation, while the dynamism of their soul is bound up in unbridled passion! Indeed, when someone is called to the great and lofty destiny of fighting to overthrow satan’s empire on the face of the earth, but does not correspond to this appeal, he ends up dedicating himself to insignificant and contemptible trifles in order to quell his conscience…

The Divine Master takes the initiative

It is evident that Our Lord was informed of the state of Peter’s mother-in-law, with the hope that He would perform a miracle. They did not need to tell Him, since He was already aware of this from all eternity and could, with absolute authority, have cured her from a distance. But He was open to their simple promptings—since, not wanting to trouble Him, they did not even make the request—and did not turn them down. Rather, since He was a family friend and because of the ties that united Him to St. Peter, He willingly helped; hearing the news, He immediately took the initiative. This is the social concord among men who esteem one another.

In those days, in accordance with Jewish practice—and even those of the pagans—it was unthinkable for a man to enter the room of a woman confined to bed, even if she were elderly. But due to His mission to cure, Our Lord broke this rigid custom and “He approached.”

For our part, when we notice that a person has uncontrolled passions and is following the wrong path, we should not glory in the other’s misfortune! We are obliged to “tell Jesus” and implore Him for a cure. If we intercede for others, the Lord will approach them.

Jesus’ hand is always extended to cure us

Perhaps some of those in attendance thought that the Saviour would only pay the sick woman a visit, in order to cheer her up. How surprised they must have been when He took her by the hand, and she, who had been suffering with high fever, felt reinvigorated and rose from her bed! He touched her because He wanted to make it very clear that He was the source of this cure, and not, for example, a spirit, in accordance with the superstitions that prevailed among those people. If He, from afar, had only bid her, “arise,” perhaps they would have doubted.

Similarly, the divine hand that grasped the hand of Peter’s mother-in-law is always extended to us! Yes, Our Lord Jesus Christ treats all who open their souls to Him—without placing obstacles—with consideration and affection. He is ready to enter the house where they might be suffering from illness, and to attend to each one, as if only they existed. How much wretchedness, frailty, and fickleness we harbour! Even so, He is not repelled by us and never withdraws His hand, however bad our situation may be. This is the confidence we should have: everything can be resolved by Him Who gives us His hand!

The energy to serve God comes from Him

^31c Then the fever left her and she waited on them.

After she was cured, Peter’s mother-in-law immediately “waited on them.” But women were held in so little esteem in those times that she could never serve the table of guests.⁸ This was a task for slaves or servants. But Our Lord allows Himself to be served by this woman, implying that He was setting new social customs in place. As God-Man, He boldly faced the current, inverting the arrogant and irksome mentality that prevailed, not only in Israel, but also among the Greeks, Romans and other peoples.

The cure was so instantaneous, that Peter’s mother-in-law does not seem to have sustained the least discomfort. The same happens when someone, tormented by the fever of their passions, “grasps the hand” of Jesus: languor and despondency disappear and vitality is instilled. This also shows how the energy for the exercise of a supernatural mission or to defend a just cause comes from God. Therefore, doubt should never assail us; if our objectives are set on eternity, we will have the strength, impetus, and endurance to carry forward, until the end.

It is also very beneficial to avoid thinking of the past. The Gospel does not record a single word that the cured woman spoke regarding the time she spent bedridden. No, the Master was there and she set to work! She no longer worried about the fever or the illness; everything was forgotten.

Let us seek the tabernacle!

If St. Mark—so concise and almost minimalist—wrote “the whole town,” then it must really have been so. Renowned commentators⁹ agree that the expression “many,” means that Our Lord attended everyone.

Jesus’ fame had spread and everyone vied for contact with Him in order to receive some benefit. We can easily imagine the scene of people crying out and imploring the help of the Divine Wonderworker. And He, calm and sublime, restoring the health of countless blind and lame persons, paralytics, lepers and those with fevers, without neglecting a single one…

As for the possessed, let us recall that they are those whose body is assumed by the devil,—or in some cases, by a great number of devils—so that they lose dominion over themselves. Incapable of governing their own actions, they can be likened to a car controlled by a hijacker, while the driver—that is, the soul—is pushed aside. As a result, possessed persons are reduced to a state of imbalance and disorder. The Lord also liberated these and not one devil was permitted to remain.

Is it not true that instead of surrounding the house where Jesus is, as the inhabitants of Capernaum did, we often close in on ourselves, giving the devil the opportunity to dialogue with us as long as he pleases? If we would seek Jesus in the tabernacle, the tempter will take flight and there we would find the solution for our problems.

This is the legacy that the Saints have left us. For example, when, in the composition of his works, St. Thomas Aquinas came up against a particularly difficult problem, he would stop, place his head against the tabernacle and remain there until the question was clarified.¹⁰ He—a man of extraordinarily intelligence, who could cite Sacred Scripture from memory—declared to have learned far more in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament or at the foot of the Crucifix than in all of his studies throughout his life.¹¹

The devil cannot proclaim the Gospel

It might seem that it would have been advantageous to Our Lord for the devils to announce Him, for it would have bolstered His fame. But He prevented them from speaking for two reasons: first, because He did not want the devil to fill the role of apostle, for an apostle must be holy and practice what he preaches, while evil spirits should be promptly cast out. Secondly, He wished to prepare the multitudes for His future Passion. Accordingly, when He silenced the devils who “knew Him,” those witnesses would have wondered why He gave such an order and would have soon realized that it was because there were people there who hated Him and wanted to kill Him. This was a step toward comprehending the martyrdom of the Cross.

A lesson in detachment and seriousness regarding one’s mission

For those prone to vanity, this would be the moment to soak in the previous day’s success. But Jesus, rising early, went to a deserted place to pray, for in His most virtuous humanity, He did not flaunt Himself nor allow any passion to dominate Him.

The Apostles went in search of Him as soon as they awoke, serving as a model worthy of imitation, of always seeking Christ wherever He may be. But, their words, upon finding Him, reflect their desire to take advantage of the situation, and their dreams of conquest. They were dazzled by a mirage built up around the miracles performed by the Master and, after their first vocational and religious “flash,” they began to envision Him through a political prism. In the wake of the success attained in Capernaum, a busy central trade city, they wanted to “industrialize” Our Lord and hoped to organize a great movement of public opinion to seize power, restore the supremacy of the Jews over the other peoples and to change the history of Israel. But, contrary to their desires, and without prior warning—so as not to be controlled by those too-worldly disciples—, Jesus decided to depart from the populous Capernaum to the environs. With this He taught them to be willing to go anywhere, without pausing to savour triumph. What a lesson in detachment and dominion over the passions! How difficult it was for them to adapt to these new perspectives!

Moreover, having completed His ministry there, Jesus wished to have contact with everyone, for He had come for all. This detail demonstrates the responsibility and seriousness with which each of us should carry out our specific mission.

Supremely temperate action

In the episodes narrated in this Gospel, we see Our Lord Jesus Christ—Temperance and Sanctity in essence—exercising a supremely temperate effect by means of healing and exorcism, re-establishing order, equilibrium and peace in afflicted souls. By the instrument of His divine word He transmitted the truth of Revelation, manifested the importance of the virtue of temperance, and encouraged its practice.

The word, when well used and uttered in accord with the breath of the Holy Spirit, possesses an extraordinarily exorcistic power to harmonize the spirit with God. For example, whenever someone makes an erroneous judgement concerning himself or others, whether through overestimating or recriminating himself in a self-destructive manner—both of which are very dangerous errors—, the counsel of a companion or a superior, who, analyses from the outside with greater precision and alacrity, can confer stability to the soul. God disposes things in this way to encourage us to put our social instinct to use in helping our neighbour and to facilitate our relationship with others.

An example of the practice of this cardinal virtue

Temperance is the virtue that most characterizes the Saints. Abandoning themselves into God’s hands, they accept the accomplishment of His will in them in every respect: if anguish befalls them, like Job, they embrace it; if tidings of great joy are transmitted, they receive them without unbridled or agitated euphoria.

The author of these lines had, at a certain point, the opportunity of familiarizing himself with the virtue of temperance, brilliantly lived out in the person of Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, who disclosed uncommon facets of this virtue.  He had the ability to take urgent action when he received grave news and then sit down to dinner without touching on the topic just covered, turning instead, to calmly discussing doctrinal themes involving lofty and sublime realities. After finishing his meal and his prayers, he would return to the matter dealt with earlier and take up his daily activities—if necessary continuing until the early morning hours. When he had finished everything, he would go to take peaceful rest. Every moment of his daily life bore this note of composure which enabled him to go from unnerving matters to lighter and more pleasant topics without disruption, with entire dominion over self.

III – Where can the True Remedy for Suffering Be Found?

The thoughts suggested by today’s Liturgy revolve around a verse from the Responsorial Psalm: “The Lord sustains the lowly” (Ps 147:6). In fact, the lowly, those who practice temperance—a virtue foreign to the proud—and submit themselves to correction, mortification, and suffering, are eventually heard and sustained by God.

In allowing the devil to torment Job, God wanted this righteous man to grow in the virtue of temperance and, therefore, in holiness, for He later showered him with merits and granted him a higher degree of participation in the divine life. Therefore, let us understand that the tribulations that weigh us down are, ultimately, permitted by God for a higher reason. He cannot desire evil for our soul, and He proceeds in this way because He loves us and wants to give us much more than He has already given. And because He is good, He comforts us while He permits adversity, as other verses of the Responsorial Psalm highlight: “Praise the Lord, for He is good; […] He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Ps 147:1, 3)

By inclining to cure the fever of Peter’s mother-in-law, or in curing the multitude afflicted with illness and anguish, it was not Our Lord’s intent to teach that suffering should be eliminated. Rather, He considered it such a benefit for man, that He Himself embraced the sorrowful way and chose it also for His Mother. In these miracles, as in countless others performed during His public mission, He restores health to give a lesson to the Apostles, to the onlookers and the sick themselves: the light is in Him, life is in Him, the solution for suffering comes from Him! Later, prior to resurrecting Lazarus, He would say: “I am the Resurrection and the Life” (Jn 11:25).

Let us embrace suffering with eyes set on the Cross of Christ

Today we are invited to accept suffering as a necessity, and to acknowledge it as a fundamental element for a balance soul, so that, relinquishing attachment to creatures, it may reach full union with God. If we feel inclined to ask Him to remove a suffering, let us pray with confidence, certain of being heard; but if we feel inspired to endure the adversity with resignation—it could be an illness, a trial or any difficulty—, let us beseech Him to give us the necessary strength to live with the joy, of which He Himself gave the example, together with His Most Holy Mother. Above all, let us not give in to evil sadness, which produces discouragement, and let us be determined, in the depth of our soul, to fulfil God’s will; then we will have peace.

On a certain occasion, when the author was waiting to be attended in a hospital room, with a life-threatening condition, another patient arrived—wailing and protesting—seemingly in serious pain. Turing to her, he said: “Just think for a moment, ma’am: we’re both suffering, but can we compare our hardships to what Our Lord Jesus Christ endured? For love of us He let Himself be slaughtered like a lamb without uttering a moan from the height of the Cross! Let’s accompany Him with our sufferings and offer our pains to console Him.” The woman closed her eyes, held back her tears and regained her composure. Remembrance of the Redeemer’s sufferings in the Passion is a powerful balm for our sufferings.

The Innocent One, Whose human nature is united to divine nature in the Person of the Word, exclaimed before expiring: “Eli, Eli lammá sabactáni—which is to say: My God, My God, why hast Thou abandoned Me?” (Mt 27:46). Mysteriously—in way that our reason cannot grasp—, His Soul suffered the sensation of abandonment, “the absence of any form of joy or consolation which would mitigate the bitter pain and the sadness of the Passion.”¹² Why? Because the Father desired every glory for Him!

The path that God traced out for the Blessed Virgin, the Mater Dolorosa—that purest of creatures, without stain of original sin—was also one of suffering, as we have already observed. In presenting the Child Jesus in the Temple, she heard a prophecy from the lips of Simeon, according to which a sword would pierce her soul (cf. Lk 2:35). She later had to flee with the Divine Infant to Egypt and, then, she lost Him for three days in Jerusalem; her afflictions continued until their culmination on Calvary. Even after the joys of the Resurrection, she still remained fifteen years here on earth in the absence of her Son… A continual suffering, which made of her the Co-Redemptrix, for while all of us receive consolation amid afflictions by considering Christ on the Cross, for her—as St. Alphonsus Liguori¹³ rightly affirms—, the contemplation of the Passion brought no relief at all, for it had been the very source of her sorrows.

Let us ask Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who immolates Himself daily in an unbloody manner in the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar, to pour out, through Our Lady, torrents of graces upon us, so that we will be convinced of the benefits of suffering, and will face it with elevation of spirit and eyes set on His Cross. ◊

 

Notes

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¹ Cf. PIUS XI. Miserentissimus Redemptor, n.5; LYONNARD, SJ, Jean. El apostolado del sufrimiento o las víctimas voluntarias. Madrid: Viuda e Hijo de Aguado, 1887, p.7.

² Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1500-1501.

³ Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1435.

⁴ ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. Summa Theologiæ, II-II, q.141, a.2; a.3.

⁵ ST. AMBROSE. Tratado sobre el Evangelio de San Lucas. L.IV, n.63. In: Obras. Madrid: BAC, 1966, v.I, p.221.

⁶ ST. JEROME. Tratado sobre el Evangelio de San Marcos. Homilía II (1,13-31). In: Obras Completas. Obras Homiléticas. Madrid: BAC, 1999, v.I, p.849.

⁷ ST. RABANUS MAURUS. Commentariorum in Matthæum. L.III, c.8: ML 107, 861.

⁸ Cf. WILLAM, Franz Michel. A vida de Jesus no país e no povo de Israel. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1939, p.134.

⁹ Cf. TUYA, OP, Manuel de. Biblia Comentada. Evangelios. Madrid: BAC, 1964, v.V, p.635; LAGRANGE, OP, Marie-Joseph. Évangile selon Saint Marc. 5.ed. Paris: Lecoffre; J. Gabalda, 1929, p.26.

¹⁰ Cf. PETITOT, OP, L. H. La vida integral de Santo Tomás de Aquino. Buenos Aires: Cepa, 1941, p.147; GOMÁ Y TOMÁS, Isidro. Santo Tomás de Aquino: época, personalidad, espíritu. Barcelona: Rafael Casulleras, 1924, p.79.

¹¹ Cf. JOYAU, OP, Charles-Anatole. Saint Thomas d’Aquin. Tournai: Desclée; Lefebvre et C^ie, 1886, p.162-163.

¹² SUÁREZ, SJ, Francisco. Disp.38, sec.2, n.5. In: Misterios de la Vida de Cristo. Madrid: BAC, 1950, v.II, p.154.

¹³ Cf. ST. ALPHONSUS MARY LIGUORI. Glórias de Maria. 2.ed. Aparecida: Santuário, 1987, p.364-365.