Suffering at the Altar: Reflections on Sexagesima
by Borderland Nathan
I have struggled in life by trying to determine God’s will based on whether my life seems to be going well or horribly. And much like King David screaming into the void and wishing to bash the babies of his enemies against rocks, I have had some vicious fights with God in response to my own suffering (in my head, quietly).1)See Psalm 137.
The point for me during these mental arguments was pretty clear: “If I do good things, and I receive bad in return, then I can’t trust you. Show me that I can trust you.” It took me time to learn that in the New Testament, Christianity does have a response to suffering, and it isn’t by removing it.
In the extraordinary form of the Mass it is the Sunday of Sexagesima. The Church once had a more vigorous practice of Lent which lasted 70 days instead of 40, in a form of “preparation for the preparation” of Lent. In that vein, today’s Scriptural readings look at suffering and our proper response to it.2)https://extraordinaryform.org/propers/Sexagesima.pdf
2 Corinthians 11:19-33; 12:1-93)Note that although the Liturgical readings follow the Douay Rheims, I am using the Catholic RSVCE, and so all scriptural references and Psalms will follow that numbering.
11:19 For you gladly bear with fools, being wise yourselves! 20 For you bear it if a man makes slaves of you, or preys upon you, or takes advantage of you, or puts on airs, or strikes you in the face. 21 To my shame, I must say, we were too weak for that! But whatever any one dares to boast of—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast of that. 22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. 23 Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. 24 Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. 25 Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned. Three times I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. 28 And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant? 30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. 31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed for ever, knows that I do not lie. 32 At Damascus, the governor under King Ar′etas guarded the city of Damascus in order to seize me, 33 but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped his hands.
12:1 For I must boast; there is nothing to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. 2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. 3 And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— 4 and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. 5 On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. 6 Though if I wish to boast, I shall not be a fool, for I shall be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. 7 And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. 8 Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me; 9 but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
The Christian walk is one of suffering, and Saint Paul has a laundry list of credentials, up to and including getting lowered out of a city on a basket to escape martyrdom. And yet, when presenting his credentials, he does something a little strange. He lists his sufferings, but also visions, and presents both of them as evidence of his apostleship. This is a common theme in Christianity, and as a follower it can be maddening. If something horrible happens to me, it’s God. If something amazing happens to me, yeah that’s God too. God all the way down.
It’s frustrating because it can seem as though there is no metric. Life can be amazing or terrible, and there is no discernible cause and effect, either for the world or for your spiritual life. I might follow what seems like the right path but it isn’t the path God has set for me. Contrarily I might avoid what I deem to be the wrong path because it is a path of suffering, but it’s where God wants me to go.
The way human beings learn follows a payoff system. But that’s just it, isn’t it? The world is broken. The world has never worked with a perfect 1 to 1 correspondence system where good causes good, and bad causes bad. The Catholic faith goes deeper, cracking the system altogether. My mistake was in thinking that there is no logic to the spiritual life; there in fact is.
The Three Ages
Catholic spirituality speaks of three “Ages” or “Ways” of our path to God: The Purgative Way of spiritual childhood, the Illuminative Way of spiritual adolescence, and the Unitive Way of spiritual adulthood. Each age has corresponding forms of prayer, temptation, and struggle that are associated with it. The key point for me, is that it gives a structure to peeling apart the different aspects of God’s presence. God is all good but we do not experience him in the same way at all times, and so this experience of God as a journey helps to solve the problem of seeming contradiction, where we see God in the good but also the bad in the form of suffering.
Most of us are in the Purgative Way and will spend our earthly lives here, so it is most pertinent to today’s readings.4) “We ought to note carefully our Savior’s words in St. Matthew’s Gospel, chapter seven, about this road: Quam angusta porta et arcta via est quae ducit ad vitam! Et pauci sunt qui inveniunt eam (How narrow is the gate and constricting the way that leads to life! And few there are who find it). We should note particularly in this passage the exaggeration and hyperbole conveyed by the word quam. This is like saying: Indeed the gate is very narrow, more so than you think. We must also note that first he says the gate is narrow to teach that entrance through this gate of Christ (the beginning of the journey) involves a divestment and narrowing of the will in relation to all sensible and temporal objects by loving God more than all of them. This task belongs to the night of sense, as we have said. Next he asserts that the way (that is, of perfection) is constricting in order to teach that the journey along this way involves not only entering through the narrow gate, a void of sense objects, but also constricting oneself through dispossession and the removal of obstacles in matters relating to the spiritual part of the soul. We can apply, then, what Christ says about the narrow gate to the sensitive part of the human person, and what he says about the constricting way to the spiritual or rational part. Since he proclaims that few find it, we ought to note the cause: Few there are with the knowledge and desire to enter into this supreme nakedness and emptiness of spirit. As this path on the high mount of perfection is narrow and steep, it demands travelers who are neither weighed down by the lower part of their nature nor burdened in the higher part. This is a venture in which God alone is sought and gained; thus only God ought to be sought and gained,” John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1991), bk. II, chap. 7, par. 2-3.
Lent in particular is a yearly season on the liturgical calendar which corresponds to this Purgative Way in a fractal sense. The whole Church as well as I as an individual, prepare our purification as Christ did in the desert before his Passion on the cross, and as we do this day before taking part in his Passion in the Mass.
In the Purgative Way, we struggle with letting go of our attachments to the physical world, and so the goods of this world easily distract us and we lose the faith, lapsing in and out of mortal sin as we struggle to allow God to take root. Our prayers, likewise, are as those of a child. We talk “at” God, and ask him for our needs, which are just as often confused with our mere wants. When we get what we need, but perhaps not what we want, we often lose heart. This is because we have not properly structured the goods of the world and so we think that we have not received an answer to our prayers. This purgation of our disordered attachment to the things of this world must take place, whether in this life or the next, as we draw closer to him in our Christian walk. It is analogous to a metal being refined of its impurities as it draws closer to the refiner’s fire.5)See 1 Corinthians 3:10-15, and Malachi 2:3-4.
In the Purgative Way of the spiritual life, God initially gives spiritual pleasures and payoffs for doing good things such as prayer or giving to the poor, or reading sacred scripture. And yet as we transition from spiritual childhood to adolescence, we experience the first “dark night,” known as the dark night of the senses. God withdraws aspects of his presence so that he may draw deeper relationships from us, having us seek him for his own sake rather than the pleasures he provides. We saw this earlier even with Saint Paul, where the thorn in his flesh prevented him from getting too elated.6)See 2 Corinthians 12:7 We see God in the good and the bad, but there is a structure to how it happens so that it isn’t just chaos. We can take our suffering, as well as the good things, and then we incorporate the third element: our heart’s reception, and know by the spiritual life where we are on the map.
Luke 8:4-15
4 And when a great crowd came together and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable: 5 “A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell along the path, and was trodden under foot, and the birds of the air devoured it. 6 And some fell on the rock; and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. 7 And some fell among thorns; and the thorns grew with it and choked it. 8 And some fell into good soil and grew, and yielded a hundredfold.” As he said this, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” 9 And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, 10 he said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God; but for others they are in parables, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. 11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. 12 The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, that they may not believe and be saved. 13 And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy; but these have no root, they believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. 14 And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. 15 And as for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bring forth fruit with patience.
The first thing that jumps out in this parable is that it features a really terrible farmer; he’s throwing seeds everywhere, whether its good ground or not. This says something about the reckless love of God; he is exacting with judgment but he overflows with mercy. 7)“Now these things He said, manifesting that He discoursed to all without grudging. For as the sower makes no distinction in the land submitted to him, but simply and indifferently casts his seed; so He Himself too makes no distinction of rich and poor, of wise and unwise, of slothful or diligent, of brave or cowardly; but He discourses unto all, fulfilling His part, although foreknowing the results; that it may be in His power to say, What ought I to have done, that I have not done,” John Chrysostom, “Homily 44.4 on the Gospel of Matthew,” New Advent, accessed February 24, 2025, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/200144.htm.
Likewise, to fully combat our three fold trials, we have to do three things to progressively move toward holiness as a ripe harvest:
- Have a good heart.
- Keep the word.
- Bring forth fruit patiently. 8)See verse 15.
Each step build progressively on the last. Your heart must be receptive to accept the word, but then you must allow it to take root. Then you must be patient and bring forth fruit actively, rather than commit sin by not putting your talents to use. 9)See James 4:17.
All of this, especially steps 2 and 3, takes time, and we do it despite not seeing immediate result. The communion prayer for today, is taken from Psalm 43. In the full Psalm, King David questions his won grief, he calls upon God in trust, then heads to the altar. He decides to praise him first, before the desired effect is achieved. He is able to do this by pointing out that he has kept God’s commandments, and then trusts God to honor his word in return.
Psalm 43
1 Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause
against an ungodly people;
from deceitful and unjust men
deliver me!
2 For thou art the God in whom I take refuge;
why hast thou cast me off?
Why go I mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?
3 Oh send out thy light and thy truth;
let them lead me,
let them bring me to thy holy hill
and to thy dwelling!
4 Then I will go to the altar of God,
to God my exceeding joy;
and I will praise thee with the lyre,
O God, my God.
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.
During this phase of spiritual childhood, we will receive good things from the world but should be indifferent to them. We should examine them, order them properly so that small goods bring our desires to greater goods, and then move past them altogether to the greatest good they point to: God himself. In return, we will receive spiritual joys from our father much to help strengthen us in our faith. Saint Paul experienced visions, but even something so simple as an “Aha” moment when reading Scripture helps us stay on the path of holiness. It is important not to mistake a lack of joy in spiritual things for a sign of the suffering of the Dark Night of the Senses when in fact it is a result of sin. Most likely, you are imperfectly struggling with sin in the Purgative Way, and this brings a natural aversion to prayer and other holy things.
Sometimes going to Mass feels like that for me.
When I am doing wrong, I stop praying. That’s probably my most reliable indicator. Then I stop going to mass. When I am doing even worse, I stop trying to go to confession so that I can return to Mass. I hide from God and don’t read the Bible.
Retreating from God due to moving back and forth in states of mortal sin, or experiencing spiritual sloth where we don’t get the pleasure we should from serving him, is not the same thing as God removing the sensory pleasures from us as we move closer and closer to him. In the Purgative Way, we are still going to confession for mortal sins, going to confession feels good, and once we are reconciled with Christ and his Church, spiritual actions like prayer feel even better. This is a consistent aspect of the Purgative Way. Suffering, then, will come externally in the sense that it is most often from the world, not the purifying suffering imposed by God for more interior spiritual conditions as found in the Illuminative Way.
And so, we will face these external trials as the Gospel seed takes root. The parable gives three sources for our spiritual travails:
- Satan
- Temptation
- Worldly goods
These three things can be examined individually as shown in the gospel, but also correspond to three parts of one complete act of sin: There is a tempter, the action of the temptation, and the worldly goods that he tempts the believer with. The three surfaces the sower throws the seeds upon are not different people, but rather differing dispositions of the same believer which correspond to the three stages of the spiritual life. 10)“And how can it be reasonable, says one, to sow among the thorns, on the rock, on the wayside? With regard to the seeds and the earth it cannot be reasonable; but in the case of men’s souls and their instructions, it has its praise, and that abundantly. For the husbandman indeed would reasonably be blamed for doing this; it being impossible for the rock to become earth, or the wayside not to be a wayside, or the thorns, thorns; but in the things that have reason it is not so. There is such a thing as the rock changing, and becoming rich land; and the wayside being no longer trampled on, nor lying open to all that pass by, but that it may be a fertile field; and the thorns may be destroyed, and the seed enjoy full security. For had it been impossible, this Sower would not have sown. And if the change did not take place in all, this is no fault of the Sower, but of them who are unwilling to be changed: He having done His part: and if they betrayed what they received of Him, He is blameless, the exhibitor of such love to man,” John Chrysostom, “Homily 44,” 5.
The path is the non believer that hears the gospel and does not receive it, or falls away from it into a state of mortal sin. He is under the dominion of Satan and so is directly snatched away.
In the Purgative Way, we are rocky ground because we still have not let go of our earthly attachments, and so our battle is more immediate as we deal with external sources of temptation. This rocky ground is one of constant testing and trial, and so we can see this rocky ground as the beginning desert of our journey represented in Lent. The soil is the heart of the believer but there is not much soil, and neither is there much time to be watered with grace before we fall away, so we can compare this to a man that simply does not have virtuous habits. Grace and the theological virtues build upon nature, but we do not yet have a solid foundation of natural cardinal virtues. 11)Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (n.p.: Isidore.co, n.d.), I, Q. 1, Art. 8, ad 2, https://isidore.co/aquinas/summa/FP/FP001.html#FPQ1A8THEP1.
An easy way to see this is to watch a lifelong alcohol attempt to become clean. Alcohol is like any other vice; we develop habits during our addiction. The key to staying clean is not just going to AA, but rather to orient your habits toward a life that does not consist of drinking. This means an entirely new social network, new hobbies, and new patterns of thinking. Grace gives us the power to leave such a life, but don’t kid yourself. Even Saint Paul struggled often with “Other-Paul,” the man of flesh. The stronger your evil habits are, the stronger your own man of flesh is, and the sharper your struggles in and out of the Christian walk will be. The Purgative Way is this process of walking in grace while also developing new natural habits, which are in turn perfected by grace, enabling us to keep the path.
In the Illuminative Way, our struggles often move from external to internal just as the Gospel has internalized, moving from something we hear into something that forms our model for viewing and acting upon reality. 12)“The first night pertains to the lower, sensory part of human nature and is consequently more external. As a result the second night is darker. The second, darker night of faith belongs to the rational, superior part; it is darker and more interior because it deprives this part of its rational light, or better, blinds it. Accordingly, it is indeed comparable to midnight, the innermost and darkest period of night,” John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel, bk. II, chap. 2, pars. 2. Our spiritual struggles in this case are often referred to as thorns by the spiritual writers, whether it be Saint Paul’s thorn in the flesh, or Saint John of the Cross referring to our spiritual imperfections as thorns that choke our Divine growth. 13)“A soul is tormented and afflicted when it reclines on its appetites just as is someone lying naked on thorns and nails. Like thorns, the appetites wound and hurt, stick to a person and cause pain. David says of them: Circumdederunt me sicut apes, et exarserunt sicut ignis in spinis. (They circled around me like bees, stung me, and burned me like fire among thorns) For among the appetites, which are the thorns, the fire of anguish and torment increases.,” Ibid., bk. I, chap. 7, par. 1.
In the Unitive Way we see the soft soil of a contrite heart that accepts the seed and the waters of grace, and actively brings forth abundant fruit in patience.
The Logic of Suffering
The common argument our mind follows is that God is all good, and all-powerful, so when bad things happen to us he must not be there. The implied premise is that an all-good and all-powerful God would not allow us to suffer if he were present. When we are going through suffering then, we feel as though we have been forsaken. Jesus felt it too. He hung on a cross and said “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”14)See Matthew 27:46, and Mark 15:34.
Suffering makes you feel abandonment. You lose your sense of presence, and even your sense of self.
The Catholic faith takes an issue with the implied premise, however, and does not promise an escape from suffering. In fact, the response to suffering is one of God coming down into ours, showing us how to do it through the cross, and then having us pick up our own cross and follow him.
If God does not take away our suffering, then, and yet he has also not abandoned us, we must take a closer look at what is happening. Saint Paul makes this explicit when he speaks of a thorn in his flesh. He prays that it is taken away from him, and yet God’s response is “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”15)See 2 Corinthians 12:9. We see there is a common archetype of prayer between the believer and God. God allows suffering, the believer asks for deliverance, and God gives an explanation. There is an element of ritual with the “Three times I besought the Lord,” and it is such a common motif in scripture that we can see this as a ritualized dance of prayer in which suffering itself is God’s invitation for us to seek him. 16)“God often withdraws sensory delight and pleasure so that souls might set the eyes of faith on this invisible grace. Not only in receiving Communion, but in other spiritual exercises as well, beginners desire to feel God and taste him as if he were comprehensible and accessible,” John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1991), bk. I, chap. 6, par. 5, and “God acts with other weaker souls as though he were showing himself and then hiding; he does this to exercise them in his love, for without these withdrawals they would not learn to reach him,” Ibid., chap. 14, par. 5.
Liturgical Culmination
We have the call of suffering, how then are we to seek him? The Communion Psalm for today gives us a clue. In the larger reading of Psalm 43, King David is facing his enemies as well as ungodly people and asks why he has been abandoned. His solution is unique. He asks himself why he is mourning, and determines that the correct response is to seek God at the altar. This all mimics the pattern of Psalm 42 as well. We see that David is suffering, he knows that God is faithful, and so moves to make things right on his end, trusting the Lord to be there. And once he makes things right, he approaches the house of God for sacrifice.
The pattern for us is this:
- Look at your suffering.
- Assess your state of grace.
- Know that God is still faithful.
- Approach the altar in joy and trust.
God is always faithful, but we often are not. Sometimes our suffering is from actual separation from him, in which case we must approach the altar in joy. But sometimes our suffering is a part of our spiritual journey, in which case we still must approach the altar, and again, in joy.
Why in joy? There’s a story I’ve heard about people in Africa that would trap monkeys with coconuts. They would chain the coconut to the ground or a tree, and cut a small hole in it and place something tasty inside. The hole would be just large enough that the monkey could fit its paw through, and just small enough that the monkey couldn’t pull its paw out if it was holding onto the object. You would think this is a simple fix: let go of the thingie. But instead the monkey would refuse to let go, and the hunter would walk up and club the monkey on the head.
I like to think I’m better than this, but…
The pain of the Purgative Way, and purgatory itself, comes from our attachment to sin. We have things that we love in a disordered fashion, and it hurts to have them ripped away from us, because these things often give us a small amount of happiness. When we choose willingly to “let go of the thingie,” we do not suffer as much. Losing wealth, food, family, friends, and entire lifestyles can hurt quite a bit. It can hurt in a visceral sense that we don’t have much control over, especially in the case of basic necessities like food. But when we know that all things find their end in God, we are able to let go. We suffer less when we let go of the “thingie” in trust, and face the suffering knowing that we are about to meet our Joy.
This lent for 40 days, the body of Christ will begin to purge ourselves of earthly attachments, as we approach the sacrifice of Christ in Easter. In our lives as individuals, we move through the Purgative Way with repeated assessments of our own suffering, where we then choose to make contact with God in joy and trust at the altar. In each individual mass, we move from recognizing our sufferings, to offering them up to Christ, and then uniting and communing with him at the altar. From large to small, in a true fractal sense, our response to suffering is liturgical.
References
Rob Brotzman 
Nathan Wagar