Strange glory

In John's Gospel, the way of the cross is the way of glory. . . . It is a very strange glory. - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon


I've previously posted at considerable length on the relationship between suffering and glory in the context of the marriage covenant. This was a good thing for me to read again. On that occasion I'd just concluded my first season singing with Jubilee; we are now near the end of my fifth, and our last. And this is now my third annual reading of Fr. Neuhaus' excellent book. These two activities have given me many opportunities to reflect on the glory of the cross, yet somehow I am just noticing the intersection of this idea and my former reflections on the link between suffering and glory.

We think of glory as majesty and power, and recognize it in awesome sights and events that take our breath away.  What the cross teaches us is that glory - God's unfathomable glory -  is about something much more impressive. It is unmistakable in the soldier who gives his life in the protection of his comrades. We witness it when a tiny Albanian woman dedicates her life to caring for the poorest and most helpless of India's outcasts.  It can be seen in a mother who perseveres in loving and caring for her children's needs through her husband's service in a foreign country. We're struck by it when a poor family enthusiastically shares their meager provisions with a stranger, or when a citizen jumps into a cold river or runs into a blazing house to rescue a child.  It is manifest as a husband cares for his cancer-stricken wife, or vice versa. We're humbled into silence by it when a victim of violence forgives his or her oppressor. It is present when a parent buries a child.

Maybe it's especially fitting that Fr. Neuhaus opens his reflection on the third word from the cross with this concept, because as Jesus gives his mother to his beloved disciple and to us, and vice versa, we see how we each share in the glory of God as we embrace the suffering of others as our own.

All of these selfless examples and countless others have their root in the glory of God's selfless love poured out for us in the way of the cross. And every amazingly glorious thing in vast creation, from wonders submicroscopic to those astronomical and everything beyond and between, serve only as signs pointing to it.