THE PERFECT MAN

Monday in Holy Week

Our Lord was, and will always be, the Perfect Man. He took our broken humanity and healed it, uniting it to His Divinity. At Mass, when the priest pours the wine and water into the chalice at the offertory, he prays a sublime prayer, written by Pope Gregory the Great fourteen hundred years ago:

“O God, Who didst wondrously create, and even more wondrously didst renew the dignity and nature of man, grant by the mystery of this water and wine, that He Who was partaker of our humanity, may make us partakers of His divinity.”

Not only, St Gregory wrote, did He create our humanity, He renewed it. He re-shaped what we damaged. He did this first in Himself, but the Lord Jesus continues “renewing the dignity and nature of man” in each one of us. This renewal comes at a cost. God took humanity into Himself. In Christ, God became one of us. Taking our broken humanity into Himself, He healed it, not by saying some magic words but by applying spiritual remedies.

The Cross is that remedy in its most stark form. Christ gave Himself to the Cross to confront all the worst in our nature and tear it from us. He didn’t want to die. He was the only one of us Who didn’t have to. When He prayed, as Perfect Man, that “this cup pass from Him,” He wasn’t simply praying not to die. He was, as Perfect Man, praying not to take the consequences of our sinfulness into His humanity.

When I sin, I turn from God. It may not feel like it. It may feel like I’ve just expressed my honest feelings or indulged myself a bit too much or taken what I should, by rights, have been given. Sin doesn’t “feel” like sin most of the time, it doesn’t seem serious, because we’re so used to it.

We see the truth of sin, its soul-searing cost, in Christ’s cry of agony from the Cross: “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” It’s a quote from the Psalter—even in His pain at carrying the cost of sin, Christ sobs the words of Scripture—a cry of abandonment. “I cry day and night,” the Psalm goes on, “but Thou dost not answer.” A few words later it concludes, faithful even in despair, “Yet Thou, O Lord, art enthroned on the praises of Israel.” In Christ, the cost of sin is confronted head on. He gave His Heart to be the battleground, and there, its stranglehold on us is met and broken.

That battle continues in us. In every one of us the fight goes on, we just don’t know it most of the time. We’re used to losing the battles, because we think we’re fighting different ones! When somebody contradicts you, how do you feel? Irritated, resentful, maybe threatened. Who’s the enemy? The fool who doesn’t accept what you’ve said hook, line and sinker. What to do? Attack, passively if necessary, make them regret what they’ve done. The pseudo-psychological result? I’ve protected my turf and affirmed my self-worth. The spiritual result? I’ve turned a chance to follow Jesus (Who didn’t open His mouth to His accusers) into another tedious exercise of self-centeredness.

Through Holy Week, we hear in Scripture and see in the Liturgy the meaning of the Cross revealed. We can go for the cheap thrill and get worked up about how tragic this all was, how painful those nails must have been, and what rats those Pharisees were. We can shed wet tears that Jesus went through this for us and feel guilty that we’re such terrible sinners. Then Easter comes and we can gorge ourselves with chocolate until whatever the next holiday is (Cinco de Mayo, I think).

We don’t have to be chocolate Christians. We can embrace our own Cross in Holy Week, pick it up and follow the Lord. No need to work up some safely-distanced guilt, sorry for what He went through a long time ago, something we can pick up and drop off each year during Holy Week. How about if we each accept guilt for just the sins we commit? Accept it and get rid of it—confess it, have it forgiven—and then be men and women of faith and live with its consequences without whining. If we follow the Lord with our Cross, it means not so much feeling bad for what we’ve done as being willing to accept that you don’t admire me as much as I do; to accept that when I give my money to charity, I don’t get some unexpected reward in return, I just have less money, and that’s good because I love money too much. A faithful plodding after Jesus will eventually allow us to see many of the things we love aren’t lovable; the things we want aren’t desirable; the glamorous people we admire aren’t admirable. Following Jesus sets us free—not just from the tinny noises of the world, but from our slavery to ourselves. It doesn’t matter, that much, what I think. What I want really isn’t very important. This isn’t because we don’t matter: just the opposite. It’s because you and I are much more than our shifting opinions and occasional wants. We’re the sons and daughters of God, created in His image and intended for His fellowship.

The cost of that fellowship is the Cross—His and ours. But what does that fellowship promise? St Gregory’s prayer reminds us: “grant that He Who was partaker of our humanity, may make us partakers of His divinity.” Easter without end. It’s worth the plod.