HomeIgnatian PrayerStaying with the Cross

Staying with the Cross

is-site-pgThis post is based on Week Seven of An Ignatian Prayer Adventure.

In my work as a therapist, I suppose one could say it’s a central part of my job to tolerate discomfort. After all, many clients come to therapy in distress, pain, and grief, and the therapist’s role is to hold a space to welcome these understandably unwelcome emotions. In the therapy room, we might gently ask a client to delve deeper into a difficult experience or feeling. “Stay with that,” we may nudge.

In my prayer this week, however, I’ve found it challenging to stay with the suffering of the Passion and death of Jesus. I would much rather get ahead to the joy of the Resurrection. For many of us, entering into the emotion of Jesus’ Passion may be difficult, but this is precisely the charge of the third movement of the Spiritual Exercises. Just like in the therapy room, we know that staying with the suffering long enough to see it clearly tends to give way to something else, something new.

“When all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had taken place, they returned home…but all his acquaintances…stood at a distance.” (Luke 23:48–49)

According to Luke, the crucifixion gathered a crowd of spectators who left when it was finished. But those who knew Jesus stayed. They stayed with the cross, stayed with their friend, perhaps stayed in silence together long after everyone else left the hillside. Would I have stayed, or would I have fled?

Perhaps this week, we can stay in the suffering until things get still. We can shout, cry, speak, and mourn until it gives way to silence. Maybe we can stay in the mess and confusion and awfulness until meaning returns. We can enter the reality of the cross, with the heartfelt knowledge that hope is on the way.

Elizabeth Eiland Figueroa
Elizabeth Eiland Figueroa
Elizabeth Eiland Figueroa is a clinical social worker in Atlanta, Georgia. After graduating from Boston College, she joined the Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest and served in Seattle at a community mental health agency. Inspired by her experience as a JV, she moved to St. Louis to pursue a Master’s in Social Work and studied the integration of spirituality and psychotherapy. She continues to marvel at God’s movements in her life.

1 COMMENT

  1. Elizabeth,
    Your reflection and guidance is so full of truth and wisdom for me – thank you.
    The awfulness of what is to come, after such a grace-filled public ministry of healing and sharing of God’s love, must have been crushing and incomprehensible to Jesus in his humanity. Yet, this period of time truly defines the essence of Jesus spirituality – absolute Faith in the Creator’s goodness and mercy. It is a time to accompany our Friend in Faith and Witness – as well as the strangers among us who suffer as we do.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

DOTMAGIS BLOGGERS

Loretta Pehanich
110 POSTS0 COMMENTS
Marina Berzins McCoy
136 POSTS0 COMMENTS
Tim Muldoon
126 POSTS25 COMMENTS

FEATURED