To Delight In. To Suffer With. To Love.

God delights in our joys. How can we not take delight in the joys of others?

Let them shout for joy and be glad that favor my righteous cause; yea, let them say continually, “Let the Lord be magnified who hath pleasure in the prosperity of His servant.” - Psalm 35:27

Are we able to delight in other people's successes? Here successes refers to virtuous or at least morally neutral achievements. Or, are we given to envy, jealousy and hatred? Are we angered by a colleague's promotion? It may be that we are more deserving in many respects of a promotion, but are we able to celebrate our colleague's win? Are we able to celebrate the achievement of someone who is, how does one say, blatantly full of him/herself and aggressively self-serving?

The Catechism (CCC):

• 2551 "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Mt 6:21).
• 2552 The tenth commandment forbids avarice arising from a passion for riches and their attendant power.
• 2553 Envy is sadness at the sight of another's goods and the immoderate desire to have them for oneself. It is a capital sin.
• 2554 The baptized person combats envy through good-will, humility, and abandonment to the providence of God.
• 2555 Christ's faithful "have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" (Gal 5:24); they are led by the Spirit and follow his desires.
• 2556 Detachment from riches is necessary for entering the Kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are the poor in spirit."
• 2557 "I want to see God" expresses the true desire of man. Thirst for God is quenched by the water of eternal life (cf. Jn 4:14).

Poverty of spirit allows one to thrill with others, to participate in the joys of others. Poverty of spirit enables one to participate in the sorrows of others. Compassion means to suffer with.

• com "with, together" + pati "to suffer" (passion). Latin compassio is an ecclesiastical loan-translation of Greek sympatheia. Sometimes in Middle English it meant a literal sharing of affliction or suffering with another. An Old English loan-translation of compassion was efenðrowung. - Online Etymological Dictionary

In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old. - Isaiah 63:9

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit. - 1 Peter 3:18

For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sinning. - Hebrews 4:15

Are we afraid of our own suffering? How can we be expected to 'suffer with' another? Jesus, Who gives us His Spirit, enables us to be truly present to others' sufferings. The triumph of grace is the blending of experience or encounter so that, contrary to the voices which demand self preservation, we risk loss of self for the salvation of another.

But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. - 1 Peter 4:13

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. - Philippians 3:10

We cannot possibly identify with others if we are so full of ourselves (our selfish preoccupations), so careful about our limits or so imprisoned by fear, that we permit or justify self preservation that dominates or limits our ability to be present to others. Called by Christ to participate in the salvation of others, we offer them the lived Gospel, God's message of healing and hope. We bring them loving kindness to help them live up to their dignity and to be comforted in the midst of physical or mental affliction.

Jesus calls us to reevaluate our priorities:

If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. - Saint Luke 14:26

The very concept that our lives are our own, that 'our participation' is a negotiable commodity to be bargained about with God, suggests that a creature has set himself in opposition to his Creator's understanding of his purpose. One's vocation is not a mere puzzle to be solved but an extension of our very identity in Christ. By getting to know Christ through His Gospel and by the grace of the Holy Ghost, by receiving His Body and Blood - the Holy Eucharist - we discover our identity in Christ. We must admit our own limitations, entrust our lives to Christ, and God will provide the wisdom to us to pursue a course - in faith - that manifests as conformity to charity, in love for God and for others and the working out of one's salvation (Philippians 2:12). The degree to which our lives conform to charity - God's saving love - is the compass by which we may acknowledge and affirm the direction in which God is calling us and, importantly, the orientation by which we are able to discern when we are not on track.

Thanks be to God, we have a divine assistant, THE Divine Assistant, the Holy Ghost, to lead us from charity to charity.

And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever. - Saint John 14:16

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. - 1 John 4:18

As Lent proceeds, perhaps we may sit and listen for the voice of God in the midst of our many distractions, in the midst of our poverty. Perhaps we might let a word from Holy Scripture resonate in our minds, to shape our understanding and to open our hearts to the Holy Ghost.

Part 1, Question 37 (291 - 292) https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/summa-translation/Part%201/st1-ques37.pdf

Reply to Objection 3: The Father loves not only the Son but also Himself and us by the Holy Spirit. For insofar as the expression ‘to love’ is taken for a notion, it not only implies the production of a divine person but also implies a person produced in the mode of love, where love has a relation to the thing loved. Hence, just as the Father speaks Himself and every creature by the Word which He begets, insofar as the begotten Word adequately represents the Father and every creature, so too the Father loves Himself and every creature by the Holy Spirit, insofar as the Holy Spirit proceeds as the Love of the first goodness according to which the Father loves Himself and every creature. And so it is also clear that a relation to creatures is implied—secondarily, as it were—both in the Word and in the Love that proceeds, insofar as the divine truth and goodness constitute the principle for understanding and loving every creature.

Another translation of the Reply to Objection 3: The Father loves not only the Son, but also Himself and us, by the Holy Ghost; because, as above explained, to love, taken in a notional sense, not only imports the production of a divine person, but also the person produced, by way of love, which has relation to the object loved. Hence, as the Father speaks Himself and every creature by His begotten Word, inasmuch as the Word "begotten" adequately represents the Father and every creature; so He loves Himself and every creature by the Holy Ghost, inasmuch as the Holy Ghost proceeds as the love of the primal goodness whereby the Father loves Himself and every creature. Thus it is evident that relation to the creature is implied both in the Word and in the proceeding Love, as it were in a secondary way, inasmuch as the divine truth and goodness are a principle of understanding and loving all creatures.