Word of the Week

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

What is lacking: Hysterema (Gk.): meaning, “deficiency, that which is lacking”. It can reference property and resources, poverty, want, destitution.

The phrase “what is lacking” draws our attention to the question of redemptive suffering and the call to offer up our suffering in union with the suffering of Jesus Christ. The CCC draws this out in its only application of the famous Pauline passage from Colossians. The CCC states: “The Holy Spirit gives to some a special charism of healing so as to make manifest the power of the grace of the risen Lord. But even the most intense prayers do not always obtain the healing of all illnesses. Thus St. Paul must learn from the Lord that ‘my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’ (2 Cor.12:9), and that the sufferings to be endured can mean that ‘in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his Body, that is, the Church’” (Col.1:24) (CCC, 1508). The CCC explains that redemptive suffering is about partnering with Christ to bring about a deeper unity within the larger body of Christ, the Church, the family of God (cf. CCC, 618).

The Greek hysterema can be found nine times in the New Testament, most of which come to us from the hand of Paul. Of these passages, Paul’s reference to Christ while talking about his suffering and its tie to his ministry stands out above the rest, because of the possible confusion at first read. That is to say, the phrase “what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body” (Col.1:24) suggests that there might be something missing in the passion and death of Jesus Christ. This of course would be blasphemous. As noted above, this verse calls for a deeper sense of the unity between Christ and his mystical body, the Church. In Baptism, we were incorporated into the mystical body of Christ, and as such, we are invited to share in the suffering of Christ that atone for the Church’s (as the assembly of believers) afflictions. In this participation, we make up what is lacking by drawing more people into the mystery that is the Body of Christ. For this reason, joy in the midst of suffering is an overture to the gospel message (cf. Mt.5:11-12; Acts 5:41; 1 Pet.4:13) (Hahn and Minch, 30).

This Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time provides for us the opportunity to examine Jesus’ visitation to Martha and Mary. This gospel story highlights the two spiritual dimensions of the Christian, the active and the contemplative (cf. Lk.10:38-42). In this Lucan passage, Christ emphasizes that Mary’s place as the contemplative is “the better portion that shall not be taken away from her” (Lk.10:42). In his teaching, Christ places an emphasis on not only the life of introspective prayer, but its primacy in understanding the foot of the cross, hence, “the better portion”. If we are to be “active” in the redemptive mission of Christ, we must first be “contemplating” the sufferings of Christ. Essentially, by virtue of placing all that we are at the foot of the cross in contemplative prayer, we can then begin to understand the mystery that is redemptive suffering.  

 

“By uniting your sufferings with the Sacrifice of Christ, you help others to share in Christ’s Redemption.”

--John Paul II

Primary Texts Consulted

• Catholic Bible. Suggested trans. Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition, 1997.
•  Hahn, Scott and Minch , Curtis. Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, Colossians, Philemon.  RSV, 2nd ed. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2001.

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