Mystical Word: 5th Sunday of Lent 2025
Readings for the Fifth Sunday of Lent
Isaiah 43:16-21| Philippians 3:8-14 | John 8:1-11
St. Paul the Apostle, in the second reading from Philippians, testifies, “I consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things.” He writes about the joy of losing! He rejoices to be left with nothing! This is exactly the way of annihilation as taught by another holy Paul: St. Paul of the Cross (Italy, 1694-1775).
The way of annihilation as taught by St. Paul of the Cross means we let ourselves be reduced to nothing in prayer and in life. We discussed the experience of being reduced to nothing in prayer last week. This week, we reflect on what it is like and how to go about letting the self become nothing by everyday living in the world.
St. Paul of the Cross wonders, “when shall we imitate perfectly our Savior, who emptied himself? When shall we be so humble that we glory in being the opprobrium of men and the abjection of the people?...When shall we be so simple and childlike that we consider it a great advantage to be made out to be the least of all, to be cast aside as nobodies, and to be pained to be esteemed and honored?” Being humble, least, last, and a nobody is the “substance” of the way of annihilation in the world.
This is a central aspect of the Gospel that we tend to avoid. We like being somebody who does something great. We want to be loved, honored, and respected. We want to be secure financially. But St. Paul of the Cross, faithful to Jesus the poor and crucified Savior, tells the soul: “make yourself nothing, poor, small, dead, crucified, buried to all things. Jesus Himself will teach you.”
This is not something we do actively. Rather, we accept. We all have moments of anonymity and times when we are not respected or held in high esteem. For the most part, we are not known or even appreciated. St. Paul of the Cross would not ask us to seek out moments of derision or loneliness. But he recognizes we all experience it. To accept these moments when they come without resistance is to reduce the self to nothing.
Another way, and one which inevitably affects every life, is the acceptance of suffering. “Blessed are they who suffer anguish, sickness, persecution, mockery, insults for the love of God; they are more fortunate than the rich of this world, than those who enjoy the delights of earth.” We all suffer. We all get sick and experience misunderstanding. These are experiences of the cross. So, he exhorts us: “be willingly on the cross with Jesus Christ.” We are on the cross with Jesus when we accept our suffering without inner resistance and in faith. Then, we may need to do something about our suffering such as seek medical assistance, redress a wrong, clarify someone’s misunderstanding, or whatever we need to do. Of course, we may need to do something first. That is fine. We can suffer with Jesus at any point.
The secret to accepting oneself as a nobody, humble and little, as well as to suffering unto spiritual transformation, is prayer. “In order to receive everything with resignation and bear all with fortitude, you must go often to be nourished in prayer.” In prayer we discover how to accept everything in humility because we learn it from God. “The greatest perfection of the soul consists in a total abandonment into the hands of the Sovereign Good. This abandonment embraces a perfect resignation to the Divine Will in all happenings that come.”
St. Paul of the Cross invites us to be a holocaust sacrifice when he writes, “rejoice to be a victim sacrificed in holocaust to the Supreme Good. A holocaust is completely burnt up and becomes ashes. That is what God wishes of you, that is, that you be burnt up by the fire of trials, and then from these ashes will come a spark of the fire of love that will inflame everything.” It is an image of being completely consumed by the divine mystery in every aspect of life.
Summarizing the way of self-annihilation, St. Paul of the Cross writes, “Detachment from everything, Death to everything, Annihilation under everyone. Keep your mind despoiled of all imaginations and forms, for then you are better disposed to remain lost in God, who cannot be found under images or forms, but only in pure and living faith.” Crucified prayer and moving through life with inner silence constitute the way of self-annihilation, which allows divine love into the world.