This is part of a read-along hosted by myself and MrsDarwin of DarwinCatholic.
The main page is here.
MrsDarwin's biographical sketch of the author, Robert Hugh Benson, is here.
My introductory post is here.
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Cat wrote on "Christ in the Saint:"
It is the lifelong struggle of humans to realize that the imperfections that we consider "ours" -- the yearning to cling to some pleasure, the death-like grasp on The Plan, the small tendencies to comfort and security and power that manifest themselves in self-absorption and lies and the little ways we use other people -- do not truly add any flavor to our character or interesting edge to our personalities. Every person on earth -- except the Blessed Virgin Mary, to whom Benson rightly devotes the first half of this chapter -- has known the bitter pleasure of clutching some favored sin closely to ward off the suffocating dullness of sanctity. If I give up this stupid thing, which gives me some fleeting pleasure, what is left? The long boring slog to heaven.
The saints are proof that surrender does not bring death.
I, though, still have saint with a much shorter slog to sainthood in mind.
As I read Chapter 9, so soon after Chapter 8 (about the Sinner, so soon after the Saint), my mind returned again and again to that place in the Gospel where the Saint and the Sinner hang close together, with Christ in the middle between them.
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I reflected early on that, settling down to meditate upon Christ in the Sinner, I might all too quickly revert back to meditating upon Christ in a Saint. This is because with few exceptions, all our Saints have also been Sinners; some of our most popular Saints are famous for their repentance and their conversions, documented by someone else or even by themselves. The woman weeping at Jesus's feet; Paul, recovering his sight; Augustine, confessing to every generation of Christians. When we wish to contemplate Christ in the sinner, we may well think about these people; especially when we are considering the ones to whom Jesus himself reached out in history, personally transforming their lives.
It's not wrong, for at the moment of transformation, they were still Sinners; not yet Saints. On the other hand, there's a certain bias, a failure to discern part of the picture, if we only work backwards from Saints to the Sinners they once were. For the world is filled with Sinners who are not yet Saints. And history is filled with Sinners who may be Saints, though if they are it is unknown to us; who perhaps are not Saints and never will be.
What I'm saying is, we've already contemplated Christ in the Saint. If we are really going to contemplate Christ in the Sinner, it means contemplating Him not only in those Sinners for whom we already know the happy ending... but contemplating Him in those Sinners that have no happy ending. Not yet; and even in those Sinners that perhaps will have none ever.
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Christ was crucified between two thieves, or revolutionaries, or both; between two Sinners.
Christ died on the cross between a Sinner and a Saint.
I think it is a little bit unfair to contemplate the Good Thief and think merely, "I am contemplating a Sinner." It's not wrong—with few exceptions, all saints are sinners—but we are ignoring two things when we do this. First, we are contemplating the Good Thief from a perspective that knows he is really a Saint as well; second, there is a perfectly appropriate example of a Sinner right there on Christ's other side.
There will never be a better example of how Christ is reflected both in the Saint and in the Sinner. The three men look alike in their agonies from the feet of the crosses. Benson says, "For the crucifix and the Sinner are profoundly, and not merely superficially, alike in this—that both are what the rebellious self-will of man has made of the Image of God..." Melanie Bettinelli and I have discussed this concept before as the concept of the "damaged icon."
So let's look at the other man.
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Matthew (Mark is similar):
Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left. And those who passed by derided him.... "You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross." So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, "He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him; for he said 'I am the son of God.'" And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way.
Luke:
Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. And when they came to the place which is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on the right and one on the left.... One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, "Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!"
Placed ("in the same way") on the lips of the thief-who-is-not-the-identified-Good-Thief are all the words of mockery: Save yourself, if you are the Son of God. You said you were King; look at you now. And words of tempting and testing: We will believe in you... if you come down from the Cross. He trusts God; let God deliver him.
The man is a known sinner, justly condemned; dying in agony, a picture of ugliness; spending the last moments of his life in mockery, hatred, blasphemy, and revulsion; when another choice and another example is right before him. And yet he persists. And he is the very mirror of both the Saint and of the Savior.
Benson reminds us that Christ is not just with Sinners like this—here, willingly crucified in company with him—but within Sinners like this—willingly crucified in compassion in the Sinner's heart and soul—willingly residing, radiating unreceived grace, in the heart even as it rejects him, as long as the man's breath lasts. When Christ prays, "Forgive them, they know not what they do," he means this man as well, for he sees his heart, all of our hearts; he's there, His image, His spirit, His goodness; damaged, and not yet gone.
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The Good Thief has always been one of my favorite characters in the Gospel to contemplate. I fear I've turned my attention too much to what is only part of the story. The other thief is just as precious. He was, as a human being. And he is, in this story that has come down to us, as an example and an image. I cannot begin to plumb the depths of the mystery and meaning of the three crosses on the hill, but I can start by remembering always that there are three.
In the Good Thief, God takes the damaged icon and restores it. But take a step back and see the picture as a whole: the crucifix and the sinner, side by side, what man made of the Image of God, before God said to an image-bearer, "Today you shall be with me in Paradise."
Isn't it obvious that we must contemplate them both? I, at least, have not heard Him speak those words to me yet.
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