There Will Be Blood

“Do not think that I only suffered for three hours on my cross. I am in torment until the end of time.” Words of Jesus received by the young Padre Pio.

The entire value of any drama depends upon its ending. Bad ending = Bad drama. The climax and conclusion in a good drama, even a tragedy, is able to sum up the entire plot and yet transcend it, with serendipity, bringing freshness and insight. The tendency of modern cinema is towards nihilistic, depressing endings: Crash, The Departed, There Will Be Blood.The Christian Drama is delightful because the climax is so exhilarating. We already know the ending (Paschal Mystery) even as we continue through our own piece of the drama.

Therefore, the other night I was troubled while watching a documentary on Saint Pio to learn the words he received from Christ: “Do not think I only suffered for three hours on my cross. I am in torment until the end of time.”

Frequently, I console myself and my students with the fact that Jesus was on his cross for only three hours; that his passion lasted about 18 hours and then concluded; that he was in the desert only 40 days; that suffering, in short, is always temporary and passing, like the pains of childbirth, but the afterglow of glory and joy is eternal.

The words Padre Pio heard suggest the opposite: that suffering is indefinite and maybe eternal; that, the Resurrection notwithstanding, there is no end in sight for our suffering; that, indeed, suffering may be eternal, intrinsic to God’s very Self; so that reality is endless pain…the myth of Sisyphus. Taken in this way, the words received overrule the Gospel of Christ’s triumph and he himself remains captive to suffering indefinitely.

These words to the saint are private revelation and therefore not definitive or binding. Nevertheless, given his sanctity and the fruits of his life, they cannot be dismissed.

After pondering these words in the light of the Gospel Mystery itself, I resolved my confusion by recalling that Jesus has identified himself with the very least among us, until the end of time. Until the end of time, the least among us will be in torment, the torment of physical pain, the torments of the emotions and the psyche, and the deeper torment of sin. Jesus words, spoken from heaven where He dwells in his humanity in eternal joy and glory with His Father and mother and the communion of saints, reveal that He, who has transcended time and defeated death, suffering and sin, nevertheless continues to identify His very Self with the suffering, sin and pain of those still moving through time and history…and He will do so until the very end of time.

The words received cannot contradict the more foundational reality of Christ’s final and eternal victory over suffering and sin. But there is within Jesus a mysterious duality: His body is now glorified and joyified in heaven for ever; but he is also “in torment,” not his own torment, which is finished, but He chooses to dwell in the torment of the little ones. Therefore, He who has triumphed over suffering now dwells in the torment of others, bringing his victory there.

The lives of Padre Pio and of all the saints reveal this paradox of duality: immense suffering suffused with hope, joy, love and miracles of new life...indeed, the very pathway or sacrament of this joy, life and love. And so there will, until the end of history, be blood: the blood of childbirth and of martyrdom, the blood of sacrificial/sacred violence, the blood of the stigmata, and the precious blood of the Eucharist.

The ending is happy but the drama is intense. And we are still in the midst of it.

Padre Pio, pray for us!

See you at the Eschaton!