How we do punish ourselves...

I have been cleaning out my library, which contains quite an assortment of old books which I inherited from elderly priests who long have departed this earth. I was thumbing through one, entitled "The Sisters are Asking," which, far from being ancient, was authored during my childhood. One chapter particularly made me shudder. It encouraged the use of corporal penances (instruments that cut the skin... one example is sufficient, I am sure), and in fact saw this as a mark of more advanced devotion, though always with the caution that one who wished to inflict physical pain on herself should have permission from her superior before she ordered the instruments.

Readers who are expecting elaboration on themes of sadism or masochism here shall be greatly disappointed. I not only never saw a trace of that in convent life or my lengthy association with nuns, but believe that most women in consecrated life are quite innocent - in fact, most of us, were we to see a man with a whip, would think he was a horse trainer. No, I doubt the self-inflicted pain had any sexual connection. It came from a distorted sense of sin, forgiveness, and even of atonement.

For many centuries, popular theological thought seemed to provide quite a cut and dried picture of redemption. All centred on the cross, not on creation or cosmic redemption. The formula unfolded as follows: God creates the world, with mankind in a painless, blissful paradise. Adam and Eve disobey and insult him, so God indulges his sense of justice by making the world quite a dreadful place in which to dwell, then bolts the gates of heaven shut. (When the original plan of creation was thwarted by man's free will, God had to go to Plan B.) Because God needed restitution, and this could only come from one equal to himself, his Son became man, and the crucifixion satisfied the justice of the Father, who allowed entry to heaven afterward but would not remove any of the earthly agony he imposed in Adam's day. This world was not only a vale of tears but one in which God sent his friends suffering - all one could hope for was happiness in heaven.

We tended to forget that Jesus suffered because of other people - that his crucifixion was a dreadful but natural outcome of his following his vocation to proclaim the kingdom. Paul, indeed, spoke of suffering but, again, his own imprisonment, martyrdom, and so forth were natural consequences of his vocation.

It is interesting that Julian of Norwich, though explaining visions which were of the crucifixion itself, could leave us with a picture of Christ laughing at the defeat of Satan, and taking joy in all of us. This is not a day when meditations on the Passion are popular (and when Freud, regrettably, would leave us a legacy of seeing what is sick in what is merely expressive... God knows what Freudians would make of depictions of Christ's blood, where I have another view since I just drank some.) Yet those of Julian, as one example, and however graphic they are in mourning Jesus' suffering and the sin of ours which contributed, are very positive and warm in their way. There is no suggestion of a God to be appeased - or that we need to inflict pain on ourselves.

My logical side tells me that, in Julian's time and place, suffering of all sorts (the Plague being a key example) was too 'near' to be ignored. (My own generation are convinced that they'll never die if they only join the right gym...) I have my own theories about the development of the excess strain on suffering - may write a book on it some day - but one point is on my mind at the moment.

Perhaps because we live in an era when persecution is not at our door, and when even those of us who are relatively poor have better health and shelter than those of the past, there is a sense that God is not going to let us be that 'comfortable.' Yes, the days of Nero are rather a faded memory - but the Sisters who taught me were not about to forget other persecutions and massive deaths, quite a lot closer to home.

My theology is totally at odds with 'God as punisher' images - yet those ghosts still do haunt me now and then. In fact, it can become "I had best punish myself before God takes it upon himself."

Perhaps I need to brush up my Greek and Latin even more than I have needed to do for my divinity course. If I really achieved high facility in the Greats, I would recognise that image - of a God who is insulted, takes revenge, inflicts punishment, needs constant placating - very well. He looks a good deal like Zeus...