“Many follow Him to the breaking of bread,” Thomas à Kempis tells us, “but few to the drinking of the chalice, His passion.” Many love consolation, but not sacrifice. This is the struggle of the one who wallows in the Night, who endures the bouts of dryness, the loneliness, the ever-growing feeling of His absence. In these moments, however, we are bearers of the chalice, the drinkers of His passion. God took on our pathetic form, He bore our flesh and bone, he became low, humble, vulnerable–and we killed Him. The Creator of the cosmos, the Divine Mind, Actus Purus, the Prime Mover, died on a cross, His hands pierced by metal spikes, his flesh bleeding, his soul wrenched. Gods do bleed, for we have killed one, we have tortured one. And, yes, gods do die, for we had Him give up his spirit (Matt 27:50).

What does this mean? The director hasn’t merely stepped on the stage–worse, he’s joined his cast, his creation, only to die at their hands. Why would God permit such a thing? How can God weaken himself? This is the mystery of His passion. He surrendered all consolation, he had no glory, no wealth, no power, no pleasure. At the cross he was poor, naked, alone, and suffering. He took on flesh only to have it torn, He made friends only to watch them betray and flee Him, He loved us only to receive hate. This is the key: Christ loves us even when we hate Him. That is, Christ doesn’t love us because His love for us somehow works for His own good–there are no ulterior motives. His love is pure. This is why He says “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (5:44). To love only those who love you isn’t a true test of love, for if we are only good to those who will be good to us, then our “love” may merely be self-interest–I scratch your back, you scratch mine. But if we love those who hate us, if we love our enemies, then we can be sure that our love is pure, that it isn’t done in anticipation of repayment–our love will be like Christ’s, a love that is wholly self-giving. What can we give God that He already doesn’t have? God loves us for our sake. “This is my body given up for you” (Lk 22:19)–this is true love.

So in our dryness, in the bleakness of the Night, let us first love God–not for His consolation, not for the feelings He gives us. Let us love Him for His sake, as He loves us for our sake. Perhaps, if we find ourselves suffering greatly during the Night, we ought to examine what we truly love. We should heed these words from Joseph Ratzinger’s Jesus of Nazareth: “At the heart of all temptation […] is the act of pushing God aside because we perceive him as secondary.” What is God to us? Is He solely comfort, a gentle voice in our heads, a nice thought, an emotional high, a convenient belief? Have we idolized our feelings, have we made them our god? God is life-giving blood, God is scourged flesh, God is the sacrificial lamb, God is the one who suffers for us. We should love God through the trials and the anguish, as He loved us through His. His love is not faltered, His pace never slows, He will find us, He will hunt us down–and when, in the darkness of our Night, He sees us cold and shivering, He will die for us.

“What power there is in pure love for Jesus–love that is free from all self-interest and self-love!”

– Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book II Chapter XI