By Nicholas Soellner
A Place for All
Good Friday brings about strong emotions for many people. Whether it be attending a Tenebrae service or partaking in the devotion of the Cross, Christ’s passion hits closer to home now than just about any time of year. To the world, the crucifixion is scandalous. Jesus has seemingly lost his dignity, signaled through his loss of clothes, as well as his freedom and autonomy, signaled through his wounds and confinement to the cross. But Christ’s suffering did not make him any less human or worthy of love. In fact, Scott Hahn argues, “There was never a moment where the Father loved the Son more, than when he was on the cross.” In the eyes of the world, Jesus had lost all usefulness, all purpose and all value. We as Christians, of course, recognize the inestimable value of Christ’s sacrifice and what it means for our eternal destiny. But here it also reveals the hard reality we are often faced with: We have a tendency to love people for what they do for us, or can do for us, rather than for who they are.
True, you may begrudgingly say, but surely not the case for parents and their children. Sadly, even parent-child relationships can be tarnished by the weight of expectations. If not by the sunk costs of hundreds or thousands of dollars for private lessons and coaching which never materialize into a college scholarship offer or a professional career, perhaps simply by the realization that life with this child is not going to match our picturesque imaginations of what family life should be like. Catholic author and speaker Devin Schadt revealed his own such struggles in a “Pints With Aquinas” podcast interview: “I found myself distancing myself from Anna Marie, because I was saying, ‘That’s not what God wanted for us. She’s not the daughter that God wanted for us. They took her from us.’ And that’s the position I was holding to file this lawsuit.”
Schadt’s daughter, Anna Marie, was born premature at 28 weeks, and during her first few months of life had a difficult struggle against RSV. When hospitalized, the care team’s lack of vigilance resulted in 10 hours of undetected apnea, followed by severe oxygen deprivation. Anna Marie suffered from significant loss of cognitive abilities, as well as losing the use of her legs. The medical team even admitted they had committed medical malpractice. Yet the more Devin found himself seeking justice for their negligence, the further he found himself slipping into depression. Schadt’s decision to forgive the doctors who handicapped his daughter and to “choose” his daughter began the turnaround for him. “And it was in that moment that I began to not just accept Anna Marie, but to choose her. And I think that’s what’s missing from fatherhood these days, we accept our children … but we don’t choose them. We don’t look them in the eye and talk about life … We don’t spend that time and say, ‘I choose you, I delight in you and I desire you.’” Perhaps more remarkably, Schadt notes the wisdom he has learned from his daughter who lives daily with her disabilities.
One day his daughter came home from school crying inconsolably after some young child had bullied her with remarks about how she would never be able to walk on her own. As Devin held his daughter through her tears, he noticed her look up at the crucifix and then slowly begin smiling. He asked her, “Anna Marie, why are you smiling?” To which she replied, “I get to suffer with Jesus, and that makes me happy.” The idea of “offering it up” is so foreign to a world obsessed with the avoidance of suffering. To say that we have an opportunity to suffer with Jesus probably sounds crazy to even most Christians, much less the secular world. Yet this is exactly what the origin of the word “compassion” means: “to suffer with.”
For those without disabilities, we may often find ourselves feeling awkward around, or disconnected from, those with disabilities. There may be an experience of anxiety, not wanting to do or say the wrong thing. Our suffering, in whatever form it may take, becomes a means of common connection. Do not disqualify yourself from the invitation to love someone else just because your suffering is not the same. The Christian’s response to suffering is not one of indifference, scorn or pity. It is one of love. As St. Paul wrote, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).
Nicholas Soellner serves as program manager for the Diocese of Evansville Office of Catechesis.