29 August 2020
Memorial of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist
Today, we celebrate the Memorial of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist. To understand the Passion of John the Baptist, we must look into the Passion of Christ. As we just celebrated the feast of St. Augustine yesterday, I would like to continue to reflect on today’s feast from the perspective of St. Augustine.
Yesterday, I discussed St. Augustine’s view of Christ’s humble heroism from his kenosis. According to St. Augustine, the second mode of Christ’s humility is the suffering and death of Christ. Here, Christ’s humble self-emptying extends to his suffering, humiliation, and death on the cross. By suffering and dying on the cross, Christ took humility to the extreme. By shedding his blood and dying, Christ reveals another valuable lesson to us, namely, that the self-emptying which unfolds through Jesus’s life culminates in his passion, in which he confronts death. Thus, by imitating Christ, human beings will be able to learn how to confront the fear of death. In short, Augustine believes that Christ, through his death on the cross, teaches us how to conquer our fear of death. Christ wants human beings to imitate him by taking the path of humility and death on a cross so that they will be able to confront the fear of death. In summary, Christ demonstrates utter humility, which opens a new understanding of the depths of God’s grace. This self-emptying is revealed first in the incarnation and was completed by his death on the cross. It is through the grace of kenosis that believers receive Christ’s gift of humility, which is essential to the purification of our souls as it will enable human beings to overcome their ignorance and weakness, especially the fear of death.
Indeed, Christ’s heroic action, which was revealed in his humble humanity, culminates in the cross. Christ’s submission to humiliation, torture, and death demonstrates the full meaning of the first part of his heroic action in the Incarnation. Christ’s agony on the cross expresses that the heroic humility of kenosis entails being emptied of all honor and glory. Christ as the humble hero not only relinquishes his Divinity but he also refuses to cling to the human life of honor and glory. Nevertheless, Augustine explains that Christ does not seek his own glory but the glory of the Father who exalts him above all (Johnnis Evangelium Tractatus 104.3).
By highlighting Christ’s heroic death on the cross, Augustine tries to distinguish the difference between Christian heroes and Roman heroes. He shows that the root difference between the two heroes lies between divine and human glory. Roman heroism aims for the attainment of temporal benefits such as victory and glory for Rome (Civita Dei XXII. 6). Therefore, death is something not only necessary but also something desirable for the glory and honor of Rome. Nevertheless, Augustine points out that the hopes in glory are a mask for the fear of death. Roman heroes fear death in the guise of defeat or dishonor. Augustine then compares the Roman heroes with the apostles who preached the Gospel of Christ where they expected to receive personal dishonor and rejection, and, thus, they did not die for the sake of earthly glory (Civita Dei V. 14). Thus, the Christian heroes, in confronting their fear of death, did not console themselves with false hope in the form of earthly glory. Instead, they have learned a lesson from Christ who accepted his death as humiliation. Their heroic death in turn will only glorify God’s name (Civita Dei V. 14). In other words, St. Augustine suggests that through his heroic death on the cross, Christ taught the apostles to sacrifice their desires for glory and to direct their good works to the eternal glory.