Endure Suffering Through Enchantment

Homily for Sunday, April 6, 2025
The Fifth Sunday in Lent
Preached by Fr. Todd Miller at Bethany Convent,Arlington, MA

Perhaps you read David Brooks’ article in last Sunday’s Times in which Brooks tells how the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami wasn’t always a novelist. For years he operated a jazz club in Tokyo until one day in 1978, while drinking a beer at a baseball game, the lead off batter laced a double down the left field line.  As the runner pulled into second base, Murakami thought:  “I should write a novel.”  And write a novel he did!  His first novel was such a success that Murakami was able close his jazz club and devote himself full time to writing.  No longer doing the hard work of running a jazz club, Murakami started to put on weight.  Since there was a track near his house, he decided to take up running.  And take up running he did!  By the late 2000’sMurakami was running six miles a day, six days a week, and had run 23 marathons, an ultra marathon, and had completed several triathlons.  But, as Murakami admits in a memoir, he didn’t enjoy running. “It was draining physically,” he wrote, “and for a while afterwards I swore I’d never run again.” Or again, “At around 23 miles, I started to hate everything.”  Or still again, “As I ran this race, I felt I never, ever wanted to go through that again.”  “Why would he do something that regularly makes him miserable?” Brooks wonders.

In a word, “enchantment.”  Brooks writes:

The moment of enchantment can be so subtle and soft – a baseball player hits a double and Murakami contemplates writing a novel; he has a track by his house,so maybe he’ll take up running.  But, unbidden, almost involuntarily, a commitment has been made… a quiet passion has been inflamed.  

Brooks compares it to falling in love:

As in any kind of falling in love, [this enchantment] happens in the wildness of the heart…  It arouses amazing energies…When you’ve fallen in love… it’s because some flame was ignited by a force greater, darker and more passionate than your reasoning mind; it irradiates you, [it] conquers you.

It’s this love, this enchantment, writes Brooks, that enables a person to undertake extraordinary challenges and even to endure pain.  Brooks quotes Murakami:

Pain is inevitable.  Suffering is optional…  The hurt part of running is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand any more is up to the runner.  

Murakami had become so enchanted with running that the energies aroused, the flames ignited, enabled him to endure the pain of running.  

Contrary to what we might expect, as we draw near to the Sunday of the Passion (Palm Sunday), the readings in the lectionary are trending decidedly more joyful.  Last Sunday, for example, the Psalmist wrote:  

Happy are they whose transgressions are forgiven,
and whose sin is put away! (Ps 32)

This morning Isaiah writes:

Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing…
I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert…
To give drink to my chosen people… that they might declare my praise.

And this morning the Psalmist writes:

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
then we were like those who dream.
Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy.

Instead of becoming more somber as we approach Palm Sunday, our Sunday readings are trending decidedly more joyful.

How can this be?  In a word, “enchantment.”  

The persons of the Trinity are enchanted one with another.  To paraphrase Brooks:  Among them is “a force greater, darker and more passionate than our reasoning mind can comprehend.”  The Trinity is irradiated with love; they have been conquered by love.

It is out of love that the Trinity created us.  And when the Trinity created us, “a commitment was made,” “a quiet passion inflamed.”  If because of his love for running Murakami was willing to endure the pain of a marathon, how much more was the Trinity –or, according to Julian of Norwich, how much more is the Trinity even now –  willing to endure pain because of their enchantment with us?

Perhaps the readings on these Sundays leading up to the Sunday of the Passion are trending decidedly more joyful because they reflect the joy of the Trinity as Jesus approaches the Passion.  To be sure, Good Friday was painful for Jesus, and he did ask that “this cup might pass” from him (Matt 26:39).  Yet, as my former spiritual director (a Jesuit) pointed out, at the crucifixion Jesus experienced not only pain but also at the same time joy – joy because he was doing the Father’s will.  Always and at all times, including at the crucifixion, Jesus and the Father are so enchanted with each other that the Son was willing – or according to Julian, still is willing – to endure the pain of the cross.  And always and at all times, including at the crucifixion, Jesus and the Father are so enchanted with us that the Son was willing – and still is willing– to endure the pain of the cross.  At his crucifixion, among the many things Jesus must have felt, Jesus also felt joy.

I’ve referenced Julian twice now.  I will leave us with her words from her Revelations of Divine Love in which she speaks about how much Jesus loves us, how much joy we bring him, and that because of his love he would suffer for us all over again:

Then said our good Lord Jesus Christ:  Art thou well pleased that I suffered for thee? I said:  Yea, good Lord, I thank Thee…  Then said Jesus, our kind Lord:  If thou art pleased, I am pleased:  it is a joy, a bliss, and endlessly satisfying to me that ever I suffered my Passion for thee; and if I might suffer more, I would suffer more. (chapter 22)

May Jesus’ joy in this coming Holy Week be a source of joy for us as well.

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