A Story that "Verges on the Improbable"

Cyril of Alexandria and Chiara Lubich on the suffering of Jesus on the Cross

Abstract

This article offers a “Cyrillian” reading of some difficult texts from Chiara Lubich’s Paradise ’49, texts which initially seem to contradict one another. They state that, “it is God who suffers”, on the cross, while at the same time affirming that ”as God, Jesus does not suffer”. By “Cyrillian reading I mean a simple but illuminating paralleling of the way the two authors – Chiara Lubich and Cyril of Alexandria – deal with the issue of God’s suffering in Christ. An underlying continuity is observed in these two author’s affirmation of the paradox of the Incarnation. For the Patriarch of Alexandria, Christ “suffers impassibly”, something similar can be found in the Catholic mystic from Trent. The resolution of this paradox lies in understanding God as love in the thought of these two authors.