Israel Centeno
Affliction, sorrow, and tribulation — these are not mere synonyms but profound realities that define human existence in its relationship with the world and the Divine. Simone Weil understood affliction (malheur) as something distinct from ordinary suffering. It is a state so overwhelming, so absolute, that it alienates the soul, rendering it incapable of love, of giving or receiving grace. It is the extremity of human suffering, where pain ceases to be a passage and becomes an abyss, an exile from meaning itself.
But how does one transcend this state? How does affliction, which seems to annihilate the soul, become the means of its salvation? This is a mystery, a mystery unveiled in the God who emptied Himself (kenosis), in the One who relinquished all power, even the power of His own presence, and endured the extremity of suffering in innocence, humiliation, and death. The Passion of Christ, His torment and crucifixion, is the key to understanding how affliction is not the final word but the path to the ultimate victory.
The Mystery of Kenosis: Self-Emptying and the Cross
Saint Paul, in his Letter to the Philippians (2:7), proclaims that Christ “emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men.” This kenosis — the divine self-emptying — is at the heart of the Christian mystery. It is not merely an act of condescension but a radical renunciation: Christ does not merely become human; He surrenders everything, even His own divine prerogatives, to fully inhabit the condition of fallen man.
The first self-emptying is the Incarnation: God becomes man, embracing weakness, smallness, and contingency. The Word dwells among us for thirty years, not revealing His divine nature, not wielding His omnipotence. Then, in the Garden of Gethsemane, He faces the second kenosis: the agony before the Passion. He falls to the ground, sweating blood, trembling. Fear and desolation consume Him. And yet, in the depth of this affliction, He submits to the will of the Father.
Finally, on the Cross, comes the ultimate self-emptying. Christ endures not only physical agony but utter humiliation, the stripping away of all dignity. And then, the cry that echoes through history:
“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
Here, Christ enters into the absolute affliction that Simone Weil describes — the moment where there is no consolation, no reprieve, where even God seems absent. It is the suffering that Ivan Karamazov finds unbearable, the suffering of innocent children, the unredeemed pain that challenges faith itself. And yet, in this abandonment, Christ does not recoil. He remains. He inhabits affliction fully, and by doing so, He transfigures it.
Entropy, Corruption, and the Resurrection of the Flesh
This mystery is not only inscribed in human suffering but in the very fabric of the universe. The truth of affliction is visible in the law of entropy, in the death of stars and planetary systems, in the dissolution of all that is contingent, all that will inevitably pass away. Even our thoughts — our relentless pursuit of comprehension — are bound to the limits of decay, to a universe that expands from the primordial fire of the Big Bang only to dissolve into cold silence.
And yet, it is precisely in this destruction that redemption is unveiled. The same dissolution that consumes creation also participates in the renewal of all things. Everything that has the breath of God — the Spirit that animates life — yearns for this redemption. This is the moment Christ embodies at the height of His Passion, when He breathes out His final words:
“Father, into Your hands I commend My Spirit.”
This is not merely resignation; it is an act of ultimate trust. Christ, fully emptied, entrusts His very breath, His soul, His spirit to the Father. And in doing so, He does not fall into nothingness — He transfigures all that perishes into the seed of what will be eternally redeemed.
Thus, the corruptibility of the flesh — the decay of all living things — is not the final destiny of creation. Memento mori, the ancient reminder of death, is not the end of the story. The very corruption of the body, which affliction makes undeniable, is answered by the promise of bodily resurrection.
Saint Paul affirms in 1 Corinthians 15:42–44:
“So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.”
The body that decays, the flesh that suffers affliction, is not discarded in eternity. It is transfigured. Christ’s Resurrection is not a mere metaphor — it is the definitive answer to the entropy of creation, to the corruption of the flesh, to the suffering that afflicts all living things.
Attention and Contemplation: From Affliction to Supreme Beauty
Simone Weil speaks of attention as the highest form of prayer, a path not merely to knowledge but to the direct apprehension of truth. True attention enables us to contemplate, in human suffering and the sacrifice of the innocent, the mysteries of the cosmos itself.
Standing before a depiction of the Passion, such as Velázquez’s Christ Crucified or the most dramatic of all, Grünewald’s Crucifixion, we do not see mere torment — we see order, proportion, harmony. The wounds of Christ are not random desecrations; they are part of a deeper architecture, the perfect symmetry of sacrifice.
This is not a superficial aesthetic harmony but the same harmony that governs the universe: the fine-tuned physical constants that sustain creation, the mathematical elegance underlying nature’s laws, the golden ratio inscribed in the forms of life, the perfect balance in every self-regulating system of existence.
The visible world is structured by a hidden geometry, an unseen harmony. And if such a harmony governs the created order, how much greater must it be in the invisible realm?
Transcending Affliction: Passing Through the Veil
At the moment of Christ’s death, the veil of the Temple is torn in two. The barrier between God and man is destroyed. On the Cross, Christ endures the most radical abandonment, and yet that abandonment becomes the gateway to divine fullness.
Thus, Saint Paul can boldly proclaim:
“O death, where is your sting?”
The greatest affliction, the most absolute suffering, is not the end. Suffering does not have the final word. But to transcend it, we must pass through the veil. We must enter into the mystery of Christ’s suffering with attention and contemplation, as Weil instructs.
For true happiness is not the mere absence of pain but a state of grace, a realm where affliction has been transfigured into love — into a love no longer bound by necessity or the gravitational weight of the world.
A love that conquers death.
A love that raises even what has perished into incorruptible glory.
