A Victim Soul Is Helpless

A victim soul is nothing.
A victim soul is useless.
A victim soul is helpless.

This latest insight comes to our suffering pleasure by the wise and holy spiritual da. He is a priest of nearly 60 years in the vocation, and he is honed by experience, study, spiritual grace, and his own suffering.

He was reading a homily the other day, and the topic was on Jesus' helplessness. He said it reminded him of what I had learned regarding my good uselessness. He said it is on the same order. This is the priest who proclaimed, also, that a victim soul is "nothing."

So a victim souls is helpless. The truth of this is obvious, once one ponders the topic a bit. Consider Jesus' life. He was born a helpless baby, and laid in a manger. He was subject to His parents and lived quietly in obedience and grew in wisdom and stature. In His earthly ministry, He was good useful, yes. But in His suffering He was helpless. In fact, He was helpless during His three years or so of proclaiming His kingdom.

Jesus' helplessness resides in the fact of His always being in the will of the Father. He did not act on that human aspect but rather as God-Man acting in union with the Divine aspect. Giving over the human will, Jesus demonstrates for all of us the reality of and need for helplessness.

Consider His stance before the high priests, and before Pilate. Consider his docility and submission to torment and torture. Alone, humanly, He endured humiliation. He chose helplessness as a means greater than force. Offering His body to bear the cross, then offering His arms and legs to be nailed, He remained helplessly dedicated to the vocation of suffering. Passivity over activity, helplessness rather than control--Jesus couldn't even brush aside a fly. He quietly rendered over His soul and the last breath expired atonomically from His mortal lungs.

There is great power in being helpless. Understand that helplessness cannot be induced or feigned. Imagine the person who "acts" helpless in order to contrive a reaction, or to get others to perform tasks or bear responsibilities. No, this helplessness is not at all from impure motives.

The helplessness of a victim soul is that of the helpless Jesus. It is that of passively and lovingly offering the inevitable suffering as a means of expiation and reparation, as a gift of hope and faith and love. Struggling against suffering bites back; an active fight ensues. Force is involved. Jesus abdicated force in favor of helplessness in salvific sacrifice.

Motivating force plays a distinctive part in helplessness. This is the only force necessary: to bequeath one's will to God's loving will. A thought will accomplish the act. This relinquishing of the will results in silence, exterior non-action, and death--and that not necessarily of the physical type. Resurrection follows with joy, peace, purpose, and relevance in cooperative redemption.

Beauty exists in freedom. A victim soul is helpless. A victim soul is beautifully free.