Audemus Lugere: The Prophetic Hope of Christian Mourning

Abstract

Audemus Lugere:The Prophetic Hope of Christian Mourning Paul Clarke O.P. In Search of Lament Despite the last century's resurgence of interest in lament as a vital topic for theological reflection, there remains a troubling ambivalence about its place in the Church's life and theology, one that arguably betrays deeper, more systemic confusions. Notwithstanding efforts to rehabilitate lament, particularly in pastoral and practical theology, Christian mourning continues to be characteristically ambivalent, apologetic, and almost furtive, as if forbidden by faith except in extreme cases of death and loss, when it is permitted, if not endorsed. This raises the possibility that these more pragmatic approaches have overlooked deeper theoretical questions, ambiguities, and issues.1 Additionally, if we lack the conceptual—and theological—resources to explain why Christians can mourn, the joy of the Christian life can begin to ring false, to smack of mere optimism rather than the radical hope of the Gospel. [End Page 739] There is need, then, to develop a robust Christian realism that can explicitly address the lurking theoretical and historical issues and show that hope and anxiety, or joy and sorrow, are not opposed or merely dialectically compatible, but in fact indispensable parts of the Christian life. This article proposes the work of Richard Schenk as a guide toward just such a Christian realism.2 Schenk has devoted significant attention to the theme of mourning, although Anglophone reception of his work has been remarkably sparse to date.3 Themes of his work include the post-conciliar reception of Gaudium et Spes and historical and contemporary debates concerning human finitude, suffering, grace, and hope. In sympathy with Schenk's work, I argue for a Christian retrieval of the prophetic lament as a contribution [End Page 740] toward his call for a differentiated approach to theology, an approach that attends to both gaudium et spes (joy and hope), on the one hand, and luctus et angor (grief and anxiety), on the other.4 My argument will converge with the trajectory of his proposals, reinforcing his conclusions from a scriptural point of departure. Any genuinely Christian theology of mourning should be nourished by its Old Testament roots. The prophetic lament, notably that of Jeremiah, is a fertile source for understanding and deepening Schenk's theology of mourning. Relying on (but also amplifying) Yochanan Muffs's study of prophetic intercession, I argue that lament is actually thoroughly, albeit darkly, hope-filled and that, furthermore, it offers a rich typology that can inform authentic Christian sorrowing. Moreover, in its thematization of truth, providence, suffering, eschatology, sin, and human subjectivity, the prophetic lament has much to offer toward the development of a robust theology of mourning and an expansive Christian realism. Since my goal is to situate a retrieval of the prophetic lament within the context of Schenk's broader project, my argument will begin with a summary of the capital features of his theology of mourning. The next and longest section of the present article will pull together the main threads of my proposal that Jeremiah's lament in chapter 20 is fruitfully read as a form of his intercession, which has a unique coloration by virtue of his prophetic vocation. After a close reading of the lament and an analysis of its inner logic and significance, I will briefly sketch the New Testament's witness to the Chris-tological reconfiguration of the prophetic lament. The concluding section will summarize the convergences between Schenk and this study and offer four theses on their implications for contemporary theology in the Church. Richard Schenk's Theology of Mourning It is at the risk of simplification that I confine myself to summarizing only the main features of Schenk's theology of luctus et angor. The initial [End Page 741] problem, he notes, is that the tradition lacks clear indications of what a genuinely Christian theology of mourning can and should be. The ambivalence of the inherited tradition reveals unresolved and often unremarked tensions in the philosophical and theological views that shape our approach to death and mourning.5 Broadly speaking, Schenk has focused on developing resources within the tradition, particularly in Thomas Aquinas, setting them in dialectical engagement with modern...