Some people have been denied access to the identity to which God has called them through no fault of their own. The necessity for healing and sometimes exorcism results in this lack.
If a mother hated a child in the womb and the child grew up under the death sentence of abortion and hatred, that child would be born with a compromised identity.
If a child were violently snatched away from a parent and forced to be displaced, that could cause a lack of identity.
If a person was abused repeatedly as a child, that could result in a loss of identity or the faulty formation of one.
God is greater than all sin and all hatred, but one must be willing to face the corruption of one's own person honestly in order to be healed, in order to be a saint.
In the concentration camps, the Jews and Romanies were denied their own identity, except for the Jewish mark of the Star of David, which became for others, a sign of derision.
However, there can be solidarity in derision and hatred. If one is rooted in one's family and faith identity, such an experience as intense persecution can lead one to a formation of a stronger identity. This decision on the part of the person begin persecuted would involve heroic virtue.
I know four people who were abused by a priest as little children. They kept their identity, but suffered as a result of these sins. Their identity was strong to begin with, in the family, in the love of mother and father, but compromised by abuse.
I know people who have left cults and have struggled to find their identity. This takes prayer, honesty, healing, and sometimes a massive turning point in the life of the person who has been damaged by others.
If one has a strong identity with which to stand up against the evil manipulation and even torture of others, one will not lose identity. Such was the power of Blessed Titus Brandsma and St. Maximilian Kolbe. Such was the strength of St. Benedicta of the Cross.
These saints of the Holocaust remind us today that we must look towards God for identity. Only His Fatherhood can keep us from slipping into the non-entity, the loss of who one is.
The daily rituals of the home which the Jews practiced gave the children identity. The prayers said daily and the long history of the people gave them identity. Even past persecutions allowed some to endure, as they had role models before them, such as Joseph the Patriarch, Jeremiah and Daniel the Prophets, and so on.
Unless Catholics teach the children in the home to have a strong identity as a Catholic first, the loss of identity will result in sin and even choices which could mean turning against the parents. Many people have turned parents into authorities, identifying with the persecutors and not the persecuted.
Such has been the evil choices of some.
Did not the Jewish Sanhedrin turn Christ over to the Romans for the punishment of death, turning against the Messiah, the King of the Jews? This has happened over and over again in history.
Some people lose identity at the death of a loved one, in deep grief, or in the betrayal of love, or in the leaving of children, all situations causing grief. Great love causes an identification with the beloved. And, if that beloved leaves or dies, one must adjust one's identity. Such is the pain of suffering and growth.
Mark in Ireland had no family, no friends, no center of his being. His homelessness cried out that he was lost inside as well as outside.
But, some, have such pain thrust upon them for deeper reasons than seen at first. Some must work through the crisis of identity to new life. Leaving a life of sin and deceit can be the beginning of the finding out of one's true identity in God.
This was the message of Christ to Nicodemus. This is Christ's message to us. Love brings identity. Love created identity, as when the love of a married couple brings forth life in a baby.
But, here is Christ's message to Nicodemus: our true identity is in Christ alone, in Love Who Is a Person.
John 3
Douay-Rheims
3 And there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
2 This man came to Jesus by night, and said to him: Rabbi, we know that thou art come a teacher from God; for no man can do these signs which thou dost, unless God be with him.
3 Jesus answered, and said to him: Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
4 Nicodemus saith to him: How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter a second time into his mother's womb, and be born again?
5 Jesus answered: Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
6 That which is born of the flesh, is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit.
7 Wonder not, that I said to thee, you must be born again.
8 The Spirit breatheth where he will; and thou hearest his voice, but thou knowest not whence he cometh, and whither he goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
9 Nicodemus answered, and said to him: How can these things be done?
10 Jesus answered, and said to him: Art thou a master in Israel, and knowest not these things?
11 Amen, amen I say to thee, that we speak what we know, and we testify what we have seen, and you receive not our testimony.
12 If I have spoken to you earthly things, and you believe not; how will you believe, if I shall speak to you heavenly things?
13 And no man hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven.
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up:
15 That whosoever believeth in him, may not perish; but may have life everlasting.
16 For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by him.
18 He that believeth in him is not judged. But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19 And this is the judgment: because the light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light: for their works were evil.
20 For every one that doth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, that his works may not be reproved.
21 But he that doth truth, cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest, because they are done in God.
The light and love are not rules, but the work of the Holy Spirit. One must move away from formulas, the great mistake of the Sanhedrin, to an encounter with God Himself, in the Church, in the sacraments, in relationships of love.
One must set aside false visions of grandeur and false loyalties. Nicodemus is St. Nicodemus. We do not know the names of many in the Sanhedrin, Their identities have been lost in time, as in reality, for they rejected the Truth, Who stood before them.
to be continued...
