And whether one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.
All Commentaries on 1 Corinthians 12:26 Go To 1 Corinthians 12
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Whether one member suffer all the members suffer with it. "They suffer together" in such away that the suffering member"s grief is lightened, "not by communion in disaster, but by the solace afforded by charity," says S. Augustine ( Ephesians 133). Hence S. Basil (Reg. Brevior175) says that the outward proof of love is twofold: (1.) rejoicing in the good of one"s neighbour and labouring for it; (2.) in grief and sorrow for his misfortune or his sin. He who has not this loves not.
Doctors infer from this verse that souls in bliss, burning with love for us, help us by their prayers in our troubles and dangers; and that we in our turn ought to help souls kept in purgatory, for they suffer the devouring flame, and therefore he must be cruel indeed who does not suffer with them, and do what he can to set them free.
Or one member be honoured. Or as Ambrose takes it, "be glorified," or, according to Ephrem, "whether one member rejoice." Salmeron, after S. Chrysostom, beautifully says: "He who loves possesses whatever is in the body, the Church: take away envy and what I have is thine." S. Chrysostom says again: "If the eye suffer, all the members will grieve, all will crease to act: the feet will not go, the hands will not work, the belly will take no pleasure in its wonted food, although it is the eye only that is suffering. Why, 0 eye, do you trouble the belly? why chain the feet? why bind the hands? Because all are knit together by nature, and suffer together in a "mysterious manner."
