On Suffering

 

A few things have helped me lately in bearing my crosses.  I was thinking how excruciating they were and realized, yes, that is exactly the word.  

From etymonline: 

excruciate (v.)

"to torture, torment, inflict very severe pain on," as if by crucifying, 1560s, from Latin excruciatus, past participle of excruciare "to torture, torment, rack, plague;" figuratively "to afflict, harass, vex, torment," from ex "out, out from; thoroughly" (see ex-) + cruciare "cause pain or anguish to," literally "crucify," from crux (genitive crucis) "a cross" (see crux).

The first was this video by Fr. James Brent, O.P. on "Offer it Up".  This video shows the clear connection between our own sufferings and that of Jesus Christ and how, just as Jesus did and now does in the mass, we can offer our sufferings for intentions.  Our pain is not pointless or meaningless, but can be efficacious in causing the release of the Holy Spirit.  

There was also this interview about the video:

An additional help was this excerpt of a letter from St. Padre Pio that the Magnificat included for his Feast Day.   

    

United to the Suffering Messiah

The soul that places its trust in God alone has nothing to fear. Lift up your mind full of faith to your heavenly home and may all our yearnings and aspirations be directed there. Admire the heavenly regions which can be reached by no other road than that of suffering. That is our true home. What matter if we reach it by treading no other paths than the rough ones of tribulation and sacrifice?

What God wants from you is always right and good. May he be blessed forever. Let us get to work; in heaven we’ll have no other duty than the fulfillment of God’s will. Let us strive to bless the Lord when we are the object of humiliations and contempt. Let us bless him in our spiritual trials and our heartbreaks, for all is ordained by God with great wisdom. In a most singular manner and by a special predilection of the heavenly Father this is being accomplished in you. May he be forever blessed in all our miseries and in all our sufferings. Bless him in all that he makes you suffer on this earth and rejoice at it, for each victory gained has a corresponding crown in paradise. Don’t be frustrated or cast down, for the Lord is faithful and will not allow you to be overcome by temptation.

In order to reach our final goal, we must follow our divine Leader, who usually leads chosen souls by the path he himself has trodden and by no other; by the path, I tell you, of self-denial and suffering: If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Should you not deem yourself fortunate to see yourself treated in this way by Jesus? Foolish are those who fail to fathom the secret of the cross.

In order to reach the haven of salvation, the Holy Spirit tells us, the souls of the elect must pass through and be purified in the fire of painful humiliations, like gold and silver in the melting-pot. Jesus wants to make us holy at all costs, but above all he wants to sanctify you. He offers you continual proof of this; it would seem as if he had nothing else to do but sanctify your soul. Oh, how good Jesus is! The continual crosses to which he subjects you, giving you not merely the necessary strength, but superabundant strength to bear them meritoriously, are most certain and singular signs of his deep love for you. Believe me, the strength he gives you does not remain sterile in you; I assure you of this in God’s name and you must listen to me in all humility and rid yourself of any sentiment to the contrary.

Saint Pius of Pietrelcina

Saint Pius of Pietrelcina († 1968), also known as Padre Pio, was an Italian Capuchin priest who during his lifetime enjoyed a vast reputation for sanctity. / From Letters, Volume II: Correspondence with Raffaelina Cerase, Noblewoman (1914-1915), Mary F. Ingoldsby, Tr. © 1997, Our Lady of Grace Capuchin Friary, San Giovanni Rotondo (Foggia), Italy. 

 Lord, must you love me so much?  Lord, you must love me so much.

And finally, this excerpt from Fr. Jacques Phillippe's In the School of the Holy Spirit poses our acceptance of our sufferings in terms of obedience.  A friend had previously discussed God's permissive will with me and I was left without consolation.  The slight change to frame this in terms of obedience has helped me immensely. 

PRACTICE ABANDONMENT

Finally, we shouldn't forget the sort of obedience that may be the most important and the most overlooked: what might be called "obedience to events."

This notion obviously poses a difficult theological and existential problem. "Obedience to events" does not mean falling into fatalism or passivity, nor does it mean saying that everything that happens is God's will: God does not will evil or sin. Many things happen that God does not will. But he still permits them, in his wisdom, and they remain a stumbling block or scandal to our minds. God asks us to do all we can to eliminate evil. But despite our efforts, there is always a whole set of circumstances which we can do nothing about, which are not necessarily willed by God but nevertheless are permitted by him, and which God invites us to consent to trustingly and peacefully, even if they make us suffer and cause us problems. We are not being asked to consent to evil, but to consent to the mysterious wisdom of God who permits evil. Our consent is not a compromise with evil but the expression of our trust that God is stronger than evil. This is a form of obedience that is painful but very fruitful. It means that after we have done everything in our power, we are invited, faced with what is still imposed on our will by events, to practice an attitude of abandonment and filial trust toward our heavenly Father, in the faith that "for those who love God, everything works together for good." To give an example, God did not want the treachery of Judas or Pilate's cowardice (God cannot want sin); but he permitted them, and he wanted Jesus to give filial consent to these events. And that is what he did-"Father, not what I will, but what thou wilt."

The events of life are, after all, the surest expression of God's will, because there is no danger of our interpreting them subjectively. If God sees that we are docile to events, able to consent peacefully and lovingly to what life's happenings "impose" on us, in a spirit of filial trust and abandonment to his will, there can be no doubt that he will multiply personal expressions of his will for us through the action of his Spirit who speaks to our

hearts.

If, however, we always rebel and tense ourselves against difficulties, that kind of defiance of God will make it difficult for the Holy Spirit to guide our lives.

What most prevents us from becoming saints is undoubtedly the difficulty we have in consenting fully to everything that happens to us, not, as we have seen, in the sense of a fatalistic passivity, but in the sense of a trusting total abandonment into the hands of our Father God.

What often happens is that, when we are confronted with painful occurrences, we either rebel, or endure them unwillingly, or resign ourselves to them passively.

But God invites us to a much more positive and fruitful attitude: that of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who, as a child, said: "I choose it all!" We can give this the meaning: I choose everything that God wants for me. I won't content myself with merely enduring, but by a free act of my will; I decide to choose what I have not chosen. St. Thérèse used the expression: "I want everything that causes me difficulties.”  Externally it doesn’t change anything about the situation, but interiorly it changes everything.  This consent, inspired by love and trust, makes us free and active instead of passive, and enables God to draw good out of everything that happens to us whether good or bad.