Tomorrow being Good Friday, I want to take a moment to share a brief reflection on suffering.
Suffering definitely isn't something that is easy to dwell upon. I have a tendency to be fairly spiritually immature in the way which I deal with my little suffering, ignoring them as much as possible till they go away or lessen. Looking around, it seems that our society tends to deal with suffering in a similar fashion. Our culture certainly offers us many different means by which we can--temporarily--forget about suffering. We attempt to avoid the facing our sufferings by surrounding ourselves with a barrier of constant sound and distractions.
As Christians we are taught to accept suffering, and we usually stop there: at acceptance--which can seem to be hard enough hurtle amidst tragedy. We often forget that we are called to something deeper than that. St. Francis Solano taught that we should not only pray for the grace to accept suffering, but for the grace to love suffering. This teaching is echoed by the saints and the Church, love suffering. It's easy as human being to balk at this. It's difficult to find it within ourselves to embrace pain.
But shouldn't we love the means by which we become like Christ? "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me."(Matthew 16:24)
Christ had no distraction, and He sought none. As He saw all the pain that awaited Him, He took time to face His suffering and place it before Our Father. He accepted His suffering, and then Christ literally embraced suffering as He embraced the Cross.
Suffering definitely isn't something that is easy to dwell upon. I have a tendency to be fairly spiritually immature in the way which I deal with my little suffering, ignoring them as much as possible till they go away or lessen. Looking around, it seems that our society tends to deal with suffering in a similar fashion. Our culture certainly offers us many different means by which we can--temporarily--forget about suffering. We attempt to avoid the facing our sufferings by surrounding ourselves with a barrier of constant sound and distractions.
As Christians we are taught to accept suffering, and we usually stop there: at acceptance--which can seem to be hard enough hurtle amidst tragedy. We often forget that we are called to something deeper than that. St. Francis Solano taught that we should not only pray for the grace to accept suffering, but for the grace to love suffering. This teaching is echoed by the saints and the Church, love suffering. It's easy as human being to balk at this. It's difficult to find it within ourselves to embrace pain.
But shouldn't we love the means by which we become like Christ? "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me."(Matthew 16:24)
Happy Holy Week, all! I hope you have a very joyous and blessed Easter!
"I have had crosses in plenty--more than I could carry, almost. I set myself to ask for love of crosses--then I was happy." St. John Vianney
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