On the other hand, we also notice the opposite trend in our culture. We have become more and more focused on comfort and avoiding all suffering.
We want to buy our salads and carrots ready to eat from the fridge. Many of us have a coffee machine that dispenses a single cup of coffee on demand. The TV dinner of my era has turned into an entire aisle of instant meals at the supermarket.
Recently a marriage and family therapist and author has suggest that this has idea of comfort seeking has filtered over into the modern notion of marriage. We want our partner to be everything for us. We want them to meet all our needs for comfort, friendship and pleasure. They are our soulmate, the one who will meet all our needs. This is of course highly unrealistic, and can lead to serious problems in our relationship. We are in sense seeking heaven on earth and operating out of a profound sense of entitlement.
I am not suggesting that all of this focus on convenience and comfort is necessarily sinful. Clearly, no one would say, “Bless me Father I have sinned, I bought ready to eat carrots!” I also enjoy these modern conveniences. Yet this trend towards maximizing comfort and avoiding suffering can create confusion about our faith.
Suffering is an unavoidable part of life, but we might want to distinguish between two kinds of suffering. We can enduring voluntary suffering such as penance, fasting and mortification. In a sense, all spiritual disciplines are a form of voluntary suffering. We also endure voluntary suffering when we engaging in sports training, or dieting, or when we discipline ourselves to work hard at various other endeavors.
Another type of suffering is involuntary. Often the cause of this type of suffering is evil in our world. We can endure physical evils such as disease and
eventually the inevitable death we will all face. We can also suffer from moral evils when people do unjust and
evil things to us and cause us to suffer. On a natural level, there is nothing
good about suffering. God did not create evil, it is a result of sin and our
collective misuse of God’s gifts. Our misguided use of freedom is the cause of
evil in this world. Creation itself is afflicted with this evil because of the
Fall.
Our first response to this evil should be to cry out God for deliverance and healing. Even Christ in his agony, first prayed for deliverance. As our Lord prayed in the garden, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done" (Luke 22:42).
Understandably, God does not ask us to resign ourselves passively to suffering. Yet, what if God does not answer our prayers and allows us to continue to suffer?
For many people suffering from an evil cause, creates difficult questions in their hearts. If God really loves me, then how could he allow me to suffer this way?
In our Gospel today, Jesus says some puzzling things that on the surface do not seem to make sense.
Lifting his eyes to his disciples, Jesus says blessed are the poor, and the hungry, and those who are now weeping, and those being persecuted. The word Jesus uses for ‘blessed” is makarios and it means fortunate, happy, privileged but also one who enjoys divine favor or being blessed. On a natural level, it is hard for me to understand how being poor, hungry, grieving and persecuted will make you blessed and happy.
Perhaps is it a kind of spiritual “No pain, no gain” principle. This is not the Gospel according to Planet Fitness. We can actually find this same advice in the Bible. We read in Hebrews, “At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it” (Hebrew 12:11).
This advice should be no surprise, as many saints have told us that growth in the spiritual life requires discipline and effort on our part. This type of suffering is likely the voluntary kind of discipline that our spiritual life demands of all of us.
To understand the full breadth of suffering we need to think more deeply about the nature of suffering itself. Does suffering itself have any meaning?
Our faith teaches us that it is only in the mystery of the cross that suffering takes on meaning. The ultimate goal of Jesus life and his ministry on earth was to suffer. A number of years ago, St. John Paul II wrote a beautiful apostolic letter on suffering that is still worth reading. He notes that , “Love is … the richest source of the meaning of suffering” (SD 13).
The truth is that anyone who really wanted to get rid of suffering would also have to get rid of love, because love always demands an element of self-sacrifice. Essentially, there can be no love without suffering. For more on this theme, see the following article by Dr. Matthew Ramage, in Religions
2021.
If involuntary sufferings are evil, then can this suffering be used for good?
“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church” (Colossians 1:24).
The idea of making up or filling up what is lacking in Christ’s suffering is puzzling. We believe as a matter of faith that Jesus died once for all to save us. This sacrifice is complete, and unrepeatable. What does St. Paul mean? How can we , "filling up what is lacking" in Christ's afflictions?
The answer to this question has to do with the notion of communion. Through Baptism and the Eucharist we are joined to Christ.
St. Paul notes, “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:27). The imagery of being “clothed” has to do with joining ourselves to Christ. Similarly, he notes, “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, …” (1 Corinthians 12:13). We are literally part of Christ’s Body. We are joined to Christ like the parts of the body are joined together. He is part of us, and we are part of him, in communion.
Regarding the Eucharist St. Paul notes, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf” (1 Corinthians 10:16-17). The word translated “participation” can mean "fellowship" or even "communion." We are joined to Christ when we receive his Body and Blood in Holy Communion.
In relation to our suffering then, this communion with Christ moves in two directions. We are joined to the cross and to Christ’s redemptive sufferings, but he is at the same time joined to us in our sufferings.
St. John Paul II notes that while the sufferings of Christ are inexhaustible and infinite and cannot be added to, at the same time by being in communion with his Body, “Christ has in a sense opened his own redemptive suffering to all human suffering. . . . (SD 19).
This means that our suffering does have meaning. Our sufferings can be a share in the redemptive work of Christ on the Cross. In communion with Christ, we share in his redemptive suffering which pays the penalty for our sins. At the same time, our human sufferings are also shared or joined with Christ, and become a share in the redemptive work of Christ as part of his Body (SD 19).
No one would say this is an easy road to walk. Perhaps in the midst of profound pain and human suffering this might sound trite. Yet, we do believe we can sanctify others through our suffering and we can be sanctified ourselves by the presence of Christ in our sufferings. We accomplish this by being drawn ever closer to his love.
St. John Paul II notes that although Christ died once for all to save us (1 Peter 3:18, Hebrews 9:28) yet at the same time Christ sufferings are unceasingly completed because of our intimate communion with him (SD 24). It is perhaps difficult to understand this notion of being unceasingly completed, but this notion make the most sense of St. Paul’s words, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church” (Colossians 1:24).
Again, this is an intimate communion with his love. This means our sufferings can be ‘offered up’ as a sacrifice for others. We do this by adding our suffering to our prayer intentions for others. We can sanctify others through our suffering and we be sanctified by the presence of Christ in our sufferings. “Christ through his own salvific suffering is very much present in every human suffering” (SD 26).
If we understand this then our own suffering can be time special of grace that will transform our souls. St. John Paul II notes in suffering there is concealed a particular power that draws a person interiorly close to Christ, a special grace and time of conversion (SD 26).
As we think about this theme of suffering perhaps there are two things we can take away for this. In relation to involuntary sufferings, we need to understand that Christ is very close to us in our sufferings. We are part of his body and joined to him. He suffers with us and offers us his love. We can use this experience to offer up our suffering for others and to deepen our own conversion.
Having said this, this path can be very difficult! I am not a stranger to suffering in my own life, and this path can be very hard.
Regarding voluntary sufferings, we might want to recall that in the old calendar of the church this past Sunday was Septuagesima Sunday. The name comes from the Latin word for "seventieth" or seventy days before Easter. It was a kind of Pre-Lent or extended time of preparation for Lent. Perhaps then we can use this as a reminder in order to take advantage of the season of Lent. To live the season of Lent well, we need to do some planning.
What can we do to gain the most benefit from the season of Lent and allow this discipline to draw us closer to our Lord?
What can we do to prepare ourselves for Lent?
One suggestion might be to use an Examination of Conscience to carefully prepare for Confession and then use this experience and our deeper interior reflections and to choose Lenten penances that will help us to grow in our faith. The church also recommends frequent Confession.
I offer the following reflections for this process based on the three traditional practices of lent: prayer, fasting, and alms giving. These practices are not a check list of equal activities for our soul, however, we should focus on those things that change our heart and draw us closer to our Lord.
Prayer and the Interior Life
Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth.
O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, Through Christ Our Lord, Amen.
What patterns have you observe in your Confessions?
Is there a sin or weakness that your often struggle with?
What could you struggle against that would help your to grow?
Could you try to build a virtue that opposes this sin?
How could you get closer to God in your relationship with him?
Could you spend more time in prayer and in the personal reading of Scripture?
Do you own a Bible that you regularly read? How much time do you spend prayerfully reading the Bible?
Are their distractions in your life that typically take up your time, and keep you from spending time with God? Facebook? Screen time, TV viewing?
Does your screen time sometimes lead to engage in sinful behavior?
Have you received any spiritual advice in the Confessional that you have not yet put into practice?
Is there a person in your life that you should be spending more time with?
Is there someone in your life who often leads you to do things you later regret?
Fasting
It is fine to pick some things that you will abstain from during Lent. It is important to remember that these are voluntary penances, and if we fail (all things equal) we have not committed a sin. It does not have to be something specific, but if there is something in your life that you think might be controlling you or that your use of is disordered, then it would be good to focus on this item specifically. For example, some people give up alcohol, or deserts, etc.
We might want to be careful that what we propose is doable and not too hard for us. In addition, we should not mortify others with our penance. This is our penance and not theirs. There are times when love is more important than our voluntary penance. We do not sin by temporarily stopping our penance out of love.
We can gain benefit from even little acts of detachment. Someone might give up eating ketchup or other condiment on their food or plan to eat more food that they do not like, but they know is good for them. The simple act of discipline in these areas can later strengthen our will against other temptations.
In the tradition of the Church, Sundays are never a day of fasting. See the following reflection: Are Sundays a part of Lent?
Alms
Here we focus on detachment. We can fast from spending money on luxury items, or from certain recreational activities that waste our time and save the money that this cost normally us.
We could also donate the money we save through our fasting to the poor, or simply donate to the food bank or volunteer our time, etc.
SIXTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME --YEAR C
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