Suffering

FOR ASH WEDNESDAY

Suffering, My Role in the Mystical Body of Christ…

As a Catholic I have heard about suffering all of my life. I never though gave it any real thought outside of Christ’s Passion until I was diagnosed with cancer and really started feeling the pain of this horrible disease.

“Now I rejoice in my suffering for your sake, and in my flesh and I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of His body which is the Church, of which I am a minister in accordance with God’s stewardship given to me to bring to completion for you the word of God, the mystery hidden from ages and from generations past.”       

                Colossians 1:24-26 (Douay-Rheims)

Amazing to think of it in this context and much easier to understand when we are told to “offer up our sufferings” for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Ok, now you will ask, “Offer it Up?” yes we offer it up in order to join our sufferings to those of Jesus in order to complete the circle of salvation that he indeed fulfilled on Calvary 2000 plus years ago. When we join our suffering to His it gives us a sense of being complete within the mystery of the Mass and how our sufferings are just as important to the Father as He is our Father as well.

I remember as a child asking why we kept the Crucifixes around the house and I, like many or most children was told that it is to remind us of the suffering of Christ, the suffering He went through for our salvation. Well as an adult I have learned that it is so very true this answer but it goes so much deeper and so much farther. The Crucifix stands as a reminder of all suffering throughout humanity so that we bring the very mystery of salvation to fruition.

I was listening to a CD the other day by Dr. Scott Hahn that was about this very topic, Suffering and that is what gave me that push I needed to complete this story that I had intended to write a week or so ago. Now I understand that most of you who go on to read the rest of this post will ask, “How can we, just regular people begin to compare our small suffering to those of our Savior?” Well I am not asking you to compare, I am asking you to join yours to His, a very simple thing…

Is it not amazing how we shrink away from suffering of any kind in order to protect our own balance in life? Now don’t get me wrong here, balance in life is a great thing but sometimes we get thrown a curveball. So our first reaction is to run away from anything that might cause us suffering but, what if its God trying to point us in a direction we never wanted to go. Yes, that is indeed possible, that through your own suffering God can bring you to a place where you may very well find that peace of mind that you have searched for all of your life.

This is the beginning of our own suffering being brought together with His in order that it may be used as a tool, a tool called redemptive suffering where it becomes a weapon against evil in your life. Your suffering should bring you closer to the Father not push you away. This is also how we come to share in the complete life of Jesus, His life, death and resurrection. We have lived our life and our suffering can become a death of sorts when we offer it up to God to do with what He wills and we die to our own life choices and begin to do His will in its entirety. That for us is the beginning of resurrection in a complete life in Christ! What a wonderful feeling….

That is what I have come to know in my very own battle with cancer and the suffering I went through at the very beginning when I was lost in my pain trying to run away or blame it on something or someone who would take it from me. In the end I turned to God and was again (like so many times before) saved in Christ Jesus and I became a new creation of sorts who had joined his own pain to that of the world through our Lord.

You know, even your small daily sufferings can lead you to a place where you have never been before if you turn it over to God, offer it up as you will and let Him guide you to a more comfortable place. Suffering as we all know is not just about physical pain it’s about emotional pain as well and we all know that it can be very intense at times. We get hurt in so many different ways and many of those times are by the ones we love the most. I know that some of most intense times of suffering have been more on an emotional and spiritual level and they are very hard to overcome. The death of a loved one, divorce, addictions, incarceration and many more I have seen in my lifetime either directly or to someone very close to me and it hurts especially when you are limited as to what you can do about it. Yes, that’s when God comes in and we seek out His love and comfort. Now I have learned that when something starts to hurt or even bother me I immediately turn it over to my Heavenly Father for care and He never lets me down. I am not saying that the pain might not stay for a while but sometimes pain is good for us and can be a process in which we come to understand healing more intimately.

I know that in the end what is lacking is our suffering joined to that of Christ’s suffering so that we may be made whole thus joining us to that mystical body of Christ, right where we need to be….

Bill K.

Ash Wednesday

2012