Tag: <span>Suffering</span>

June 7, 2021June 4, 2021

Comfort Zone

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

In today’s readings, the persons whom St. Paul is encouraging are the very persons whom Jesus is describing in the gospel, with the Beatitudes.

St. Paul explains how the encouragement He experiences from God the Father is also transmitted to other Christians who are participating in the same sort of sufferings that he is undergoing. Those sufferings are precisely the ones described in the Beatitudes: poverty, mourning, hunger, thirst, persecution.

For those of us who live in relatively prosperous lands, it may be difficult to remember that we are called–indeed, called directly by Jesus in today’s gospel–to the same sort of hardships.

Consciously or unconsciously, we seek comfort and easy prosperity as supreme ends, whereas Jesus challenges us to see detachment, purity of heart, and the establishment of justice and peace.

There are ways, in any society, to live the Beatitudes. It is not about our circumstances. It is about our drive, that is, what we strive for. If we are looking for the will of God and the welfare of others as our top priority, we will be pure of heart and poor in spirit, and we will suffer different forms of discomfort, humiliation, and hardship. If we seek only comfort, ease, and power, we will not enjoy the blessings promised by Jesus, and we will endure perpetual unrest of spirit.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus for the courage to live the Beatitudes fully. Tell Him that you are not afraid of the inconveniences and sufferings that this life will bring, as long as He is with you to give you strength.

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June 4, 2021May 28, 2021

Down and Up Again

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

A powerful theme repeated often in the Bible is that of just persons who are permitted to suffer, but who do so gracefully, humbly imploring God in prayer for help, and are ultimately brought to a situation better than the one with which they started. Job is one such person.

The narrative of Tobit reflects this theme as well. Tobit suffers under the permission of God, but he doesn’t complain or express impatience; rather, he accepts the suffering patiently, in humble submission to God’s will. Ultimately, God delivers him from this trial, and his life is better than before.

It is the pattern of Christ Himself, who takes flesh like any other human, suffers and dies in obedience to His Father’s will, and then rises with a human existence that is glorified.

It will be the pattern of our lives as well. All we need do is accept the trials that come our way with love, trust, and patience, praying to God for aid, and He will transform our lives through what we suffer into something utterly unexpected.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to teach you patience with the sufferings that His hand permits, so that your purified and, in a sense, glorified life might be of assistance to Him for the eternal welfare of others.

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May 26, 2021May 13, 2021

No Picnic

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Every day on earth is a miracle, and we should take stock of this from time to time: My life, as a free and thinking being, is like a universe unto itself; and that universe combines with a squishy pile of matter, subject to all the harsh physical laws to which every rock on our planet is subject. And, that squishy pile of matter is useful for our driving spirit, to transport it in time and space and to manipulate the physical world surrounding it. It is a marvelous reality, one that would be completely unexpected to an external observer of the cold, inanimate broader universe in which human life is found.

But as marvelous as it is, human life is fraught with sufferings, miseries, and humiliations, as depicted in the first reading and the psalm. We pray to God to come to our aid in the midst of our sufferings and difficulties, hopeful that He will lift us up, hopeful that He loves us and is willing to use His power on our behalf.

The gospel of today presents a curious segue from a description of suffering to a request for glory. Jesus describes to his disciples in some detail the trials and sufferings to which He will be subjected, but from which He will emerge in glory. Seemingly rather callously, James and John request a place of privilege in Jesus’ glory, ignoring the part about scourging, mocking, and execution. We may scoff at these men for their lack of compassion with their Master.

But aren’t we the same at times? We want what we want. Like the author of the first reading, we want divine aid, we want to be saved from our miseries. Like James and John, we quest after tangible glory.

In the end, though, as marvelous as this beautiful life is that God has created for us, we cannot expect a reality different from that with which Jesus confronts James and John. Here on earth we are living in a “valley of tears,” in which we are called to drink of the same chalice from which Jesus is called to drink. Here on earth, our peace and glorious destiny are not fully consummated. We are called to accept the sufferings of our life together with Jesus, and offer them as an aid to Him in His great mission of saving human beings.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Tell Jesus that you understand His message to James and John, and that you too are willing to drink the chalice of which He drank. Ask Him to give you the strength to hope in eternity for the consummation of your desires for greatness and glory, and to accept fully your mission here on earth, with all its grave challenges.

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March 30, 2021March 10, 2021

Sharpened Weapon

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Jesus is the sharp-edged sword of the first reading. He is the polished arrow. Whereas today, we might think of spreadsheets when we think of honing effectiveness and efficiency, the ancients thought of literal “honing”–sharpening the sword, polishing the arrow.

And Jesus is the great honed one, the great effective one, the great efficient one; He accomplishes what He has set out to do. And what is this? The end of the reading tells us:

It is too little, he says, for you to be my servant,
   to raise up the tribes of Jacob,
   and restore the survivors of Israel;
I will make you a light to the nations,
   that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.

In the Gospel passage, as we come closer in time to the mysteries of the Sacred Triduum, we see words that confirm and crown those of the first reading:

Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.
If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself,
and he will glorify him at once.

But let us not forget that this effectiveness of Jesus comes not through engineering analysis of how to do things in the most precise way, but through a mighty clash with sin. To battle sin and bring salvation to the ends of the earth, to achieve the glorious destiny for which He has come, Jesus must submit utterly to the consequences of sin. He must descend to the depths that sin has created. Hence it is that, immediately before declaring this to be His glorious hour, the omnipotent Jesus gives the nod to Judas to set the wheels of his betrayal in motion.

As we enter the mysteries of this Holy Week, let us not dream of a life different from Jesus’, an antiseptic life that is peaceful in the worldly sense and protected from suffering. Rather, let us desire a heart like His, which discerns our mission, its effectiveness, and its glory in the midst of the apparently random sufferings that life brings.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to help you plumb the depths of this Holy Week in your prayer. Ask Him to give you a much deeper understanding and assimilation of the mysteries that this week presents. Ask Him, at long last, to give you the heart of a Christian.

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March 3, 2021February 17, 2021

Into the Pit

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Lenten Mass readings on many days focus on repentance, purification, and God’s mercy. On some days, though, they foreshadow the events of Holy Week–specifically, Jesus’ suffering and death.

Today’s readings are of the latter type.

Have you ever felt that someone was plotting against you? That in one way or another, they were trying to get rid of you, because you were in their way? It is not an entirely uncommon human occurrence. It is dehumanizing; we feel what it is like to be treated like objects–specifically, objects in the way of others’ aims. The experience is the exact opposite of that of being loved for our own sake, of others seeking our happiness for its own sake, simply because we are human.

Jeremiah went through this experience. His contemporaries were plotting against his life because they found his words and challenges inconvenient. They imagined that they would incur no disadvantage from killing Jeremiah, because–they thought–there were other good preachers and prophets around.

It did not occur to them that Jeremiah was prophesying in direct obedience to God, and thus that they would be killing the anointed messenger of God himself.

Jeremiah cried out to God for help, with words similar to today’s psalm: “Save me, O Lord, in your kindness.”

And later, save him God did. Having been cast into a pit, he was rescued and ultimately enjoyed favor when Babylon conquered Jerusalem.

But, we may say, Jeremiah’s salvation did not come without a price. Jesus, the very Son of God Himself, would pay that price by taking the place foreshadowed by Jeremiah as He who would die to remove an obstacle for others–not the obstacle imagined by His enemies, but the obstacle of sin, barring the way into eternal life.

How unfair it feels to us when we are treated as objects, and done grave harm casually by another for the avoidance of their inconvenience. This Lent, without waiting for Holy Week, let us meditate on Jesus’ experience of this; let us drink deeply of His humiliation in prayer. And let us pledge to join Him in personal sacrifice for the eternal and temporal welfare of our brothers and sisters.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Contemplate Jesus’ passion, when He was arrested and brought before the Sanhedrin, who cared nothing for His welfare, but rather only for their own chance at success in getting rid of Him. Contemplate how, paradoxically, he yearned for their real fulfillment and happiness and suffered at the tragically erroneous path they were taking in its pursuit. Ask Him to share with you the innermost feelings and thoughts of His Heart as He began to suffer His passion.

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January 30, 2021January 20, 2021

Tempest-Tossed

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

The first reading praises the faith of Abraham and puts it in context, the context of coming salvation. Regarding eternal salvation in Christ, the reading says of Abraham and his descendants, “They did not receive what had been promised but saw it and greeted it from afar and acknowledged themselves to be strangers and aliens on earth, for those who speak thus show that they are seeking a homeland.”

And well might the faith of Abraham be praised. Imagine God coming to you and telling you, like Him, to sacrifice your child. You prepare to do so, not out of servile submission to a God you fear because you consider Him brutal and bloody, but out of such faith in His goodness, that you know His plan to be good in spite of the apparent evil confronting you. It is possible that there is no faith greater than that of Abraham in the history of mankind, save perhaps that of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who watched her Son slaughtered on Calvary.

In reality, though, we are all called to walk in a faith similar to Abraham’s as we sojourn through this world. The evil around us continually threatens to block the sun of God’s promise of eternal happiness. It continually threatens to block out the light of the reality of a loving God.

And, often enough, what happened to the disciples in today’s gospel likewise happens to us. The boat of our life is tossed by trials and tribulations that loom authentically threatening; stresses real, and challenges seemingly insurmountable. In all of this, Abraham’s ancient example, so eloquently cited in Hebrews, shines a beacon of light. Even as the Lord appears to sleep in the stern, the welfare of our little boat is in His capable hands; it is His course that it follows through the deep.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: The Gospel admonishes us not to give in to our worries and cares; to trust with unwavering faith. In a context of faith and trust, our stresses and worries are an ideal gift to serve up on a platter to our God, even at the height of their effect. Think of the burdens you are bearing right now. Don’t ask Jesus to eliminate them. Offer them to Him generously, in union with His cross, in union with the sufferings of Our Lady under that cross, for the spiritual welfare of many.

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November 4, 2020October 17, 2020

Take It Up

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Let’s be honest: St. Paul might not get an “A” in Advanced Writing class at Harvard. He’s guilty of a run-on sentence here and there. Sometimes there are different concepts combined into one sentence. To be fair, he did his writing at a time when standards were a bit different. Anyone who has studied classical Latin knows that run-ons were the order of the day.

This makes it all the more fun to tease out the depths of his heart through his words. His theology is rich; his spirituality, profound.

For example, what do we take from these words?

“Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
For God is the one who, for his good purpose,
works in you both to desire and to work.
Do everything without grumbling or questioning,
that you may be blameless and innocent.”

So, so often we think our work as Christians is to try to deduce moral perfection and work toward it. But there is a reason to be fearful, to tremble, to stand in awe. It is a joyful fear, if there is such a thing; a joyful awe. The awe-inspiring thing about Christianity is that “God is the one who, for his good purpose, works in you both to desire and to work.” This is why we must not grumble or question. Ours is to draw near to Him, as near as we can possibly come each day. Approach the Eucharist and dialogue with Him in the intimacy of our hearts after Communion. Spend solid chunks of time with Him in dialogue and prayer. And then, ours is to trust Him, in fearsome awe: For He is the one who, for his good purpose, will create good desires in us and accomplish what He wants in us. He has got it all figured out.

So much better than trying to inject exquisite, cold, dry little moral niceties deduced from our own two-dimensional intellect into our day, as some sort of substitute for true meaning. He alone, and what He does in us, is that meaning.

In the Gospel today, Jesus furthers our understanding of why we are to approach our Christian vocation with fear and trembling, and He does so in a rather sobering way. We are to be willing to sacrifice even the noblest things that are dearest to us for Him, as we take up a real cross of suffering in life to follow Him. That work that Paul describes God doing in us in not always fun, and is certainly not easy. It involves the cross of radical detachment.

But, as Paul elsewhere says, “If we have died with Him, we shall also live with Him.” And what a glorious life it is–even here on earth, so much more fulfilled and happy than a life without Him. With a yet far happier and more glorious eternal life to follow.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: The path God has planned for each of us is awe-inspiring. On the one hand, filled with His tender and loving guidance, which itself is the source of our happiness. On the other hand, full of increasing detachment, sacrifice, and some suffering as well. Think of Jesus in prison on the night before He died. Talk to Him there. In the intimacy of that setting, ask Him how better to take up your own cross and follow Him.

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November 3, 2020October 17, 2020

The Blood of God

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

The dynamic of Christ’s saving act is awesome, filled with drama, and merits deep meditation and consideration. It is beautiful that we can undertake this reflection in the presence of, and in dialogue with, the very Person who is Protagonist of the act.

Prior to this act, there is a dynamic within the Blessed Trinity of self-outpouring and self-giving that feeds an eternal union, union which is the profound fulfillment of each of the three Persons.

It is said that to God, who is infinite, nothing can ever be added, and this is true.

Yet, upon the incarnation of God, a new ability was in a sense added: Added to the divine self-outpouring was the ability to suffer in that act of self-outpouring.

In one of the most beautiful readings in Scripture, today’s first reading, St. Paul poetically tells us that as a result of this, “God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.”

But Jesus didn’t take on this new ability, suffering, for His own exaltation. He took it on for ours. By the power of His saving act, He gives us this same dynamic: By pouring out our lives as He did in obedience to God for others, we attain that same eternal exaltation–in our human flesh, like Jesus–of which St. Paul speaks.

It is a breathless dynamic–one that takes us leagues outside our comfort zone. It is because of the great challenge that this dynamic involves for us that, according to Jesus in the Gospel, many souls decline from it. They find other things to do, other things to focus on. Without great fanfare, they decline the invitation of Jesus.

Contemplation of this reality should cause us sorrow and inspire us to fervent prayer and sacrifice for others, that God will give them absurd, gratuitous amounts of grace and stimulus to reconsider and accept His invitation, from which alone happiness comes.

But also, in a way, it should cause us excitement. The destiny to which God calls us and in fact brings us through Christ’s saving dynamic is not run-of-the-mill. It is a glorious one, one that merits God taking on the new ability to suffer, one that merits the very blood of God Himself.

Ideas for conversation with Jesus: Tell Jesus that you want to hear and follow His call in its fullness. That you don’t want to cheapen it in any way by cutting corners, or by giving in to mediocrity. Ask Him for the courage and strength to see your calling through to its utter fulfillment.

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