51 — THE VALUE OF SUFFERING

Presence of God. — O crucified Jesus, teach me the science of the cross, teach me the value of suffering.

Meditation

1 — The Passion of Jesus teaches us in a concrete manner that in the Christian life one must be capable of embracing pain for love of God. This lesson is hard and repugnant to our nature so inclined to enjoyment, to joy; yet this lesson comes from Jesus, Master of truth and of life, most loving Master of our souls, who wills only our true good. If, then, Jesus teaches us to suffer, it means that in suffering is enclosed a great treasure.

In itself suffering is an evil and cannot be lovable; if Jesus has willed to embrace it with such fullness, and if he proposes it to us inviting us to esteem and love it, it is solely in view of a superior good reachable only through it, the sublime good of the redemption and sanctification of our souls.

Although man, being a composite being, is by his nature subject to pain, God, through preternatural gifts, had willed that our first parents should not be exempt from them. But with sin such gifts were forever lost, and thus suffering has entered in an inevitable manner into our life. The immense sum of pains that travails humanity is the consequence of the disorder produced by sin, and not only by original sin, but also by actual sins. Yet, the Church sings: “felix culpa”! Why? Because the infinite love of God transforms all and knows how to draw from the twofold evil of sin and of suffering the great good of the redemption of the human race. Jesus, taking upon himself the sins of men, has also taken the consequences, that is pain and this pain, by him embraced during all his life and specially in his Passion, has become the means of our redemption. Pain, consequence of sin, becomes in Jesus and with Jesus, means to destroy sin itself. Behold why the Christian cannot consider suffering as an undesirable weight to which he must necessarily submit, but — and much more — as a means of redemption and of sanctification.

2 — Suffering is an unpleasing sentiment that we experience faced with a thing — situation, circumstance, etc. — that does not correspond to our tendencies, exigencies, aspirations, that does not harmonize with them, that does not second them, but rather contraries them and places obstacles. All men are subject to suffering, but only the Christian possesses the secret of making it enter into his life, without it destroying the possible harmony and happiness on this earth. And such secret consists precisely in knowing how to harmonize every genre of suffering with one’s own aspirations, which, for a Christian, can never limit themselves to an ideal of terrestrial happiness. This harmonization is possible, because that which is contraried and inconvenient from one point of view, often is very convenient from another: as, for example, physical suffering — hunger, cold, illness, etc. — though being inconvenient for the body, can be very useful for the reaching of a moral or supernatural good, such as is the acquisition of virtue, progress in holiness, etc. If from the purely human point of view, certain sufferings are altogether inopportune and unusable, they never are so from the supernatural point of view. “All things work together for good to those who love God” (Rom. 8, 28), and even the greatest private or social calamities can become a precious and most efficacious means of elevation. Any suffering can, therefore, be harmonized with the supreme ideals of the Christian: eternal salvation, holiness, the glory of God, the good of souls. But this is not possible without love, indeed it will be possible only in proportion to love. Only the love of Jesus has been able to transform the cross, horrible instrument of torture, into a most efficacious instrument for the glory of God and the salvation of humanity. So shall it be also for us: charity, love of God and of souls will render us capable of embracing any pain, harmonizing it with our highest aspirations. In such manner suffering finds a place — and a very important place — in our life, without however destroying its harmony and serenity, without oppressing the spirit, but rather expanding it in an ever broader breath, in an ever greater love. Precisely thus, even while suffering, one can be happy. Behold how Jesus has transformed pain, behold the value that his Passion has conferred upon it.

Colloquy

“O Lord, it costs you to give us bitterness to drink; but You know that this is the only means to dispose us to know you as You know yourself, to dispose us to become similar to you.

“You know well, O Lord, that if You gave me only a shadow of joy, I would attach myself to it with all energy, with all the force of my heart; and this shadow you refuse me...because you will that my heart be all for you.

“Life passes so quickly that truly it is better to have a most beautiful crown in heaven and a little suffering down here, than to have an ordinary crown without suffering. When I think that for a suffering borne with joy I shall love you more for all eternity, I understand well that if You should give me the entire universe with all its treasures, this would not be comparable to the lightest suffering. Every new suffering, every anguish of the heart is like a light zephyr that brings to you, O Jesus, the perfume of the soul that loves you; then You smile with love and soon prepare a new bitterness, fill the chalice to the brim, thinking that the more the soul grows in love, so much the more must it grow in suffering.

“What privilege you grant me in giving me to suffer! Ah, eternity will not be too long to thank you. Why such predilection? It is a secret that You will reveal to us in the Fatherland, the day in which you shall wipe away all our tears.

“It is You, O Lord, who come to ask of me as alms this sadness, this trial...you have need of it for souls, for my soul. O Jesus, since when you have made me understand that you would give me souls through the cross, so much the greater are the crosses that I encounter, so much the more becomes lively in me the desire to suffer.

“I am happy not to be freed from the sufferings of down here; pain united to love is the only thing that seems to me desirable in this valley of tears” (T.B.G. Lt. 32, 50, 23, 40, 58, 224; St. 7).