54 — SUFFERING AND ABANDONMENT

Presence of God. — O Lord, teach me to suffer with simplicity, without useless returns on myself, but abandoning myself to your divine will.

Meditation

1 — The secret for learning to suffer virtuously lies in great part in forgetting self and abandoning oneself; to forget self and one’s own pain and to abandon oneself to God.

Whoever folds back on his own sufferings, concentrating on them his attention, renders himself incapable of bearing them with serenity and courage. “To each day suffices its own affliction” (Mt. 6, 34), Jesus has said; let us strive then to bear in peace, day by day, moment by moment those pains and those troubles that God places on our path, without thinking of what we have suffered yesterday, without preoccupying ourselves with what we shall suffer tomorrow. Even when suffering is intense let us not overvalue it, let us not give it too much importance, let us not let ourselves be taken by that somewhat morbid tendency of caressing our suffering, of stopping to contemplate it, to analyze it and weigh it in all its aspects. In such manner we shall come to paralyze our spirit of sacrifice, our capacity of acceptance and of action, rendering ourselves often useless to ourselves and to others. Whoever is too sensitive and too occupied with his own sufferings becomes often insensible and indifferent to the sufferings of others.

To react against these tendencies of egoism which have been justly defined “the worm of Christian affliction” (P. Faber), one must forget self, one must go out from self and from the circle of one’s own sufferings and occupy oneself instead of those of others, striving to alleviate them. This is a most efficacious means to find again, in moments of discouragement, the strength to carry one’s own crosses.

One must always think — as is true — that we are never alone to suffer, that if our sufferings are great, there is no lack of those who have greater ones; one must think that our pains are a drop in comparison with the sea of pains in which navigates humanity and are almost nothing in comparison with the Passion of Jesus.

Who occupies himself too much with what he suffers, ends by exasperating his own pain, by drowning himself in it, truncating in himself every generous impulse. Whoever, instead, knows how to forget self, maintains himself in equilibrium, always capable of thinking more of others than of self, always open to charity and to generosity toward God and toward neighbor. The simple soul, forgetful of self, is that which knows how to suffer with greater courage, drawing from it greater profit for its own sanctification.

2 — Despite all efforts to throw oneself beyond one’s own pain, to forget one’s own pains, one can pass through moments of anguish so profound, of darkness so dense that the poor soul knows not how to come out of them, so much the more when the horizon, instead of clearing itself, becomes always more dark and menacing. In these cases there remains but to make a leap into the dark, abandoning oneself totally into the hands of God. We are so poor and weak that we have always need of a point of support; if the soul forgets self and disoccupies itself of self, it has still need of someone who sustain it and think of it. This Someone is God who never forgets us, who knows profoundly our suffering, who sees our needs, who sees our weakness and is always ready to succor those who take refuge in him. We can, it is true, seek a little of comfort and help also from creatures, but let us not deceive ourselves: not always will they understand us, not always will they be at our disposition. But if we have recourse to God, we shall never be deluded; even if He shall not change our conditions, if he shall not take away our pains, yet interiorly — though in a hidden and silent manner — he will comfort our heart, giving us the strength to proceed on the way.

“Cast your care upon the Lord, and he shall sustain you” (Ps. 54, 23). Behold the attitude of abandonment that we must have in the moment of suffering and that we must strengthen so much the more as this becomes profound. To greater suffering must correspond greater abandonment in God and then we shall not be lost.

So many souls exaggerate their sufferings, dramatize them because they know not how to see in them the paternal hand of God, because they do not believe enough in his divine Providence and, consequently, do not know how to abandon themselves to it with full confidence. If our life with all its circumstances, even the most painful, were not in the hands of God, we would have reason to fear, but since all is always in his hands we must not fear, we must not be dismayed. The soul that is secure of God and abandons itself to him, knows how to maintain itself tranquil even in the greatest pains, knows how to take with simplicity even tragic things, knows how to suffer with serenity and courage, because it is always sustained by God.

Colloquy

“O Lord, make my soul run continually to you without pause, gazing always at you alone. Consoled or desolated, let it run without stopping at anything, let it run so swiftly as to have no time to look, nor to see the things of earth, because the step is most swift. Away then, for love of you, enjoyment, repose, reliance on the judgment of men, repose on their approval, apprehension for physical malaise, for moral sadnesses, for success prosperous or adverse. Away, in short, all that is not God.

“My pains, I recognize, have been permitted and willed by you, my Lord, to teach me to have confidence despite all.

“O Lord, be my only support in apprehensions, in weaknesses, in anguish; be my confidant or, better, my confidence. Divine Guest, who reside in me, on the throne of my heart, dwell as master; to you belongs the dominion, the love, the government of all my being!

“Why trouble myself or fear still? All is yours, O God, and You yourself take care and provide for my needs. You are infinite love and love the work of your hands more than it itself knows and can love itself. Who shall dare to doubt of your power, of the provident and affectionate cares that you lavish on your creatures, of the eternity and efficacy of your love?

“I believe that You do all and permit all for my good and my salvation and I abandon myself to your conduct with confidence, with love, without anxieties, nor apprehensions, nor calculations” (B. M. Teresa de Soubiran).