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Transcription of Audio File: 1996T29s2a Teaching

Fr. Paul Hinnebusch, O.P., STM June 20, 1996

The Gospel Of Suffering

One afternoon a young woman came to me saying shes beginning to doubt her Catholic faith. And the reason is: Her mother is a Baptist; her father is a Catholic, and her mother says that Catholics talk too much about suffering, as though to be a Christian you had to suffer. But Baptists say because Jesus suffered for us, we dont have to suffer; and the young lady was confused. The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ is all about suffering, and not just the personal sufferings of Our Lord, in His Passion and Crucifixion; its about all human sufferingsthe sufferings of the whole human race. The Gospel is also about the necessity of our sharing in Our Lords suffering. The Gospel is the good news about Our Lords personal victory over suffering, manifested in His Resurrection. Hes victorious over sin, over death, over all suffering. Therefore, its also the good news that everyones sufferings can be transformed into a blessing through union with Jesus in His sufferings. Its not that the sufferings are taken away; its that they become a blessing when we unite them with the sufferings of Jesus. So it is necessary that we share in Our Lords sufferings. In no way does the Gospel say that because Jesus suffered, weve been freed from the necessity of suffering. Some people, like that Baptist woman, misinterpret the words of Matthews Gospel. He took away our infirmitiesour sufferingsand bore our diseases (Mt 8:17). They misinterpret that to mean, because Jesus suffered for us, we do not have to suffer. The truth is that the Gospel is actually a call to suffer with Christ, a summons to unite our sufferings with His, so that our sufferings will share in the redemptive value of His, and in that way be transformed from an evil into a blessing. That the Gospel is a call to suffer with Jesus is very clear from His own words: Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me (Mt 10:38). Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. Its like saying, whoever does not suffer with me does not belong to me. People misunderstand this to mean that Jesus lays new sufferings on His followers. These people think that it means that to be a Christian you have to suffer more than other people. It really doesnt mean that. It means rather that Jesus tells His followers to accept for His sake, for love of Him, all the normal human sufferings, which are part of every human life. We actually owe it to Jesus to unite our sufferings with Hiswhether He came or not. If He had not come, we sure would have been miserable in our sufferings. We have to unite our sufferings with His because only in that way can His redeeming work be completed in us. Only if we give our sufferings to Him can they become a blessing by taking on the redemptive value of HIS sufferings, so that our sufferings become redemptive in His. We can suffer in reparation for our own sins; we
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can offer our suffering in reparation for the sins of others, to win the conversion of others. So theres a real value in suffering with Christ. Through our loving union with Him our sufferings become redemptive in His redemptive sufferings. You see, then, suffering in a very real way, is at the very heart of the Gospel. The Gospel is a call to suffer with Christ. Just to show [that this call] is not [a matter of] adding any more sufferings than we would have had otherwise, [note that] because of sin suffering is woven in the whole fabric of human life. Suffering is practically inseparable from our fallen human existence. Were speaking of all kinds of sufferings whether it be bodily suffering, moral suffering, spiritual suffering. A person suffers when he or she experiences any kind of evilwhether it be physical evil, such as bodily sickness, or moral evil, such as broken human relationships. See, when a marriage breaks up, theres real suffering on the part of both spouses and suffering on the part of their children. Thats morally evil, and its spiritual evil too in the sense that it so wounds the human spirit. And theres that spiritual evil thats separation from God. So, there are pains of the body and pains of the soul, and all that is part of the fallen human condition. When Jesus calls us to take up your cross and follow Him, its not that Hes adding new sufferings to the life of the Christian, its rather that Hes calling us to unite our inescapable human sufferings to His own, so that our sufferings will take on the redemptive value of His, and in that way, become a blessing. United to the suffering of Christ, our suffering is no longer our own. Its now His suffering. We are His! We are His Body, the fullness of Christ. Just as He lives His life in us, and preaches His word through us, and cares for the sick through us, He also suffers in us because of our intimate union with Him in His Mystical Bodya union through grace through the sacramentsbut above all, a union through love. See, our sufferings become His. So, Jesus has a right to our sufferings. He really needs them to complete His redeeming work in us, and through us in others. Remember how St. Paul says, In my own flesh I fill up what is wanting to the sufferings of Christ for His Body, the Church (Col 1:24). Only when we unite our sufferings with His does His passion have its full effect in us, and in the world. Because, you might say, one of the basic things He came to do by suffering, is to redeem our sufferings, change them from a sheer evil into this blessing of reparation, this blessing showing our love for Him, our gratitude to Him, who suffered for us. Its only through our sharing in His sufferings that His sacrifice bears its full fruit. He suffered to redeem us from sin, and from the sufferings which are the bitter fruit of sin. He redeems our very sufferings when we unite them to His. He gives redeeming value to them; He changes them into a blessing. There are many aspects to this blessing. The blessing is manifold. Weve mentioned some of these. Our sufferings endured for love of Jesus become necessary reparation for our sinsfor our own and for those of others. In suffering we are purified of sin and selfishness. In suffering, because things arent going right, in a way we are forced to turn to the Lord, and so in suffering our trust in Him grows, and we are strengthened in faith, in hope, in love. Our love grows because we suffer in grateful
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love--love for Jesus, who suffered for us. In suffering we are perfected in all the virtues, such as loves patient endurance, loves unshakeable hope. St. Paul speaks of all these blessings with Jesus, when he says, We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, we also rejoice in our sufferings, (we can find joy in suffering) knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. Hope does not disappoint us, because Gods love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us (Rom 5:2-5). And, in that way, suffering with Christ makes us worthy of the Kingdom of Glory. It opens us to receive the glory of the Risen Lord. Paul tells us how were called to that glory only through suffering. Theres no other way. Romans 8:15-17:You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a Spirit of adoption, through which we cry, Abba, Father! The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. See why the Gospel is a call to suffering? We have to suffer with Him if we are to be glorified with Him. So, our hearts purified by sufferings endured in love opens us to receive glory. All that helps us to understand what St. Paul means when he says, I am now rejoicing in my suffering for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christs afflictions for the sake of His Body, that is, the Church (Col 1:24). He is able to rejoice in sufferings because theyre a blessing. What is the blessing? He says hes completing in his own flesh what is lacking in Christs afflictions. Its not that there is anything deficient about Christs sufferings. Its a case rather that the roots of His sufferings come into the world, come into the people, come into the church, and so thats through the sufferings, the labors, of His apostles, and all who suffer persecution with Jesus and so on. So, Paul finds joy through suffering for the Church, because not only do we come to our personal glory through suffering with Christ, but our sufferings become fruitful in Christ for the salvation of others. Thats what I meant when I said that Christ needs our sufferings to complete His redeeming work in each of us, and through us, in others. In the 2nd Letter to the Corinthians, Paul says hes always carrying about in his body the dying of Jesus (2 Cor 4:10) so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in his mortal flesh. Suffering with Jesus, dying with Jesus, the life of the Risen Lord becomes more powerful in him, and it becomes manifest in him. He goes on to say, Death is at work in me, but life in you (2 Cor 4:12), meaning dying with Christ. He says Im always always carrying about in my body the dying of Christ. So, the dying of Christ is continued, you might say, in me. Death is at work in me, but life in you. Because Im dying, suffering with Christ, Christs life is being formed in you, His Church. Its realities like that. I think theres a great truth in that, that its only Catholics who seem to appreciate the full value of suffering with Christ. A lot of the fundamentalists are trying to escape sufferings at all costs. Of course, thats the contemporary pagan attitude in the world about us. If you ever watch TV, all the ads are about how to avoid pain. Advil is better than Aspirin. Aspirin is better than this and that. Tylenol is better than them all, and so on. People cant stand even the slightest
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little hardship. Theyre always trying to escape it. They just dont have that Christian attitude; they cant see how patient suffering is so precious! St. Paul also says to the Philippians: It is your privilege not only to believe in Christ, but also to suffer with Him (Phil 1:9). So the Gospel call to glory in Christ, is necessarily a call to suffering with Christ. Suffering with Christ is a great blessing. Its a precious gift from God. Its to be received with deep reverence and true gratitude gratitude because Christ, in His love, has changed the evil of suffering into a wonderful blessing. So, every pain we endure, each discomfort in our life, each frustration that comes our way, should make us think immediately of the sufferings of Jesus. When I have a bad pain, the first thing I should think of is the terrible pain that Jesus endured. So I express my gratitude to Him that He suffered. Look what He did for me! Why cant I suffer for Him? Why cant I suffer with Him for the salvation of someone else? To the extent that we are angry and impatient and resentful of our hardships, to the extent that we are rebellious in our difficulties, to that extent we are not living the Gospel! Its a great ingratitude to Jesus who suffered and died for us. To refuse that blessing of suffering, to refuse this blessing, to rebel against suffering, is to refuse the fruits of the redemption. Its to reject the glory that can be attained only through patient suffering with Jesus. So we refuse this precious value, this blessing, this gift from God, when we reject our suffering in whining, self-pity, complaining and even worse, seeking sinful ways out of lifes hardshipspeople who try to escape their hardships by getting drunk, or by going out and committing sexual sins, finding pleasures as a way of escaping suffering. Of course, they only increase their suffering, their pain. Many sufferings remain just plain evil, with no redemptive value, because we resent them, we rebel against them, we refuse to accept them in loving gratitude to Christ, and suffer to turn our suffering into a blessing. After I had finished all that, I had a further thought. Maybe its true that Catholics do have to suffer more than other people [in a different way]. And heres an example: If you become a disciple of Christ, a really fervent disciple of Christ, youll probably suffer persecution. So to be disciple of Jesus, you have to be ready to suffer persecutionand thats a suffering that you wouldnt have if you werent a Christian. So, in that sense, to be a Christian means to suffer more if you have to suffer persecution. Then I think theres another way in which Christians may have to suffer more than other people. If their love for Jesus is truly strong and ferventthe more we love someone, the more we suffer any harm thats done to them. A man loves his wife, and somebody abuses his wife then he suffers from that. So, when we truly know God and love Him, when we see how sin is an attack on His holiness, our great love for the All-Holy God makes us feel pain when His holiness is violated by sin. The more we see sin against God, the more we love Him, the more we are pained by sin. In that sense, a fervent Christian, somebody who really loves Christ, may be suffering more than other people, suffering that deep spiritual suffering of distress over sin. That distress over sin leads them to take on voluntary sufferings to make reparation for sin.
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When persons have a very, very powerful love for Jesus, then they actually find it a joy to suffer with Him. First of all, because suffering with Him is a way of showing gratitude to Him, and making a return to Him. Look, Lord, you suffered for me; I will endure this for you. So the normal sufferingslike some physical sicknesscan take on a very special value because of this attitude of suffering with great love of Jesus, great gratitude, and the desire to make a return to Him for His goodness, to show ones love for Him. Of course, its because the great Catholic teachers have always spoken of things like that, maybe thats why people get the impression that all Catholics talk about is suffering. What I was talking about all the while here is the Gospel of suffering. The other day on the plane, coming home from my grandnieces wedding, I was reading Pope John Paul IIs Encyclical on the Meaning of Suffering. In one section he calls it the Gospel of Suffering. That title made me think of how the Gospel is not only talking about Our Lords own personal sufferings and His victory over sufferings; its a call for us to suffer with Him. It expresses the necessity of suffering with Him. Unless you take up your cross daily and follow me, you cannot be my disciple (Matt 10:38). In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[Bracketed text added by editor to clarify.]

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