Cribbed from Another Blog

Here's some great stuff from Happy Catholic on suffering. I don't usually crib in such enormous chunks, but I haven't learned how to do links yet.! So enjoy, and then visit Happy Catholic for yourself!



As many Catholics will tell you, one of the things they love and appreciate about our great faith is that capacity to use suffering, to not let it go to waste by offering it up. The best explanation I have seen for this lately comes from Praying the Mass: A Guide to the New English Translation of the Mass by Jeffrey Pinyan (which I can recommend, by the way, though I am not quite done with it).

This is part of Pinyan's commentary upon the part of the Mass where the priest prays that the sacrifice being offered will be accepted by God.
The bread and wine (and afterwards, the Eucharist) and ourselves are united as one at the hands of the priest. The bread and wine which the priest holds during the words of consecration represent us, since they represent the fruits of our labor. Then, as the priest offers the Eucharist to God, we join our very lives -- all of our worries, cares, sufferings, and prayers -- to Christ in the Eucharist. It is only by joining ourselves to Christ, the perfect sacrifice, that the contribution of our living, spiritual sacrifice can be truly acceptable to the Father. (cf. Rom. 12:1, 1 Pet. 2:5)

Because Christ is both priest and victim, our share in His priesthood (exercised in intercessory prayer, as well as in this offering of ourselves as living sacrifices of praise) must also include a share in His victimhood. This does not mean that we should expect to undergo a persecution and death as grievous as His, but we should unite the suffering we encounter in our lives to the suffering that Christ endured for our sake. The words of St. Paul to the Colossians are particularly meaningful in this regard: "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church." (Col. 1:24) St. Paul is not saying that Christ's sufferings were imperfect or incomplete, but that our participation in Christ's sufferings has yet to be fulfilled; in St. Paul's suffering for the sake of the Church, he is completing his participation in Christ's life, which he began in his baptism.
We do not seek suffering, of course, but when it comes and we offer it up at least it does not go to waste. For me, that is a thought that helps a great deal when suffering comes my way, as it inevitably does in life.

Of course, there is another great benefit which Merton goes on to mention. He says that his father was refined and purified by the suffering he experienced until he became saintly. Which brings me to Peter Cameron's commentary in this month's Magnificat. This hit me and then hits me again as I contemplate all the above:
The difficult circumstances of our lives are not just things to put up with. We are deluded if we think that peace and contentment will come if we can just figure out how to "improve" our circumstances once and for all. God deploys the problematic circumstances of our life to awaken us, challenge us, educate us. For the way that we deal with our circumstances reveals to us and to the world just who Jesus Christ is for us. We think that, when something goes wrong in our life, our predicament is outside the all-embracing purpose and meaning of life. But God intends such circumstances to move us to discover this meaning.
This is why I also ask God to show me the good that will come out of the bad I am experiencing. And you know what? It's a prayer He answers more than you'd think


Julie Davis posted this in her blog (the above mentioned Happy Catholic) and she happens to be a Dallasite.

Let me know what you think, ya'll!