Photo: Daniel Mafra / cancaonova.com
Try to identify the source of your sufferings. See if it is possible to alleviate or escape from them, then pray
When you suffer, you must keep two things in mind: 1) God does not want suffering, because He is the God of life, love and happiness. 2) Suffering is part of the finite, transient and human situation of our being.
We know that all sorts of suffering entered the world through sin. It is necessary to know how to look at him not with despair, escape, revolt, but with tranquility and inner peace .
It is not possible to live without disease, without suffering and conflicts, because they are part of our human reality. We find them present in the lives of all: saints and sinners, even in the life of Jesus, Our Lady and all people loved by God.
We can not escape the “deterioration” of our body that grows old, falls ill and dies. Faced with this, it is necessary to change our focus and contemplate all these as paths that lead us to maturity, enrich us with experiences and prepare us for “new heavens and new lands”, where there will be no more pain or tears.
Today, we no longer know how to be joyful, because we reject the wounds and we despair to the point where, to escape pain, there are those who preach death, euthanasia and suicide as remedy. Of course, these means are contrary to the will of God and against our human nature, which is made to live.Whatever your suffering, you must know how to love and accept it, and undoubtedly seek all means to alleviate it.
It is not necessary to go to find suffering or to ask for suffering, it is only to accept those we meet on our way.
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The worst service we can render to Jesus is to present Him as the One who goes in search of death, pain and suffering. Through the Gospels, we can see Jesus before the pain of which He teaches us to flee. Remember?
When Jesus is sought to be thrown down from the hill, what does He do? He flees, When the guards seek Him to bind Him in the temple, what does the Lord do? He flees. When are they trying to kill Him?Jesus runs away too. He always runs away! But when the cross, death, suffering become the only way of fidelity to the Father, to the plan of God in his life, He assumes them.
Here are some Bible passages about
“When they heard this, all who were in the synagogue were furious. They got up, dragged him out of the city and led him to the top of the hill where the city was built, to be rushed down. But passing through them, Jesus went away “(Lk 4: 28-30).
“When he had thus spoken, he departed and hid himself from them” (Jn 12,36).
“Therefore, Jesus no longer walked in public among the Jews. And he went away to the region nearest to the wilderness, to a city called Ephraim, and there he lived with his disciples “(Jn 11:54).
“Again they sought to arrest him, but he withdrew from his hands” (Jn 10:39).
This should be our attitude. When suffering is the only way of fidelity to God and our brothers and sisters, we must accept it with love.
Identify the source of your suffering
Try to identify the source of your sufferings: physical, spiritual, and moral. See if you can alleviate them or escape from them, then pray, ask God for strength to be able to take the cross as a gift of the same love of God. After all, by faith we know that “we complete in our flesh what is lacking in the passion of Jesus Christ”. Listen to these words of Elizabeth of the Trinity:
“O my beloved Christ, crucified for love; I had wanted to be a wife for your Heart, I want to cover you with glory, to love you until I die of love! But I feel my impotence and I ask you to clothe me in yourselves, to identify my soul with all your movements, to submerge me, to invade me, to replace you with me, so that my life is a true irradiation Of yours “ (elevation to the Trinity).
And of John of the Cross:
“Crucified inwardly and outwardly with Christ, she will live in this life in abundance and satisfaction of her soul, possessing it in patience” (Sayings 85).
“Christ’s crucifixion is enough! To suffer and rest with Him; But to do this all things interior and exterior must be must be annihilated” (Sayings 90).
Learn to resize things
Not all sufferings are the same, we must be able to distinguish them so as not to “make a storm in a glass of water”. Overreaching is never good for our physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional health. It is necessary to always resize things. And, faced with the problems of life, know what we can change, because something depends on us; And what we can not change because it does not depend on us.
The Christian, however, will never assume a “stoic and deterministic” attitude. He knows that in order not to be attacked by suffering, it is necessary to accept it in the way of love. What can help us is to meditate on the Passion of the Lord Jesus: see chapters 26-27 of the Gospel according to Matthew;Chapters 14-15 of Mark; Chapters 18-19 of the Gospel of John and the beautiful way of Jesus presented by the apostle Paul:
Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus,Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil 2: 6-11 NABRE).
My experience
In my life, as in everyone’s life, there has not been a lack of suffering or pain of all kinds, but with the grace of God and the help of the mystics of Carmel, I have come to understand that suffering is a “palace”, a “gift of God”. When I find myself in suffering, I take the crucifix in my hands and carefully, my eyes on Jesus crucified, and I receive all the courage and the strength to not be discouraged. And I see the truth of Jesus’ words:
“Verily I say unto you, Unless the grain of wheat fall into the earth, and die not, it shall be left alone; But if it dies, it will bear much fruit “ (Jn 12,24).
Friar Patrício Sciadini, ocd