SUFFERING: A TRULY HUMAN EXPERIENCE
Only human beings can truly suffer and ask, “Why am I suffering?” Yes, animals also experience pain but not suffering, as they are not self-aware in the same way that human beings are.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that to be His disciples, we have to take up our cross and follow Him. We cannot hide from suffering as human beings. One way or another, it will find us and we will have to face it. Suffering reaches into the foundations of our spirituality and uncovers what lies deep in our hearts. Jesus knows this — He will experience it in the Garden of Gethsemane where He affirms His commitment to God’s will for His life despite knowing that He will suffer and die. We will have that moment of truth sometime in our lives. Each time we embrace the cross of Christ, we come face to face with the question of suffering.
How do you react to suffering? This is a question that you must answer, probably many times in your life. How each of us answers this question is critical to our relationship with God. If we are going to blame God for our suffering, following Him will be very difficult indeed. Jesus walks with us in our suffering as He knows the pain and difficulty of how it is to suffer — and His suffering is of the highest level as He was completely innocent.
Jesus suffers only because of our sins and not His own as He is the Sinless One. How Jesus embraced suffering is a unique act in all of human history, and because of it we can be assured of His ongoing commitment to the cause of our salvation. Fr. Steve Tynan, MGL
REFLECTION QUESTION: How do you react when you suffer, whether through no fault of your own or otherwise?
Jesus, thank You for the grace You have given me to embrace suffering in my life. Help me to turn it to good by uniting my suffering with Yours on the cross, thus making it redemptive.
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