Allocutio 17th April 2015
Spiritual Reading: Legion Handbook pg 56-58, point 3: Suffering in the mystical Body
I received a blue and white cross on the last CPG prayer meeting of the semester. A thought comes to my mind: Mary is so intricately connected with the cross, suffering as Jesus was suffering, until the cross itself becomes blue and white, Mary’s favourite colours.
Indeed, Mary shares in her Son’s suffering so intimately as the spiritual reading says, “At the foot of the cross stands a figure, so desolate that it seems impossible for her to continue to live.” She has suffered so much with Jesus and that’s why we can look to Mary to know more about Jesus’ suffering and sacrifice for us, in order to better understand His great love for us. Love hurts, and only through understanding the hurts we can understand the great love. That is also why we meditate on the five sorrowful mysteries in the rosary, to have better insights about Jesus’ suffering with the help of Mary. The Legion handbook also says, “Suffering is a grace… to confer power… never merely a punishment of sin, but medicinal in character.” Suffering is a gift from God, a gift that allows and strengthens us to fight our sins. Suffering is a sign that we are constantly battling our sins, because it is painful and very difficult to reject evil and sin since we are so accustomed to sin, living in a sinful world, addicted to sin so much so until sin has become second nature to us. It’s painful for an alcoholic or smoker to give up their addictions. It’s hard to say ‘no’ all the time, so we must constantly fight to say ‘no’ daily, one day at a time. That’s why rejecting evil and sins is akin to a marathon until we die.
Suffering is also a way to bring us back to Christ, as the handbook says, “in order to conform them ever more perfectly to His own likeness.” When we suffer we realise our weaknesses and our need to depend on God, prevents from committing a greater sin of pride, and therefore, in this way, little by little we are being transformed to be more and more like Christ.
“Suffering must have its place in every fruitful life… gives life its completeness” I guess we cannot deny that without suffering there is no achievement. Like without studying for exams, we cannot score well. Without suffering in child birth and throughout pregnancy, there is no child. Without suffering in bringing up a child, we cannot help the child to live a holy life. We sometimes like to feel good after suffering, to feel that our efforts pay off. But this is not a good motivation to persevere on in our suffering. Like Jesus, our motivation must be out of love for others. Jesus didn’t suffer on the cross so that He himself can feel good about himself after saving humanity, but because He loves us. So we too, we shouldn’t go to MOC or pray the chain rosary so that we can feel good after doing good works, but because we love the residents in MOC and we love the person we are praying the chain rosary for. Let us ask God to help us purify our intentions.
It is a “privilege to suffer with Him,” because when we suffer with Jesus, we will also share in His glory and resurrection. This is why “pain can be a joyful sign” and a “sense of suffering is a sense of Christ’s presence.”
So let us embrace our suffering and not shun them away so that we can become closer to Jesus in His suffering, and ultimately share in His joy. A good way to embrace suffering is to pray:
“Unite our sufferings with yours, O Lord”
Or for the more “adventurous”:
“Grant me a suffering to save a soul”
Every soul has a price tag that needs to be paid for the salvation of the soul. Christ already paid the price of all souls. But we are still constantly being saved from our sinful habits. Let’s pray that by suffering we can help to pay the price for the salvation of some souls. But I am not suggesting that we become masochists, but surrender ourselves to whatever sufferings God gives us in life because God knows our limits of endurance and He will never let us suffer more than we can endure. Embrace our sufferings willingly and joyfully so that others might be saved as Jesus has given as an example by staying on the cross despite being tempted by the thief to come down from the cross.
Let us surrender all our sufferings and crosses in life to Mary so that she could help us carry them in this life joyfully and patiently. She will make our heavy crosses blue and white, sweeter and easier to bear.
