Cooperating with God through Redemptive Suffering

As a pregnant mother approaching the arrival of our newborn baby, I know, as any mother does, that I am going to face the suffering of labor and childbirth. There is great anticipation as we await meeting our newborn daughter face-to-face, but I know that to get there, there is going to be some pain. Love and life, as it turns out, go hand-in-hand with suffering.

Something that has been particularly helpful as I approach the birth of our baby is the Church’s understanding of suffering with Christ and joining with Him in redemptive suffering. When we suffer—whether physically, emotionally, or spiritually—we get to join our suffering with the suffering of Christ and offer it up for the conversion of sinners. We get to cooperate with the grace God gives us in suffering that He may offer His grace into the life of another—even the grace of conversion. As Christians, we are not to shy away from suffering, but to take whatever suffering He places upon us and give it back to Him to use as He sees fit. The gift of suffering was emphasized in a class I took from the Avila Institute for Spiritual Formation. We do not get to choose what crosses we will bear, but we do get to choose what we will do with the crosses placed upon us. We must change our understanding of suffering—in whatever form it may take—and thank God for the gift of suffering, as suffering truly joins us to Christ and conforms us to Him. We become Christ when we suffer willingly and offer our life with His, as part of His Body, for the redemption of the world. 

St. Paul writes in his letter to the Colossians, “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” (1:24). Jesus’ sacrifice is no doubt the perfect sacrifice, but what Paul refers to here is that we join in Christ’s sufferings for the good of the Church. God offers us a chance to participate in redemptive suffering. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reads:

The cross is the unique sacrifice of Christ, the “one mediator between God and men.” But because in his incarnate divine person He has in some way united Himself to every man, “the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery” is offered to all men… In fact Jesus desires to associate with his redeeming sacrifice those who were to be its first beneficiaries. This is achieved supremely in the case of his mother, who was associated more intimately than any other person in the mystery of his redemptive suffering. (618)

As ones who are joined to Christ in His Body, we actually get to suffer in and with Christ. Our suffering matters not only because it joins us to Jesus, but because, with Jesus and with Mary, we suffer for the life of the world. If we let pain come willingly as from the hand of God, we can ask God to use that pain for the redemption of another. We can ask Him for the grace to suffer well, and with that suffering we experience, for Him to bring new life to another.

All too often, my response to suffering of any kind is to complain. It is an instant response, like a reflex. Trying to change my response is quite difficult, because I can be so reactionary. But with prayer and time and lots of grace, I hope I can change my response to suffering to be one of gratitude. I pray that with every pang, I remember that it is for life that I suffer, and out of love offer it to God to do what he wills. I pray He will purify my suffering and bring new life into the kingdom with the grace of conversion. 

Suffering is not unknown to God. He knows what to do with our suffering; we simply need to offer it all to Him. 

Is the Cross of Pregnancy Death or Life?

The responses to the near bans on abortion in many states have brought me to think extensively about abortion in a particular way—specifically how our culture views suffering. For one, I am overjoyed at how laws are finally starting to recognize the life of a precious baby in the womb, no matter what the circumstances may be. On the other hand, there are many responses I have seen not only from secular media, but also from self-proclaimed Christians that cause me grief. Many are devastated and terrified at the prospect that abortion will not be so easily accessible and are angered that “women’s rights” are being infringed upon. Of course, there is another kind of outrage from the pro-choice side in that there are no exceptions for those women who have conceived in rape and incest. People cry out that women’s lives will be completely ruined due to their unplanned pregnancies and unwanted babies, and now on top of that women who have suffered rape will have to carry the result to term, inflicting more trauma. They say that pregnancy and birth will be forced on women.

This kind of response is deeply saddening to me, as I know it is for so many others. Aside from the fact that abortion kills a living person and inflicts a horrible wound on the mother, I grieve the fact that so many people are unable to recognize that true life, joy, and meaning can be found in the midst of and as a result of profound suffering. Though some laws are changing for good, our culture has a very long way to go. Moral imagination is lost, for the ability to see the beauty of sacrifice is gone along with hope in the midst of trials.

Believing in the cross means we believe life can come from the worst of evils done to a person. It means we can hold together and recognize both horrific suffering and redemption in that suffering which can bring life to the world. Suffering and death do not win; healing, life, and love do.

I do not want to be guilty of overlooking the fear that comes with an unplanned pregnancy and the suffering that will surely come. We ought to look this suffering in the eye, really look at it, just as we ought to really look at the cross if we are to know God’s love at all. Suffering is ugly, and it is hard. There is nothing desirable about it. It is more than uncomfortable; it is painful, and it can even feel like death.

And yet… suffering births new life. Crosses are not chosen; instead, they are put upon us for us to bear, and love redeems our suffering. However, our culture has forgotten that love gives life. True love suffers. We forget that love prevails, but only because love is willing to suffer. Love heals; love offers joy and brings forth life–not only in the one we love but also in our own souls. If we are not willing to face a kind of death to ourselves, we will never see true life.

So for all those involved in the conversation on abortion, for all those involved directly with abortion whether it be past, present, or in the future, we must all be willing to take up our crosses to suffer for life as mothers and fathers, but also with mothers, fathers, and their children, or anyone affected by the trauma of abortion. Jesus died on the cross for love and for life. Mary suffered with Jesus to the end, never once leaving His side. Choosing life will hurt, but it will be good. It will be painful, but there will be love. We must remember that sometimes, what is good means that we may suffer, but it also means we will love, and that is beautiful.

The Incarnation and Choosing to be Thankful

Maybe it is that Thanksgiving came and Advent is coming, but I have been realizing just how ungrateful I have been and, in light of that, how much more I must remember Christ’s incarnation.

I often want to perfectly curate my situation and my daily schedule to what I think I need in this season of my life, but in fact it is only me trying to get what I want from my life right now. God has given me the life I have in this moment and I must submit to all of it–its particular work and people, and when these things do not change, I must be obedient and faithful to what God has given me to do. Not everything I do will feel rewarding or particularly invigorating, but the fact of the matter is I have been given certain things in my life to do that God actually wants me to do–joyfully and with thanksgiving and love–because they join me to Christ and more fully enable me to love.

God gives us the grace to live holy lives in each moment, and to reject certain moments or to live those moments with contempt is to reject His will and to hate what He has given me to strengthen and to teach me. He reveals Himself to us in every moment, in every season, and when I am ungrateful, I reject the ways in which He reveals Himself to me in my life in this moment.

Every time I complain, I forget Christ. I forget that He suffered in the flesh, and that He, too, participated in the work of the day and the keeping and running of a home. He grew up in a home and He worked as a carpenter. He participated in daily life and He loved perfectly. For only three years at the end of his life on earth did he begin his public ministry. For three years Jesus taught us what it is to love God and one another and He demonstrated it in His life and His love towards others. He taught and He loved–we see it in His public ministry, but He was already doing this perfectly in his quiet, hidden life at home and in His work.

Jesus lived a life of obedience to the will of the Father in every situation, in every season of His life. He was obedient and showed great humility in becoming even a child in the womb of a poor young woman. He grew and He loved and He worked and He lived the life of a faithful Jew in a faithful Jewish family. He taught the people and He fed the hungry and He healed the sick, and when it was time He faced death, though He asked for another way if it be the Father’s will, yet was obedient to death on a cross and the great suffering that led up to that death. He rose again and told Thomas to put his hand in His wound, in His very risen body.

In dwelling on what I want to happen now in my life, I forget all I have already been given, and I forget the incarnation of Christ who, humbling Himself, became a baby in the womb of His mother and grew and became a man. God is not unfamiliar with life and death on earth; he is not unfamiliar with humanity. He knows what it means to have a body and a soul, and to labor to sustain life–both His own and those in His care. In each season of His life, Jesus was faithful and obedient to His Father. He was not rushing for what was not yet to come, and He did not hesitate or hide from what was to come in an effort to have what was gone. Jesus embraced what was given Him and loved in the midst of every moment, even and especially in the midst of His sufferings.

Let us embrace what God has given us to do, no matter what the task, for in being given these things, God grants us humility and grace–the humility to know our weakness and to confess our sin, and the grace to, by his power, overcome sin and be strengthened by our weakness. We can offer our suffering, no matter how small or how seemingly petty, to God, and ask Him to use our suffering to join us to His Son. I am really trying to get better at this, and whenever I am tempted to complain about something, I must remember Jesus and offer myself and all I do for love of Him, remembering that what I do joins me to Him in His incarnation. My life partakes in the Life of God.

Oh my Jesus, I offer this for love of Thee, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the immaculate heart of Mary.