But contrast that with suffering for some concrete purpose and I'm gung-ho. While in college I was willing to submit to all sorts of miseries because I had an end result: my diploma. The birth of my second child was ten times easier to endure because I was fully aware of the finish line: a beautiful baby. But illness is more difficult since there's a lack of any tangible or immediate pay-off. In addition, many diseases progressively get worse so one feels like a failure in not being "cured."
So, what is a person to do?
I've discovered a wonderful book which helped me reorient my thinking. It's entitled, The Apostolate of Suffering by Robert. B. Eiten, S.J. It's basic premise is two-fold:
- Suffering has meaning beyond the usual reasons; it can be an actual participation in Christ's redemption and be used to build up the Church and it's members.
"Suffering and the cross are hard for all of us. We pine under their weight. We are constantly forced to seek new and striking motives for bearing them. At one time perhaps the motive was self-preservation or "keeping spiritually fit" made a strong appeal to us. Again we might have turned our eyes to the past and seen many personal sins. Right order demanded that these sins be expiated;hence the motive of expiation for our personal sins made us seek the cross of suffering.....
No doubt other motives such as fear of hell, the acquisition of self-control, the thought of eternal reward, at one time or another exerted an appeal on us. Yet sooner or later most likely all of these motives lost much of their appeal...It is characteristic of Americans to want to do things. We like external activity, the apostolate of the active life, because it enables us to see things accomplished. This spirit often hampers our prayer-life and dulls our appreciation of suffering.
We see prayer and suffering, not as passive things, but as tremendous instruments for carrying out the great work of Redemption". (page x)
How does this happen? By our connection via the Body of Christ:
"In his touching discourse at the Last Supper, Christ told us that he is the vine and we are the branches. Now we all know how closely a branch and the stock of a vine are united. They are one, each of them working together and helping the other....Thus we can conclude that we are in some wonderful way one with Christ, and united with him. We might be called the extension or prolongation of Christ as the branch is the extension of a tree trunk. So too, because of the union or solidarity between Christ and us, we can make our own His merits, His blood, and all that goes with them.
But Christ has gone father than this mere sharing of his merits with us, for He has not only wished to have us share in or be associated with the fruits of His superabundant reparation offered to His Father, but He wished to have us as his active associates, co-helpers, and in some secondary way, as co-redeemers....All this is possible through the gift of sanctifying grace whereby we share in God's Divine Nature and inner Life.(p. 8)
And therefore, just as we can say when we possess sanctifying grace that we possess a Godlike or divine nature, so too we can say of our actions and sufferings: "these are Christlike or divinelike actions, these are Christlike or Godlike sufferings and ones endowed consequently with Godlike efficacy and power." (p. 9)
So, the next time I have to endure an unpleasant procedure or wait for lab results, I can help save the world!! Because all the suffering in my life can be connected to Christ's suffering. I don't have to feel like a hamster on a wheel going nowhere. It all has purpose.
Which leads into the next important message of this book:
2. I can have a vocation of suffering in the same way that others may have a vocation to the priesthood or contemplative life; to preaching or teaching.
On page 1 this book states:
"Only too often many of us think of an apostle in terms of a St. Paul or a St. Francis Xavier. We tend to limit apostolic work to missionary, priestly, or external labors. We too often forget that besides the external apostolate or the apostolate of action, there are two other very important apostolates, the apostolate of prayer and the apostolate of suffering.
The importance of prayer was clearly brought out when Pius XI named the Little Flower, a contemplative nun, copatroness of the missions with St. Francis Xavier. One distinct advantage that the apostolate of prayer has over the external apostolate is that there are no boundaries to its effects....
Over and above these two apostolates there yet is another apostolate, the apostolate of suffering.
Now Christ by His Passion and Death has merited an infinite amount of redemptive graces. He gives to us a part in helping to distribute those redemptive graces to ourselves and others by our good works, prayers, and sufferings. "Deep mystery this, subject of inexhaustible meditation: that the salvation of many depends on the prayers and voluntary penances which the members of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ offer for this intention" (Encycl. of Pius XII on the Mystical Body)"
It goes on:
....".We acquire the instinctive power of seeing in the hard things of life, ways and means to "fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ (Col.1,24) The hard things, be they physical pains, sickness, bad weather, humiliations, disappointments, failures, losses, mental trials, or voluntary penances, we will look upon as our contribution in apportioning the merits of Christ's Passion. (p. 3)"
I've always understood the concept of the contemplative life and it's mission of praying for the Church and the world. But I've never seen suffering as a vocation. I vaguely saw it as meaningful in some abstract way. Yet, I wished that it would end so I could get back to the real business of life and do the things I truly valued: volunteer work, being a mom, pro-life activism. Whenever I got sick I hated the idleness of my condition but now it's time for a change.
Perhaps, I'm being called to a new way of living. Perhaps I'm being called to a vocation within a vocation. Many people change occupations later in life; the same holds true for one's role in the church. I'm going to try to see things differently and let God give my life some direction.
2. I can have a vocation of suffering in the same way that others may have a vocation to the priesthood or contemplative life; to preaching or teaching.
On page 1 this book states:
"Only too often many of us think of an apostle in terms of a St. Paul or a St. Francis Xavier. We tend to limit apostolic work to missionary, priestly, or external labors. We too often forget that besides the external apostolate or the apostolate of action, there are two other very important apostolates, the apostolate of prayer and the apostolate of suffering.
The importance of prayer was clearly brought out when Pius XI named the Little Flower, a contemplative nun, copatroness of the missions with St. Francis Xavier. One distinct advantage that the apostolate of prayer has over the external apostolate is that there are no boundaries to its effects....
Over and above these two apostolates there yet is another apostolate, the apostolate of suffering.
Now Christ by His Passion and Death has merited an infinite amount of redemptive graces. He gives to us a part in helping to distribute those redemptive graces to ourselves and others by our good works, prayers, and sufferings. "Deep mystery this, subject of inexhaustible meditation: that the salvation of many depends on the prayers and voluntary penances which the members of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ offer for this intention" (Encycl. of Pius XII on the Mystical Body)"
It goes on:
....".We acquire the instinctive power of seeing in the hard things of life, ways and means to "fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ (Col.1,24) The hard things, be they physical pains, sickness, bad weather, humiliations, disappointments, failures, losses, mental trials, or voluntary penances, we will look upon as our contribution in apportioning the merits of Christ's Passion. (p. 3)"
I've always understood the concept of the contemplative life and it's mission of praying for the Church and the world. But I've never seen suffering as a vocation. I vaguely saw it as meaningful in some abstract way. Yet, I wished that it would end so I could get back to the real business of life and do the things I truly valued: volunteer work, being a mom, pro-life activism. Whenever I got sick I hated the idleness of my condition but now it's time for a change.
Perhaps, I'm being called to a new way of living. Perhaps I'm being called to a vocation within a vocation. Many people change occupations later in life; the same holds true for one's role in the church. I'm going to try to see things differently and let God give my life some direction.
