This Lent, as usual, I decided to fast and give up sweets. True to my randomness, I didn’t give myself good specifications on what and when to fast…after a mildly hard week of unexpected sickness and tiredness, I lost my mind- well, not really- I just lost my willingness, and downed a couple cookies in a secluded parkinglot. I felt so lame, so weak, later (after the sugar high died down).
I’m not one to write authoritatively on suffering, for I am so bad at it. I tend to go numb, a kind of shock, wherein I can appear to function smoothly and calmly, much to the mistaken admiration of others. Then, later, in the recesses of the heart, the anger comes; and it is an old anger, born in the time when I was reaching the age of reason- and nothing seemed reasonable to me. It is the anger that frightens me now, because I do not wish it to turn into resentment and bitterness, as it was before I turned back to Our Lord from years of anger.
Anger dipped in pride becomes bitterness.
So it is that I am afraid of suffering, because I can’t deal with it, I can’t respond with love, with offering as I see the saints have done. I have never really resonated with St. Therese of Liseux as she wished for all the martyrdoms in the world. As I understand more about loving God, and His loving us, as I understand the traditional faith, I understand with my reason why St. Therese would say this: but I do not understand with my whole being. Can I honestly say I wish to?
I was driving today, and these are the quietest times I have, real moments of solitude with Our Lord- anyone who has small children will know what I mean. I began to understand something- that we cannot suffer as a saint, we cannot be perfect as the Lord is perfect, ourselves. We will all suffer. There is no family that does not have immense tragedy and suffering- hidden, or not- but can we endure it and turn it to love instead of anger at God, instead of hurt pride and bitterness? For turning suffering to love is what a saint does, in imitation of Our Lord.
It is the Sorrow of Mary; to watch Beauty killed, to watch Love hated, and to feel it as only a mother can; and yet to turn and love, to receive again the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and send her Son’s apostles out to be killed also; it is her hope, hope vivified by faith and prayer, hope in suffering turned into love for sinners and saints alike.
I saw, in those quiet moments in the car, that the only way we can turn our suffering into love is to live within the Hand of God; I picture myself in His palm, taking the love and warmth, the grace from Him, along with the suffering. And as I was thinking of those in my life whom I want salvation and peace for, those for whom I would suffer, the realization came to me that offering the Lord our suffering for those we love is a prayer with real meaning, these the Lord takes gently and lovingly.
The ability to turn suffering into love is correlated directly with being in love with God. And all of it is a gift- any ability we have is a gift. Suffering purifies. Yeah, yeah suffering purifies, we hear it all the time; and sort of tilt the head to the side and give a little nod. Suffering doesn’t have to purify, though; it can embitter, without our willingness to turn in love to God and ask Him for the good out of it.
To give up things or people we want, to accept calumny, or poverty, or injustice, or illness, or failure; to bear with handicaps and disorder within ourselves, and most especially to give up these things for the sake of Christ, for the laws and desires of God: these can come to us and take off our thick skins, our scales on our eyes, our stone coverings for the heart. Like a crab molting, we become soft little creatures that can feel and understand others’ suffering in a real way; and we become more aware of God, more able to contemplate Him. But that little, vulnerable crab cannot long survive outside the hand of God.
A person who is suffering and contemplates a crucifix has a lightingbolt connection to the Suffering God on the cross. A person who suffers and deeply loves God hates sin the way it should be hated- and most of all when they find it in themselves. A person who suffers and yet loves, even the very person who causes them the suffering, loves more like Christ.
The figure on the cross, so vulnerable, so willing. The enormity of the crime and the enormity of Love live side by side. It is a mirror of the world as we know it. Only the Lord can make us be those who will turn suffering not into bitterness, but love. We must, however, be willing- and more than that: we must be willing to search after Him like the Beloved in the Song of Songs, each one in his own way, because the Lord loves us each, as if we were the only creature He had made. Be in love with God, because then you can resonate with the saints, everything then becomes Love. May it be so for me.
