Thanks so the reflection. There are people, who willingly embrace suffering. This is commendable and could be spiritually enriching when it is offered in union with Christ's suffering. I however believe that we could avoid suffering when God gives us the means to, and then utilise the 'painless' period to serve God and others. When suffering comes our way in form of our own cross, we are encouraged to embrace it and offer it in unison with the suffering of Christ.
Thank you Br Nathanael. I would like to share this with my Mom who is suffering right now. I don’t think she sees any purpose in it. I think this will help her. God Bless you!
Yeah that's the sticking point - to have to pass through suffering rather than avoid it as the path to happiness. We'd rather not transform suffering into love but just avoid suffering altogether and go straight to love if that's O.K. Who wants to embrace suffering as `The Way'? Why would a loving God make us pass through suffering right? It's the modern atheist question and a stumbling block to worldly wisdom. That's nice to say but do we get a hint it might be true? You know I think we do. Occasionally we get a glimpse of this truth in real life. When we love someone and they ask us to do something for them which requires great sacrifice on our behalf we do it willingly and with a sense of profound love for them. And more than that, we have a profound sense of gratitude for being given the chance to undertake this task on their behalf.....for being given the chance to show love to them. I mean who else would undertake this task for them right? And yet we're not quite sure who we're grateful to. If we look closely, it's not the one we love we are grateful to but someone else? It's almost like we've been given a glimpse into `The Thing Itself' albeit an indirect one via love of one another. It's a profound insight because we actually don't want anything in return, but simply to show an expression of love. Why? Because of love for the other; to show the other they are lovely, that thy are worthy of being loved and to love them just as they are is our greatest joy. I'm at the point again now where I try to use words to explain the ineffable and I fall flat on my face. This honeymoon period of perceiving the other's loveliness and seeing it as `The Thing Itself,' maybe is then followed by the hard road of realizing the other is just an `image and likeness' just like ourselves. In this life, it's not The Thing Itself but a pointer. Don't give up, when the honeymoon is over but look higher. The truth is even better than the facsimile. Will I love as you are? If so, then I will love you in your deepest wound and you will see even here the darkness cannot prevail. There is no place where you can be abandoned by love. I begin to understand St. Augustine's profound insight when he said to God - “In my deepest wound I saw your glory, and it dazzled me.” Marriage matches and is the spiritual journey. First God gives us light and we `fall in love,' then follows the process of God having to separate us from this worldly light in order to draw us closer to Himself and this worldly light `goes out' so to speak. The risk now is to think love was just all `pie in the sky' and to give up but we should be of good cheer because we are further advanced on the journey. Love the spiritual journey of Pere Jacques. Where I would have thrown the whole thing out as a bad joke, Pere Jacques referred everything back to God. Lesson learnt.
