"To love God’s will in consolations is a good love when it is truly God’s will we love and not the consolation wherein it lies. Still, it is a love without opposition, repugnance, or effort. Who would not love so worthy a will in so agreeable a form? To love God’s will in His commandments, counsels, and inspirations is the second degree of love and it is much more perfect. It carries us forward to renounce and give up our own will, and enables us to abstain from and forbear many pleasures, but not all of them. To love suffering and affliction out of love for God is the summit of most holy charity. In it nothing is pleasant but the divine will alone; there is great opposition on the part of our nature; and not only do we forsake all pleasures, but we embrace torments and labors."
— St. Francis de Sales
I have struggled with the idea of suffering - why it happens, why it's needed, how it purifies a soul. In my limited brain, I have to make things analogous in order to understand. So, I think of the suffering of childbirth (grit and bear it, but it's worth the child in the end). I think of the suffering of boot camp (grit and bear it, and end up strong and prepared). I think of suffering as disciplining the spirit, just as a painful run and weight lifting might discipline the body. But still I struggle with the concept.
I read the quote above by St. Francis De Sales today, and that helps me. It's about following God's will. When we follow God's will, and He's filling us with the Holy Spirit, and we're loving life and all it's beauty, when we're steeped in love and awe... we follow His will, but we get something back. We feel good. We get the spiritual high. We get the warm fuzzies. We're still following His will, but we get something out of it, too. It's a win-win. So that's easy. We want more, because it's so dang great.
Then there are rules and precepts like the Ten Commandments. We follow God's will, but sometimes it's a little hard. There's not an immediate return. In the long run, those rules help us to make choices that are in our ultimate best interests as well, but at the moment the choice is made.... no reward. In my analogous mind, this is like dieting. I deny myself the ice cream sundae, but in the long run I can fit into my swimsuit. I still get something out of it, but it requires discipline before gratification. It's a different animal.
Finally, there is suffering. We follow God's will, and it's ALOT hard. It takes the ultimate self-discipline, the ultimate sacrifice on our part, and yet... there is no reward in this world. Cancer. Chronic pain. Martyrdom. We do God's will, we bear God's will, solely out of LOVE OF GOD. Without any reward for ourselves. It is self-sacrificing, to the ultimate. Just as Jesus's act of redemption on the cross is self-sacrificing to the ultimate. If we don't focus on the love of God during our suffering, than it is nothing but horror. Jesus' murder is nothing but ugliness, evil, and horror if we don't see His love. That transforms the ultimate ugliness into a thing of beauty - a dying, beaten, bloodied man on a cross is our redemption. If, in our darkest hours, we train ourselves on the bright light that is the love of God, the darkness fades. This side of heaven, suffering means nothing to us. It useless. It is horrible and ugly. THAT side of heaven, however, it means everything. That we were willing to give, to do, to be ANYTHING out of love for God, to follow His will wherever it brings us, without a thought of ourselves.... that is a purifying of our soul that makes us ready to stand in His presence. That type of suffering prepares us for Heaven greater than anything on earth. The great saints knew this. Some even desired suffering, because they so desired to be ready for Heaven, out of love for God. Just as Jesus desired the cross for Himself out of love for us.
I'm trying to understand.
"It is suffering, more than anything else, which clears the way for the grace which transforms human souls. Suffering, more than anything else makes present in the history of humanity the powers of the Redemption."
— Pope St. John Paul II
No comments:
Post a Comment