Recently, a friend and colleague of mine passed away. He passed away on the evening of Thursday, November 2nd, 2023, All Souls Day. That is pretty cruel irony, no? Earlier in the day, another friend and I had attended the morning All Souls Day Mass before we had to go into the day’s work. There, before the altar, was a coffin draped in an ornate cloth. My eyes were fixed on it for the entirety of the Mass, deeply discerning my own passing and how I will have to account for every misstep before our Creator. Later that evening, myself and many of my friends were given personal reminders of the phrase “Memento Mori.”
In light of this tragedy and the many emotions we all carry from it, I have contemplated something that many Christians are taught and intellectually accept, but many fewer Christians truly know and understand.
There are blessings to be found in our sufferings. Even as I write this, it sounds silly to put those words on a document. How can the diametrically opposed concepts of “blessings” and “sufferings” be reconciled? They are just as seemingly contradictory as the words “saint” and “sinner.” These opposing pairs are brought into harmony with one another through the same force: Christ.
Through His suffering on the Cross, Jesus made atonement for our sins, and He wishes for us to be unified with Him in Heaven. However, just as we wish to rise with Christ, we must first also die with Christ: “But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.” (Romans 6:8, NRSV). Just as God transforms the lowest of sinners into the greatest of saints, so too can He provide a wellspring of blessings from our own sufferings and supplications; we only have to be open to His love and His desire for us to love Him back.
Our own Lord knows what it means to suffer very intimately — just look at any crucifix to find the evidence for this claim. He came down from Heaven and became man to save us, yet the very people He was trying to save had rejected His message. In our Lord’s time of need in the Garden of Gethsemane, his Apostles slept, while He prayed until bloody. Our Lord heard the Temple Guard approaching, only to see one of his beloved friends approach him with the kiss only a serpent could give.
Beaten, bloodied, and in pain, but still in Love with his creation, He died on that Cross; he died for the whole world. Death could not conquer Him, and so He rose again, as the sacred scriptures teach us. To love is to suffer, to sacrifice. By our own sufferings, we grow closer to Christ, if we remain faithful no matter the cost or toll. Suffering on its own is a call from God to put your faith in Him and to grow in holiness, “…whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4, NRSV).
Our own sufferings act as a “pseudo-purgatory” in this life. When we suffer, often, we cry out to the Lord, our God for help. God helps us in ways that work for His Kingdom and for the salvation of our souls. What this means is highlighted in the previous verse from James 1, that the reward for our trials is endurance.
What is this so-called “endurance” you might ask? In my humble opinion, endurance is one’s willingness to call upon the name of the Lord for help, or one’s willingness to persevere in the faith, and not give into the temptation of despair. In other words, you never lose hope, even when things are bleak and the world wants to crush you without remorse. By the time the trial at hand has passed over us, as all things do, we will have profited in our own fortitude, provided we have kept the faith and resisted the wiles of the Devil. Simply put, the more we suffer, through our faith and supplications, the closer to God we grow.
To conclude the matter, one should pray to God in thanksgiving whenever we are being tested by any sort of trial, this is God’s way of inviting us to develop a more intimate relationship with Him and to grow a deeper foundation of faith. We are not guaranteed an easy life by any means whatsoever, however, as the words of our Lord say, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.” (John 14:27, NRSV). Perseverance in the faith grants us one of the greatest gifts of the Holy Spirit: Peace. Peace cannot be replicated by the Devil as the Devil does not know peace. Peace is from God and God alone, it comes as a gentle comfort in times of duress.
If you, Christian Soul, are under attack by the world and its many sufferings, pray to our Blessed Lord and you will find peace. His burden is light, He promises us.
For Frankie and for My Colleagues.