“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish, and strengthen you” (1 Peter 5:10).
When Christ died upon His Cross, He destroyed all sin. By His Resurrection, He gave us eternal salvation. We ought to view all our sufferings in light of eternity, as a gateway to Christ. If we persevere to the end, the Lord will reward us with the salvation He purchased for us on Calvary, “and no one will take [our] joy from” us (Jn 16:22). As faithful followers of Christ, we must take up our cross daily, as He bade us do. “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Lk 9:23). We can take it up in many ways, some of which may seem glorious and others not. Yet all crosses faithfully carried are pleasing to our Lord.
It can be tempting to judge the merit of our sufferings by others’ perception of them. But to do so would be to succumb to worldly wisdom, which is “folly with God” (1 Cor. 3:19). Perseverance in God’s will requires faithful trust in His plan, even when it does not conform to our expectations.
The Lord calls all of us to the heights of holiness. From the beginning of the Church to St. Thomas Aquinas to St. Josemaria Escriva, saints of the Church have emphasized the fact that God calls everyone, rich or poor, old or young, to become great saints. In reality, becoming a great saint means doing God’s will at every moment of our lives to death, to faithfully carry our cross to death.
We ought not fear, for Christ has mercy on those who turn to Him with contrition, no matter how many times they have fallen; and He gives them the graces they need to do His will. Jesus fell for us on His way to Calvary, but He got back up every time. So must we.
But in order to be able to rise from our failures and follow God always, we need to be open to His Word. Christ is the Word of God, Who gives Himself to us totally if we sincerely seek Him. We find no better example of openness to God’s word than in the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is the Theotokos, the mother of God.
But as blessed as she was for being God’s mother, she was far more blessed for being His most faithful disciple. In order to love Him, she kept a contemplative heart, always open to God’s inspiration. Her being echoed Samuel’s words: “Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth” (1 Sam 3:10). Ven. Fulton Sheen notes that the Pieta, Michaelangelo’s famous statue, does not portray the Blessed Mother showing great distress, but rather total resignation to God’s will. In maintaining her silence of heart, Mary opened herself to God to work in her life without obstruction. She maintained a contemplative spirit.
St. Francis de Sales discusses the importance of maintaining peace of heart “even if [our] whole world seems upset”; and “if you find that you have wandered away from the shelter of God, lead your heart back to Him quietly and simply.”
Contemplation is a wordless adoration of God, and is the highest form of prayer. Here, we can think of a mother gazing upon her child. The mother actively loves her child, but she speaks no words. She does not comprehend this love, but she surrenders herself to it.
To become a great saint, then, is to reach the heights of contemplation of God. We adore Him not with deep thought, but with pure love. St. Josemaria emphasized the need to maintain a contemplative spirit throughout all our daily activities, no matter how many outside noises we may be exposed to. If we do not preserve the interior silence in our hearts, then we cannot hear God when He speaks to us.
This voice does not often come for most of us in a vocal way, but in the silence of our hearts, through our conscience. We often feel a pang of guilt when we do something that we know is wrong, or a sense of fulfillment when we do something we know is right. But the less contemplative a heart is, the less it has abandoned itself to God’s will, the more it lacks a sensitive conscience, and thus it is not as disposed to the will of God as it should be.
A contemplative heart is a pure heart, because a dread of punishment consumes impure hearts so much so that they panic and lash out whenever they are forced to think of the state of their soul. A pure heart, on the other hand, rests in the will of God, knowing that whatever God wills, “however bad it may seem, it shall indeed be the best” (The English Works of Sir Thomas More, London, 1557, p. 1454).
But even if we attain pure hearts, the real challenge is to maintain them. A pure heart seeks to love God above all else, and she dreads above all else to lose Him. We need perseverance to the end if we want to be saved. St. Alphonsus Maria Liguori says that “out of all graces, the graces of love of God and perseverance are the two most necessary for salvation” (Preparation For Death, “Object of the Work”).
Men rejoice when they find the “ one pearl of great price,” but oftentimes become weary of protecting it, and soon think it a burden to carry any longer and so they cast it off (Mt 10:46). How many times have we begun a good and worthwhile task with good intentions, only to abandon it midway through for lack of enthusiasm? If we obey God to get some feeling or other temporary satisfaction, then we waste time. In this case, we do not follow God, but our own sense of self-righteousness. Without God, we are nothing.
Thus, having a pure heart is not enough. Our hearts must also be humble. “[L]earn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29). A humble heart does not excuse itself from work, as a purportedly pure heart without humility frequently does. If we have no humility, we have no strength to resist the flesh. If we have no humility, we serve ourselves, not God. Indeed, “there are many virgins in Hell, but no humble souls” (St. Alphonsus Liguori).
Prayer and penance, then, are the happy twins which we ought to employ constantly. Prayer directly aids us to grow in love of God, and penance tempers our earthly desires, so that we become freer to love the Lord. Penance and mortification also make us feel bad in certain ways. For example, if our stomach is growling, we would probably like to eat food. But by denying ourselves a pleasure good in itself, we opt for the higher Good, the Supreme Good, God. As the athlete cannot reasonably expect to win without rigorous training, so we cannot reasonably expect to persevere through difficult trials without training ourselves to prefer God to everything else.
By practicing little acts of mortification such as denying ourselves food, wearing a hair shirt, etc., we participate in Christ’s Passion and Death, and thus also His resurrection. We also do great good for our brethren, who benefit from sacrifices made for their good.
Even though Christ’s sacrifice achieved everything for us, not all have accepted Him yet. Therefore, St. Paul exhorts us to “fill up in [our] own flesh what is still lacking in the sufferings of Christ” ( ). The saint does not mean that Christ’s sacrifice was insufficient for salvation, but that not everyone has begun to follow Him yet.
Penance quiets the soul by tempering our concupiscence. In practicing mortification, we imitate Christ, Who did not spare Himself from a most grueling death for our sake. “[W]e should all make St. Augustine’s prayer our own: ‘Lord, here cut, here burn and spare me not, but spare me in eternity!’” (Uniformity With God’s Will and the Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ, St. Alphonsus).
Christ’s love for humanity, displayed on the Cross, is incomprehensible. But on that first Good Friday, almost no one thanked Him. One of His closest friends betrayed Him and crowds of men mocked Him. He was beaten, scourged, and defiled. But He persevered in purchasing the salvation of those who wished Him death.
What caused Jesus Christ to suffer so much, for no benefit for Himself? Only love. Love for mankind. Christ willed our good, desiring only our love in return, even though He had no need of it. By His love for us, Christ manifested His love for the Father. “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me, and to accomplish his work” (Jn 4:34). By saving mankind, He pleased the Father perfectly, giving us an example to imitate. Our food must be the glory of God and the salvation of souls. And nowhere is this more evident than in Christ Himself, the Eucharistic Food.
Our prayers and penances obtain for us an awareness of our sinfulness and unworthiness, and thus contrition, whereby we grow in love for God. Despite our evil tendencies, God loves us to death, and wants us to continually endure our trials for His sake. In Christ’s sufferings, we see that “the Lord disciplines him whom he loves and chastises every son whom he receives” (Heb 12:6). The Lord allows us to undergo trials so that we can prove our love for Him by patient endurance in obeying His commandments. “If you love me, keep my commandments” (Jn 14:15). We do not suffer any temptations which He does not give us the strength to resist. Despite our weakness, we can trust that the Lord will deliver us from all evil, no matter how much we suffer, as long as we trust in Him. He only puts us through trials to make us trust and love Him more. By denying ourselves what is immediate and physical in favor of what we cannot see, we make an act of love for God. All our actions become an act of mercy, seeking mercy on ourselves for having offended so good and loving a God, and seeking mercy on mankind for having done likewise.
While focusing too much on sin can lead to despair, a healthy focus on the reality of sin and how to avoid it at all costs reminds us of our sole need: God’s mercy. If we fail to grasp the pain sin inflicts on Christ, or the eternal consequences mortal sin incurs, then we gradually grow complacent in our relationship with the Lord. By surrendering to the mercy of God, we give Him the greatest thanks we can. We “complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions” (Col 1:24). This does not mean we deny the once-and-for-all redemption His sacrifice accomplished. Instead, we acknowledge in our being that salvation has still not come to many: those who do not know Christ and those who have rejected Him, and that God wants us to participate in spreading the salvation He offers to all. By our sufferings, then, we labor for mankind. We become little Christs, uniting all our sufferings and sacrifices to His Most Sorrowful Passion.
No matter the merit our sufferings accrue, they only do so in the measure that the Lord has enabled them to. In other words, in the end, His mercy suffices for everything. The Good Thief became the first canonized saint (canonized by Christ Himself) when He threw himself upon God’s mercy, even in his final moments. On this side of eternity, it is truly never too late for us to repent. Therefore, while we have the time, let us take up our cross. If we do everything for the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls, we will be doing God’s will to perfection. While we always strive for this perfection, we must realize that we are sinners, perpetually in need of God’s never-failing mercy. By our faithful perseverance in carrying our crosses, we will gradually become long-suffering, faithful examples of this loving mercy.
The next time we are struggling with persevering through our sufferings, let us recall the Passion of Christ and His great love for us, as well as our sinfulness and need for God’s mercy. Realizing our unworthiness, let us humble ourselves, trusting in the Lord. The next time we receive our Lord in Holy Communion, let gaze upon our Lord honestly, surrendering everything to Him. Our life flourishes “like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting” (Ps 103:15-17). Let us persevere in God’s mercy, patiently bearing all things, knowing that at every moment, we stand at the door of eternity.
“The everlasting God has in His wisdom foreseen from eternity the cross that He now presents to you as a gift from His inmost heart. This cross He now sends you He has considered with His all-knowing eyes, understood with His divine mind, tested with His wise justice, warmed with loving arms and weighed with His own hands to see that it be not one inch too large and not one ounce too heavy for you. He has blessed it with His holy Name, anointed it with His consolation, taken one last glance at you and your courage, and then sent it to you from heaven, a special greeting from God to you, an alms of the all-merciful love of God…[I]nstead of setting to work to try to find out how you can unite your soul to God, put the thing in practice by a continual application of your mind to Him, and I assure you that you will arrive much more quickly at your object by this means than by any other” (St. Francis de Sales).