Quick Word on Suffering

source: standrewsayer.org

In Advent it is fruitful for us to consider the Second Coming as we prepare to celebrate the First Coming. "God became Man so that Man might become God," St. Athanasius wrote in De Incarnatione. Why? He was the Second Adam, the new Adam, the perfect Man, everything Adam was supposed to be and more, infused with the Divine life!

 

Much is made of Christ's parallels with Adam, His title "Son of Man," teaching us that He was fully human and that, by His humanity, we men benefit by His salvific work. Yet the most illustrating moment in Our Lord's life that proves He was the new Adam was in a moment when He did the opposite of Adam, the defining moment for the human race as I see it. In the Garden of Eden Satan, that lying rat serpent, tempts Eve into eating the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, going so far as to tell Even that she and Adam will be "like God." The serpent lied to Eve, but Adam knew better. Far from being like unto God, Man fell and became "human" as we know humans, creatures that die.

 

Our Lord, also in a garden—at Gethsemane, was tempted in His Agony to make full use of His Divinity and "let the cup pass" from Him. Yet in His moment of trial He did not. He embraced the purpose of His Incarnation and made full use of His humanity by dying in it and suffering greatly. Adam decided against his purpose and nature in favor of one he thought easier to live and superior in state, falling into death. Christ took up His purpose in His assumed humanity, taking on a world of suffering with Him, and, while dying, rose up to life.

 

This is suffering. Far from permitting pain with fists clenched and knuckle white, we should allow some degree of suffering where God offers it to us. He will never give us a cross we cannot bear, even if the burden seems tantalizingly brutal during the moments of pain. We must not be masochists and love suffering. We must embrace the Cross where we find it and make use of our redeemed nature, redeemed by the new Adam, He Who will be born in nineteen days.

Learning from Mary

Just a quick little reflection which comes from the Rosary:

We find little trouble in taking satisfaction, especially after some struggle or degree of difficulty in doing a task or surviving some hardship. This is natural. We tend to enjoy any opportunity to luxuriate, and if we get to do this after some period of unpleasantness then we are all the happier [and more smug] for it!

This seems to be neither the way nor the will of God though. Our Lady's hardships never seemed to end. First she was given a pregnancy to bear, while unmarried and around age 14 or 15. After finally marrying she was made to undertake a trip, while in a delicate condition, from her home to Bethlehem, the land of her husband's fathers. After childbirth, painless in her case, Our Lady had to contend with another physical and another spiritual dolor: the threat to her divine Son's life and the subsequent passage to Egypt, which is full of rich symbolism in itself. Perhaps finally believing the threats to her and her Son had subsided, she engaged in the Mosaic purification ritual in the temple and presented her divine Son, again according to the law, only to learn from Simeon that her Son would be the subject of the "fall and the resurrection of many in Israel" (Luke 2:34). We could continue this exercise in tracing the Virgin's struggles, but I see no point in doing so.

In short, whenever Our Lady was doing God's Will she never had it easy, nor did she find sufficient opportunity to relax or luxuriate. Whenever some place for peace or relaxation presented itself to her, it was quelled by some new cross, as happened in the temple.

Doing God's Will requires some struggle, some suffering, some hardship for many reasons, not the least of which is that doing His Will is quite demanding and difficult in and of itself. He's God, for goodness sake. His standards are high. Once in a while He will grant us consolations to our pains or moments of inspiration to notify us that we are following the proper path. The most famous of these was when Our Lady sang the Magnificat for the first time to her cousin, St. Elizabeth. The work of God may be difficult, but it certainly should not be considered miserable!