Accepting a Life of Suffering
My Jesus … give me … your thirst for sufferings, opprobrium, persecutions, calumnies, imprisonment … [and] condemnation to a humiliating death … for the greater glory of the heavenly Father, and the eternal salvation of … all in all the world. (OOCC, X, pp. 370 - 371; STA, 397)
A life of suffering is part and parcel of the life of a Christian. Jesus has affirmed this truth in his teachings, especially in his instruction to his apostles. The cross, the symbol which a Christian holds dear to him, vouches for the significance of suffering in the life of a Christian. Though suffering is a distinguishing mark of a Christian life, what is more important is the attitude a person takes toward the sufferings that he faces in his life. In the early Christian community, while the apostles were flogged and ill treated because they spoke in the name of Jesus, they considered it to be an honor to suffer dishonor for the name of Jesus and rejoiced over it. Similarly, St. Vincent Pallotti always believed that the greatest honor he could offer to God was to suffer for him joyfully. He often prayed to give him the thirst for sufferings, persecutions, calumnies, imprisonment and condemnation to a humiliating death in imitation of the passion of Jesus. The motives with which St. Vincent undertook the acceptance and practice of suffering were the greater glory of the heavenly Father and the eternal salvation of all in the world. With these motives to guide him, he accepted his sufferings joyfully, in the process living the true spirit of the beatitudes.
Do I accept suffering as the distinguishing mark of Christian life? Am I like the apostles, ready to suffer dishonor for the honor of the name of Jesus? Do I, like St. Vincent, live the spirit of the beatitudes by accepting and living suffering for the glory of God and salvation of all?
Blessed are you when men reproach you, persecute you, and speaking falsely, say all manner of evil against you, because of me. (Mt. 5:11)