Welcoming Suffering

From the writings of St. Rose of Lima, featured in today’s Office of Readings:

If only mortals would learn how great it is to possess divine grace, how beautiful, how noble, how precious. How many riches it hides within itself, how many joys and delights! Without doubt they would devote all their care and concern to winning for themselves pains and afflictions. All men throughout the world would seek trouble, infirmities and torments, instead of good fortune, in order to attain the unfathomable treasure of grace. This is the reward and the final gain of patience. No one would complain about his cross or about troubles that may happen to him, if he would come to know the scales on which they are weighed when they are distributed to men.

This is something that I struggle with greatly. If things are going well, I’m happy as can be, but turn really whiny when difficulty arises. By whiny, I mean like a puppy that has to be closed off from the rest of the family when company comes over. Yeah, that whiny. On top of that, I get upset and angry. Not a pretty combination.

St. Rose was both a visionary and mystic, which gave her a far clearer view of the spiritual life than most of us have. She was far more acutely aware of the benefits suffering has for our spiritual development and well-being, provided we accept it and open ourselves to the graces God gives us. Due to the spiritual blindness caused by sin, we fail to understand how suffering is a good thing to be desired instead of a negative aspect of life to be avoided.

Of course, we see the effects of our spiritual blindness in what John Paul II identified as the Culture of Death. Anything that causes suffering, trouble, or difficulties in our lives is to be avoided – even to the point of killing innocent children through abortion and those elderly or infirm seen as “inconvenient” – and anything that promotes comfort in an easy and long life is to be encouraged, regardless of the consequences to others.

The challenge for us as Christians is to realize the spiritual growth and benefits of suffering in our lives, and to allow those tribulations to show the joy of God’s grace despite the suffering we face. Oh, and no whining, despite how much I want to.