Powerful is suffering

Indeed, the dramatic contradictions and hardships which plague contemporary man makes our world often divided against itself. Just as Jesus predicted. It is unthinkable that as He said He would be the cause of this division. Is it a kind of irony like the rhetorical question He posed to His apostle: “Do you think I have come to establish peace on the earth?” Then His own answer that the contrary is true (Lk. 12:51). But the holy Simeon who held Him in his arms when He was presented by Joseph and Mary in the temple had prophesied that Jesus is a sign that will be opposed, destined as He is to be the downfall and rise of many, that His suffering will reveal the thoughts of many.

We know a fundamental truth of our faith that Jesus has revealed Himself to us as Love, the supreme gift to us from God who is LOVE. We know He saves us from sin through His suffering and death (I John 4:8-10). This is the mystery of the Redemption of man. To penetrate that mystery, it is necessary to rediscover the sense of sin. What is happening now that the second millennium is over? We are losing the sense of sin; what really is a brazen violation of the laws of God is flaunted as all right, permissible. We remain callous in desperation and boredom becoming sterile to grace, submerging ourselves in self-destructive enjoyment of the senses. Watch when the Church through the workings of the Spirit sets the perimeters of faith and morals in all human affairs. Watch the controversies following between Church and State, between Church and economics, between Church and cinema, between Church and other social entities. Then governments compromise: “Let us settle the matter in peace.” But we cannot give that peace which comes out of compromising the laws of God. This is the kind of division Jesus spoke of. And it is not the peace He wants. What peace are we talking about anyway when the loss of a sense of sin has given way to the more radical and hidden loss of a sense of God? Christ, the Redeemer, is the only solution to this problematic.

“I have come to light a fire on the earth,” announced Jesus. That fire is the crucible of suffering. “How I wish the blaze were ignited!” This utterance of Jesus, by way of drawing us close to the mystery of the Redemption. He simply wants to re-live His sufferings, His Passion all over again in us. Redemption is a revelation of love, a work of love. We are all called to involvement in this work of love. Redemption, though it occurred once and for all, needs this mysterious integration, the offering of this very heavy burden which the evils and pains of humanity are: “I complete in my own flesh what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of His body, the Church.” We now reach out to the sick, the lonely aging, the discouraged unemployed and the underpaid or exploited, the miserable blind, the abandoned children down our streets. These sufferings are Christ’s Passion. Christ expect us to plunge in this crucible of our own sufferings and those of others so that with Christ and in Christ we may be given His own power to redeem.

20th S in O.T.: Lk. 12, 49-53

“The Jesuits are inviting male college students and young professionals to attend the Jesuit Vocation Seminar at Sacred Heart Parish, D. Jakosalem St., Cebu City today, 1 p.m.-5 p.m. Please contact Fr. Archie to register: 0928-5009051; 2536479; [email protected]”