Our Superpower
One
A Superpower You Never Used?
It’s been about twenty-five years of non-stop superhero movies. Marvel and DC just keep cranking them out, all kinds of superheros and supervillains. Apparently we have a kind of insatiable appetite for people with special powers, who can do things the rest of us can’t. But now imagine for a second that you had a superpower. That you had the ability to fly, or to heal people with a touch, or to turn lead into gold. But you never flew, never healed anyone, and never turned any useless metals into priceless, gleaming gold. Imagine you just let your superpower go to waste.
In fact, that’s what every Christian does every time we refuse to make the most of suffering.
Two
What Not Everyone Can Do
The most common artistic depictions of angels have them with wings, as a symbol of their ability to go from one place to another instantly. And if we ever actually met a human being who had wings and could fly, we’d be really impressed because, of course, we can’t do that. St. Alphonsus Liguori says that when the blessed reach Heaven, the angels will bow before them, because of their super power, their ability to suffer for the love of God and offer it up to save souls.
Humans may not be able to fly, but angels have never been able to suffer. To them it’s an incredible super-power. And imagine how astonished they must be at those of us who try to avoid ever using this super-power. They might say, “Seriously? You were able to imitate Christ, grow closer to Him through suffering, purify yourself of your sins, and share in His mission of saving the world? And you did everything you possibly could to avoid it?”
What a waste it would be! What a waste it is when Christians try to run from opportunities for suffering, or complain about them, or fearing them. We’re the only ones with this power. And we only get to use it for a little while.
Three
Healing the Sick
Can you imagine if you had the power to heal the sick with a touch, and you never did it? Even when your own family or friends were sick – maybe really sick, you never used your ability to help make them well? That would be horrible. But St. Paul says that by our sufferings we can serve the good of the Church (Col 1:24). Just as Christ’s sufferings offered spiritual healing to the world, so can our sufferings, when united to Jesus, help make spiritual healing available to the people who are spiritually sick all around us.
We worry so much for our family and friends who are far from God, who are sick with vice. We worry a lot, but do we suffer for them? Do we offer up the pain and frustration and stress we experience for their sakes? Do we take any initiative to fast or offer up little sacrifices for their return to Christ and healing? If not, then we’re like someone with a superpower of healing who never exercises it, even for those closest to us.
Four
Turning Lead into Gold
Maybe the most surprising aspect of the entire Christian story is the way Christ, on His Cross, has turned the most unsavory aspect of human life into the primary means of glorious joy. Suffering is like the slag of sin, the ugly, useless byproduct of a world that has been thrown off kilter by what Satan and Adam and Eve did at the beginning of time. On the Cross, Christ took that slag, that repulsive byproduct of sin, and made it the vehicle of sanctification. He made it into Gold.
So now, imagine a comic-book-type character, a kind of modern King Midas, who has the ability to turn anything, no matter how crude or vile, into gold. And then imagine this character, who sees poverty and ruin all around him, and knows that he could transform nasty mark of poverty into a magnificent gold resource but he doesn’t.
That’s what we do when we don’t offer suffering up to the Lord. We just sit immersed in this potential treasure-house, with all these opportunities for eternal wealth but out of sheer laziness we let it remain a dump of senseless suffering.
What could be more foolish? What could be a more insanely wasted opportunity than that?
Five
Resolution
We have the unique power to suffer with Christ, to offer greater chances of spiritual healing to others, and to turn the ugliness of suffering into the beauty of heroism and holiness. But we only have that power for a little while. We can’t meritoriously suffer after death.
So, what suffering has God sent you? Have you made the most of that incredible opportunity? Or have you just complained, and let one more precious chance go by? One more chance to do what you will never be able to do again, for all eternity.
Instead, let’s make the firm choice, the resolution today that whatever we did not choose, do not like and cannot change we will accept it and offer it up for the conversion and salvation of a specific loved one we name.
Let’s use the superpower we have to help save the world!