Redemptive Suffering: Freedom and the Passion of Christ

Full Effect

In the beginning of his letter to the Colossians, St. Paul makes a statement that I think doesn’t make sense except on the Catholic view of participation: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and  my flesh I complete what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of His body, that is, the Church” (Colossians 1:24).

How could Christ’s sufferings be lacking? And if they were lacking, how could we make up for it?

Think of it this way: Christ preached the Gospel, but if we don’t participate in preaching the Gospel, Christ’s preaching won’t have its full effect. Christ loved and served the poor, but if we don’t participate in His love and service for the poor, His love for the poor won’t have its full effect. And Christ suffered for souls, but if we don’t participate in His suffering for souls, than His suffering won’t have its full effect. That’s what it means to “make up what is lacking in Christ’s sufferings for the good of the Church”: it means Christ makes the full impact of Calvary dependent on our willingness to cooperate with Him.

Pope Pius XII puts it starkly: “The salvation of many depends on the prayers and voluntary penances which the members of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ offer for this intention.” He goes on to say, speaking to all the faithful, “Let them all remember that their sufferings are not in vain, but that they will turn to their own immense gain and that of the Church, if to this end they bear them with patience.

Divine Aid To And Through Humans

What kinds of sufferings bring divine aid to other people?

In the 2nd apparition of the Angel to the three children of Fatima in the Summer of 1916, the Angel stated that the children had a mission from Jesus and Mary to help them save souls by prayer and sacrifice. Lucy asked the Angel: “How are we to make sacrifices?”

"Make of everything you can a sacrifice and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and in supplication for the conversion of sinners.”

“In this way, you will draw peace upon your country. I am its Guardian Angel, the Angel of Portugal. Above all, accept and bear with submission the sufferings which the Lord will send you."

The most spiritually fruitful you can be is the patient acceptance and endurance of the sufferings, which you did not choose, you do not like and you cannot change, which God in His mysterious providence sends you.

A Strong “Why”

Viktor Frankl, a Jewish psychotherapist and concentration camp survivor, used to quote Nietzsche’s dictum that a person can endure any “what” as long as he has a strong enough “why.” The idea is that a person can withstand any amount of suffering given an adequate reason, an adequate cause to which their suffering contributes. And our faith tells us that suffering saves souls – ours, and other peoples’ – and consoles the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It’s hard to think of a worthier cause, one that would inspire more courage in whatever situation, than that.

Victims or Voluntary Agents?

          The word “passion” is connected to the word for “passive.” Because our feelings are responses, they’re associated with something happening to us. The word “suffering” has similar connotations of passivity, and in fact one of its definitions is “to put up with.” The idea is that some other force is the agent, maybe a violent agent, and the sufferer is the victim who feels the effects.

          At one level, Jesus is the supreme victim. Judas, the Pharisees, Pilate and the Romans, Herod and Satan himself work in concert to attack, suddenly, freely and brutally. An innocent man who has done nothing to deserve this kind of hatred or violence, nothing to provoke it, is subject to betrayal, torture, mockery, death. He puts up with it all. He “suffers himself” to be immolated.

          But of course, that’s only part of the picture. The other part of the picture, the more important part, is that the entire event is orchestrated by God himself: “Jesus’ violent death was not the result of chance in an unfortunate coincidence of circumstances, but is part of the mystery of God’s plan.” Isaiah, describing Calvary centuries earlier, says “The Lord was pleased to crush him in his infirmity” (Isaiah 53:11), and Jesus assures us in the Gospel  “I lay down my life... No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18). No one takes Jesus’ life from Him. No one makes Him suffer. He is not bent to the will of sinners; the sinners unknowingly bring about His will, which is the will of His Father. Christ is the Priest and Architect, and out of the blasphemous stones we throw at Him (the stones He knew from all eternity we would throw) He constructs His cathedral of salvation.

          So too, for Christians, suffering isn’t so much a misfortune that happens to a person: it’s the creative achievement we’re given the opportunity to accomplish. One of the greatest frustrations of any serious sickness or trial is not just its apparent futility in itself (“what is the point of this?”) but also in the way it keeps us from getting other things done (“I just feel so useless!”). The Christian vision of suffering flips that all on its head: the point of the suffering is that, joined to Christ, it’s one of the greatest achievements you can get done. No one is primarily a victim, no one is ever useless or “unproductive,” when they suffer in union with the Lord.

Through My Cross

We’ll end this meditation with the stirring words from St. John Paul II’s encyclical on suffering, Salvici doloris:

Christ does not explain in the abstract the reasons for suffering, but before all else He says: “Follow me! Come! Take part through your suffering in this work of saving the world, a salvation achieved through my suffering! Through my cross!” Gradually, as the individual takes up his cross, spiritually uniting himself to the cross of Christ, the salvific meaning of suffering is revealed before him.