Redemptive Suffering: Making Up What's Lacking
Meaning in Suffering
We should do all we can to change what is bad. However, if we cannot change our suffering, there is still a way forward; we can unite our suffering and sorrow to Christ. He uses it to bring us to transforming union with God, the goal of life and he uses it to save the souls of others. This is what led St. Paul to say “It makes me happy to suffer for you, as I am suffering now, and in my own body to do what I can to make up all that has still to be undergone by Christ for the sake of his body, the Church.”
If the suffering of Christ was sufficient to save the world – why would Paul say he wants to make up all that still has to be undergone by Christ? Because God invites us to participate in all he does. This idea of participation is where we get the phrase “offer it up” and it is why Jesus says we cannot be his disciples unless we take up our own cross and follow him every day.
Still “offering it up” is a very misunderstood Catholic thing, but once we understand how God has given us a way to participate in his being and action, your suffering can become a powerful force to live with meaning, hope and happiness.
Participation in Divine Being and Action
To understand how we can help others by our suffering we must grasp one of the most fundamental and neglected ideas in Catholic theology, that of participation. This is the idea that:
God has enabled us to share in His being and action in a way that does not add to, subtract from, or compete with His being and action.
In the material realm, “sharing” means dividing up limited resources. If you share your pizza with me, I’m subtracting from your pizza. And if we split a pizza, the more you take the less I’ll be able to have. There’s a competition. But sharing or participating in the immaterial or spiritual realm isn’t like that. If I go to a lecture about something I have no knowledge of the professor will share his knowledge with me, but I won’t be taking away or adding to or competing with any of his knowledge about the topic. My knowledge will depend on his, but his won’t depend on mine – so I’m participating in his knowledge in a way that doesn’t threaten his primacy or expertise in any respect.
What’s true of this example of teaching and learning is true of all the various ways God wills that we participate in His being and action.
Becoming God
God lets us share in His being. On the natural level, our existence is dependent on the existence of God, not vice versa, since He exists in Himself and we exist by sharing in or participating in the existence of God. Moreover, God exists infinitely, so our existence doesn’t so much add to His existence as participate in it: He is the God “in whom we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Then, through the staggering generosity and presence of the Holy Spirit, sanctifying grace raises our sharing in God’s being to the supernatural level, such that we become, in the words of St. Peter, “partakers in the divine nature” (II Peter 1:4). The fact that we are invited to share in the very nature of God led St. Augustine and St. Thomas to say: God became man so that man could become god.
Works and Communion
God also lets us share in His action. In particular, the theological virtues allow us to operate at a level above the merely human, since they “adapt man’s faculties for participation in the divine nature.” By faith we know divine truth, by hope we participate in God’s love for ourselves, and by Charity we participate in God’s love for God – which will be the apex of heavenly happiness.
So it shouldn’t be surprising that when God became man, and shared in our life, He also opened up new avenues for us to participate in His character and mission. In other words, we participate in Jesus’ being and His action too. We share in His divine sonship, we look forward to sharing in His death and resurrection, we share in His teaching, in His prayer, in His love for the poor – we even share, in a manner that normally excludes physical participation, in His Body and Blood. And we share in His work of bringing others back into communion with the Heavenly Father.
Lumen gentium states this doctrine of participation very concisely in its last chapter:
No creature could ever be counted along with the Incarnate Word and Redeemer; but just as the priesthood of Christ is shared in various ways both by his ministers and the faithful, and as the one goodness of God is radiated in different ways among his creatures, so also the unique mediation of the Redeemer does not exclude but rather gives rise to a manifold cooperation which is but a sharing in this one source.
Participation With Him
Many non-Catholic Christians get nervous about the notion of a human sinner sharing in what is primarily a divine prerogative. Their idea of participation seems to keep defaulting back to competitive, pizza-participation, so they worry that whatever privilege we allow to the creature is taken away from God’s dignity. But that’s simply not how it works with spiritual things: knowledge and love and goodness aren’t zero-sum games, which is why God wants us to share in what He has and does.
And that’s especially true when it comes to suffering to save the world. We conclude with a passage from the Apostle Peter on the value of sharing the suffering of Christ. And tomorrow we will explain just what it means to offer up our suffering to help save others.
1 Peter 4: “Think of what Christ suffered in this life, and then arm yourselves with the same resolution that he had…If you can have some share in the sufferings of Christ, be glad, because you will enjoy a much greater gladness when his glory is revealed.”