Part Eleven: Salvific Suffering is “Faith Working in Love”
In Part Ten of this series we took a brief look at the teachings of Pope St. John Paul II in his Apostolic Letter Salvifici Dolores (Salvific Suffering). The Pope was telling us that when we are faced with grievous suffering in our lives, there is something special we can “do” with that suffering. Let’s unpack the theology of this more closely.
The doctrine of the “salvific” or “redemptive” or “co-redemptive” value of human suffering is one of the greatest spiritual treasures of the Catholic Faith. At first, however, it may seem a bit hard to understand. After all, the New Testament says that Christ died once, for all people and for all time (Rom 6:10; Heb 7:27). So what could be lacking to the redemptive value of His sacrifice on the Cross for our sins? What could the “offering up” of our own sufferings possibly add to His full and perfect sacrifice?
Well, in one sense, nothing at all. Our sufferings cannot add anything to the infinite value of the sacrifice that our Savior made for us all by His Agony and Passion. There is only one ultimate source of our redemption: the free and gracious self-offering of our Redeemer.
On the other hand, the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice still need to be applied to our souls in every generation. The New Testament and the Catechism of the Catholic Church tell us that the full benefits of His Passion can only be received through “faith.” Faith is what “opens the door” of our hearts to God, and mature and deep faith is the complete surrender of our lives to Him, day by day. As St. Paul put it in Galatians 5:6, ultimately “nothing is of any avail … except faith, working in love.”
Suffering is surely an important aspect of our lives that calls for such faith, such total surrender to God. The Catholic Church teaches that in the course of our lives, unavoidable human suffering — when offered up in faithful surrender to the Father, united with the Cross of His Son, and assisted by the grace of the Holy Spirit — can become one way to open the floodgates to all of the merits and graces that our Savior won for us by his Passion and Death.
This means that our unavoidable sufferings in life not only can be borne patiently in faith (trusting that somehow “all things work together for good” for those who love and trust in God, and looking forward to the joy and glory of heaven at our journey’s end: see Rom 8:28; 2 Cor 4:17-18), in addition, our sufferings can be offered up in love for the needs of others. Perhaps this is the highest expression of St. Paul’s dictum: “faith, working in love;” when it takes the form of complete martyrdom for the love of Jesus Christ, our Lord told us that it is certainly the highest expression of faith and love (Jn 15:13).
This teaching applies first of all to those whom our Lord calls to be “victim souls” — a rare vocation in the Church. To be a victim soul involves a specific, supernatural calling to accept or undertake an extraordinary measure of suffering in this life for the benefit of lost souls. St. Margaret Mary, St. Therese of Lisieux, and St. Padre Pio had this special vocation. With the help of her spiritual directors, St. Faustina Kowalska discerned this to be her vocation as well. As we have already seen, her Diary is replete with her generous and courageous embrace of this calling. Near the end of her life, as she was dying of tuberculosis, she renewed her self-offering of co-redemptive love in these words (Diary, 1574):
O my Jesus, may the last days of my exile be spent totally according to Your most holy will. I unite my sufferings, my bitterness, and my last agony itself to Your Sacred Passion; I offer myself for the whole world to implore an abundance of God’s mercy for souls …
It would be all too tempting, however, to look upon St. Faustina’s oblation of herself as a heroic ideal which few are called to imitate. To be sure, most of us are not called to be “victim souls” — but then again, what human life is not without its share of tribulations and miseries, a true “victimization” in some form or other? Some people are permitted by God’s mysterious providence to suffer from hunger, disease, injustice, or oppression. Unemployment and destitution plague many millions of human lives in every generation. Certainly none of us can escape the cross of misfortune, of grief and sorrow, the loss of loved ones, the experience of illness, and our own death. In short, the crosses of every human life are suitable enough to become a co-redemptive offering in Christ. None of our unavoidable sufferings should be wasted; all of our sufferings — to the extent that they cannot be relieved — can still find meaning and value if they are united with the sufferings of the crucified Jesus, for the salvation of souls. This kind of oblation is surely within the reach of every Christian, with the help of divine grace.
The implications of this special Catholic teaching, this “Catholic extra,” are simply astounding! For it means that when we are faced with unavoidable suffering in our lives, a cross that cannot be fully relieved, while we may not clearly see or understand why God has permitted us to suffer in such a way, we can know for sure what He wants us to do with our suffering: He wants us to help His Son, the crucified Jesus; He wants us to offer up our sufferings, in union with the merits of His Cross, to come to the rescue of souls.
So, when you are besieged, beleaguered, bent-low by the weight of the crosses you are carrying, be like Simon of Cyrene in the gospel story (Lk 23:26): carry the cross with Jesus and for Jesus, helping Him to help your loved ones, to renew the Church, and to obtain graces of conversion for the whole world.
This also means that if you carry a heavy cross of chronic suffering — from an incurable disease, perhaps, or the irretrievable loss of loved ones, or the destruction of dreams you once held dear — you need not despair. It is not a sheer tragedy. You have an opportunity, more than others, to come to the rescue of many souls by offering up your chronic sufferings, in union with the Cross of your Savior. In this way, as St. John Paul II put it, your suffering is no longer just a cross to be endured: it has become a call, a vocation. As he said in his Apostolic Letter Salvific Dolores (section 27): you can have “the certainty that in the spiritual dimension of the work of redemption,” you are “serving, like Christ, the salvation of [your] brothers and sisters. Therefore [you are] carrying out an irreplaceable service.”
For all of us who carry the cross, whether as a lifetime vocation or a temporary one, the refiner’s fire of our sufferings, offered up for others, can sanctify our souls with the gift of pure, selfless love. If there is selfishness and self-seeking mixed in with our love for Jesus Christ and our neighbors, then the act of suffering with Him, and for others, will certainly purge that self-centeredness away. As St. Faustina wrote (Diary, 57): “Suffering is a great grace; through suffering the soul becomes like the Savior; in suffering love becomes crystallized; the greater the suffering the purer the love.”
Again, for some of the readers of this column the mystery of salvific suffering may be brand new. Here is a form of prayer that you can use whenever you have the opportunity to offer up your sufferings, in and with Christ, for the good of others:
A Prayer to “Offer Up” My Suffering
Merciful Heart of Jesus,
I offer You this suffering _______________
in union with all Your sufferings for us on the Cross,
made present at every Mass,
and I offer it
for the conversion of sinners,
in reparation for my own sins,
for the relief of the souls suffering in purgatory,
for the Holy Father’s intentions,
and for my own special intention____________.
Jesus, I trust in You! May my little offering, in union with Your great Sacrifice of Love, open the floodgates to all the graces that You long to pour out upon us from Your Merciful Heart!
Amen.
Robert Stackpole, STD
Mere Christian Fellowship
Next Time: How We Can Console the Heart of Jesus
