Having a bad day today? Feeling sad? Are you in pain? Is someone in your family sick? The Church teaches that we can offer up our sufferings and unite them to Jesus? agony on the cross. In this mysterious way, Our Lord allows us to assist Him in the salvation of the world (Col 1:24). This is truly an incredible concept that is made possible when we unite our sufferings to that of Christ. Accepting suffering is also a way for us to express our love for God.
St. Teresa of Avila states,?In Heaven we shall have no further need of suffering to prove our love, because then we shall love in the unfailing cloud of the beatific vision. But here below, where we love in the obscurity of faith, we need to prove to God the reality of our love. If our love is perfect, it has this quality of leading us to forget our own pleasure in order to please Him whom we love; it has the power to make us accept our trials with joy and take the bitter with the sweet, knowing that to be His Majesty?s will.?
Today, even though it may be painful, let’s try to embrace our crosses and thank God for the opportunity to express our love for Him. Even if we aren’t suffering greatly at the moment, we all encounter minor annoyances throughout the day. Such things as traffic, bad weather, tiredness, difficult coworkers can all be offered up and united with Christ’s suffering.
Or, we could just complain about them…
Tomorrow we?ll look at what some of the saints have to say about daily annoyances.
I have a question. There is a specific word used (polysyllabic word) for the offering up of suffering for another or a situation or for release from purgatory. It is NOT a word we use daily such as “sacrifice” or “indulgences”. Does anyone know the word?