Catholicism 101 The Meaning of Suffering

all right well then we're going to begin and so just you know in in terms of the evening as we start I think we're going to record this which is a new thing for me here giving a talk so if you've a prom with that say something now okay good so that's the end of that conversation so they're going to record this and then we'll make it available on the website for anybody else to look at if they would like to down the road we're going to start with a prayer if that's okay and for our prayer what we're going to do is I'm gonna resent Lee from second Corinthians this beautiful passage from st. Paul that I love to pray with and that we'll come back to later on toward the end of the talk this evening but it's a nice starting point for us so that's we're going to use for our meditation so in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit amen Lord God send the gift of your Holy Spirit into our hearts and open our hearts and minds to understand the gospel of suffering the beauty and power of the cross of Jesus Christ crucified and risen for us help us to understand what it means to be sons and daughters of you and United to the passion of our Lord we pray in Saint Paul's words because the abundance of revelations given to me therefore that I might not become too elated a thorn in the flesh was given to me and Angela Satan to beat me to keep him from being too elated three times I begged the Lord about this that I might leave me but he said to me my grace is sufficient for you for power is made perfect in weakness I will rather boast most loudly my weaknesses in order the power of Christ may dwell with me their form content with weaknesses insults hardships persecutions and constraints for the sake of Christ for what I'm weak then I'm strong amen the name of the Father Son and so welcome to suffering 101 and as I said this morning you can you'll suffer through this and get time out of purgatory so we're off to a good start I think already for all of you it's it's a benefit for you that you're here tonight think of it that way helps you sanctification right and it's the first in a four-part series on the basics of the faith and the other three will be a little bit more rooted in the Catechism itself this one is probably the least of all of them in terms of a catechism based series we're going to go through another document which will touch on in a second right but it's good to be here and good to start off with Saint Paul's words I love this passage and if you're not familiar with the background what's happened before we get to this point as it is ascribing to the Corinthians as he's writing to them how he came to be who he was you know he was this great zealot of the law of the Jewish temple and he was this persecutor of the new Christian movement in Jerusalem and as you know the story God sort of caught him on the road and blinded him and then explained to him what he was doing which was persecuting his Jesus is very own body and it Paul says right before this he says I was taken up I knew a man he says talking about himself who was taken up to the highest heavens and who encountered extraordinary relations I knew a man who was reduced to two speechlessness before the divine power of God right then he goes on to say so just so they come to proud as he puts it himself I was given this you know angel Satan to beat me so he had something that he dealt with who knows what it was scripture scholars aren't quite sure it might have been some sort of a speech impediment I might have been some sort of a person weakness whatever it is st. Paul just spent his life fighting against some tendency of his and he says take this away from me take this away from me I don't want to deal with it and God says no you're supposed to wrestle with this right so that opens up the door to what you know suffering means for us as followers of our Lord we get back to it later right so Paul is this beautiful disciple of and evangelist for suffering the gospel of suffering right in what it means for all of us so we'll get to him kind of the end of the evening I'm as you go along you have a handout I hope if not please get one it will be a little easier you have one and if you want to ask questions as you go along just raise your hand and shot something out you can feel free to interrupt me that's no problem works better for you for me use it that way okay in terms of the evening and I said I'm not gonna follow the Catechism tonight too closely I will do that the next three sessions that we are together for should you choose to come back after your suffering tonight but in this case we're gonna follow a document called on the Christian meaning of human suffering or in the Latin sub Avicii Delores salvific suffering and it was written by pope john paul ii Blessed John Paul the great in 1984 so I was 6 I want to ask God you were but probably older than me so so I was 6 and now this came out in February of that year and it was the year of the redemption right so when the year of faith right now you know so this was the year who tension at 84 and he released it on February 2 become world a prayer for the sick the feast or validity of Lourdes right so no accident that he did that so this is a lovely lovely document but it's a little on the dense side okay so what I'm going to try and do is walk through with you tonight in a bunch of pieces right so that's the basis what we're doing here this evening and your handout so when UCSD that refers to sub we've achieved alura's okay introduction to the topic right suffering needs a very little introduction you understand in America now we have a really hard time with pain and suffering it's the sort of cultural problem of ours okay and for example speaking of the people out east on the East Coast I don't mean to pick on them because it's an awful serious thing of the dealing with but it was interesting to notice the New York Times headline today online they had in big bold print you know awful calamity and then right below it will probably take four days to recover and I'm going wow that's that's pretty fast actually you know I mean if this storm hit hit us 100 years ago this would be you know decades to come right but it's the thing about four days the subways up running again you know and so it's amazing how our tolerance for suffering has shrunk as time has passed because we have spent so much of human history trying to overcome it right if you look at the whole sweep of human existence in the whole journey of our evolution SP we spend most of our time and energy and build more technological know-how into trying to eliminate suffering in some way shape or form right so we don't sit well with this in America because we've gotten so good in this country at pushing suffering away from us in as many directions as possible most of us the world does not live like we do right so this is a good topic for Americans because we see no value in suffering whatsoever that's been my experience anyway right and all of my infinite wisdom okay we recognize that there's something not quite right about it the suffering is a part of our existence but we're smart up to realize it intuitively it doesn't fit somehow it goes against the grain of our human nature and we when we fight against it you know in get really serious ways sometimes right so that's true the fact is that pain and death and suffering bring us face to face with unpleasant realities about ourselves that we are weak okay that we are not in control and we don't like that sensation and it brings us face to face with our mortality we don't like to confront the truth that we will all die that is a fact of our existence and suffering always brings that home to us and behind every little suffering every ache every pain is the whispering truth that you're going to die and it calls us back to our heads and we don't like that at all right so suffering is uncomfortable and frankly it's just painful you know it hurts when something you don't want you hit your thumb with a hammer you mean you that that's painful right so in all these different ways emotionally intellectually mentally physically we aren't combated with this reality so therefore suffering takes lots of forms right not just physical it can be emotional maybe somebody rejects us somebody hurts or harms us in some way it's also the result of sins sometimes there's moral suffering okay if I'm making a bad choices in my life I'm going to feel the effects of that if I choose again and again to keep drinking myself to believe and I'll become an alcoholic and I will suffer for that okay that that is moral suffering from a moral evil right so there's that form of suffering there is what's called natural suffering which is what's happening on these coasts right now nobody caused hurricane to hit New York City in New Jersey right so that that is an act of nature if you will right and that brings suffering in the world so there's all these different categories right suffering leads us to question our faith if you ask people Christians and non-christians alike you know why they have a hard time believing in God what are their doubts arise from and many of them will say because of suffering you know how would a loving benevolent God allow such things to happen on this planet why did my son die of cancer why are there whole swaths of people starving in Africa if there's a loving God how can he allow those kinds of things right so the Atheist have a good argument don't they when they when they wave us in our face and say how can you people believe in a God who a lot such pain and misery exist on this planet right so suffering confronts us with really serious questions about who we are okay and lastly at the end of my deduction here on suffering it is a common bond no matter who you are in the world know how much money you have or how poor you are no matter where you live you know be it here or be it in Ghana or be it in Japan everybody suffers we all get it don't we okay so it's the great leveler it's the great commonality that we all have as human creatures right so all that being said it makes sense and that Christianity must speak to this topic because chant Christianity is always interested in what most profoundly and directly impacts the truth of the human person and indeed this is about who we are as people it's inescapable in our condition okay so what does one do with it and I would submit and as even goes along I hope you'll get the sense that I explained to you that among all the best answers in the world of suffering Christianity seems to have about the best one out there okay imperfect as it happens to be I think it's the best one that we have right so what we're going to do as I walk through this document with John Paul to really kind of does is walk through sort of a theological history of our gradual unfolding of the understanding of the role and meaning of suffering right it's sort of this ever-deepening awareness so we're going to start with the very earliest thoughts about it and end with if you will the end of the new test okay it's sort of a walk for the history of suffering and what it means right as it expands so starting with the Old Testament you have poets on your sheet quote a one just to begin with to kind of set the stage for this right this is from avicii Deloris number seven blessed john paul says it can be said that man suffers whenever he experiences any kind of evil right so I just got done saying all that in the vocab or the Old Testament suffering and evil are identified with each other in fact that vocab really did not have a specific word indicate suffering those are defined as evil everything that was suffering so that's interest him you think about right so for them anything evil anything opposed to God wasn't anything painful there was no way to differentiate any kind of pain was just simply evil right so that gives you an idea of where they were beginning from in their understanding of this with that in mind then looking at the scriptures we can say that the entire Bible from start to finish is and so many respects a book about human suffering what do you do with it you know it's in the human condition how do you confront it where is God in the midst of it you know so how is it alleviated why does it happen is there a heaven is there a hill okay so the scriptures of this ongoing tale about how do you deal with this notion of evil as suffering right so with that in mind john paul ii starts in the beginning okay we begin to the Garden of Eden and if you had sat through my Genesis series a couple years ago he would hurt my long long explanation on this but a2 was a quote from Genesis chapter 3 and Genesis 3 is very important because if you want to identify that the basic beginning of why it is that we suffer at least how the judeo-christian tradition would say to go back to Genesis so read Genesis 3 quote a to to the woman God said I will intensify the pangs of your childbearing in pain she bring forth children yet your urge will be for your husband and he should be your master to the man he said because you listen to your wife and ate from the tree which I forbid you to eat curse to the ground because of you in toil show you that sealed all the days of your life thorns and thistles shall bring forth to you as we - the plans to the field by the sweat of your face should I eat get bread to eat and to return to the ground from what your taken for your dirt and the dirt you shall return the Lord God therefore banished him from the Garden of Eden to till the ground from which he been taken when he expelled the man he settled him east of the Garden of Eden and he stationed the cherubim and the firebombing sword to guard the way to the Tree of Life famous passage right you're familiar with this story in Genesis and I could spend in fact I have spent hours talking about this these verses right so some key things with part of this you know first of all in the beginning as in you know before the fall God did not intend for there to be suffering it was not a part of our natural human condition in the beginning we were not fragmented right so God in us there was no difference we were all no distance rather we were all closed together God and man there was no amoebic unity between man and woman they were close together there was no distance or MIT or fighting between us and creation we were all in harmony right so there was no fear that Adam was going to get attacked by a tiger there was no effort or toil to bring forth fruit from the earth and there wasn't really even a need to pray if you will because they prayed like they breathed they were just naturally in harmony with God right so the tradition says is that because man turned in on himself and some mysterious and in a slick of a way it shattered the whole picture okay in a way that's never been put back together exactly right ever since so if they're suffering in the world of any sort be it from the natural world be emotional be it physical it's because we are the ones who first turned away God did not do that that wisdom says the book of wisdom you know chapter three God did not make death nor to see rejoice in the destruction of the living okay so God did not create that we did right our mortality comes from this passages suffering comes from these passages you know the fact that things hurt that we have bodies that break down some of that's all because of the separation of sin so it's sin manifesting itself right and we should bear in mind - something it's a bit of a sidebar about this passage you know God sends them out of the garden okay it's not so much a punishment we shouldn't think of in those terms because as soon as this happened to humanity God began trying to fix it and restore us to some perfect state right so he says we'll look you know it's a sin since one bite did all of this go away from the tree you can't handle this kind of freedom right so I'm gonna put you out of here so you don't do anything worse okay so it's not a punishment it's to protect us from ourselves right the Judeo understanding and the Christian their standing is that at this point death now becomes the necessary way that we go back to God it wasn't important before it wasn't a part of the process before but now death enters a new creation as the necessary pathway to go back to him it's it's the only way you can bring us to himself okay immortality becomes a bit of a gift it death becomes sort of this this check on the inevitable spread of sin and evil in the world think about it you know imagine how it would go if Adolf Hitler could not have been killed if we couldn't die right where would we be okay so mortality becomes God's Way bringing a final end to certain things that need to come to an end in the world so all that comes out of Genesis okay and then lastly - as I touched on before you know moral evil comes out of your - sin enters the world and we suffer because of it if there are any qualities in the world if there is emotional hurt and pain in the world again God doesn't cause it we have done so okay note - just as a bit of a side and the Old Testament they have no theology the afterlife that isn't coming - right before Jesus shows up so for most of Jewish history there was no such thing as heaven for them there wasn't really a hell it was sort of this vague concept so a couple centuries before Lord comes this they begin to realize that there is an afterlife now that's true if there's no afterlife then this life is it and what takes root in your head in that point is the idea that if I'm blessed in this life if I'm doing well in this life it because I'm behaving well in this life okay and if things are going poorly in this life and if bad things happen to me in this life it must because I have done something to deserve it in this life there's no reckoning afterwards this life is all that you have okay so the vision was very narrow on this and it really colored the view of suffering and evil okay so that's genesis john paul ii starts in genesis and says at the fundamental core of the question of suffering we have to look to our own sinful beginning God did not intended to be like this we're the ones who shattered the unity of creation the harmony amongst ourselves the harmony with God and again in some mysterious weather there's a look beyond our ability to fully articulate in Grasse suffering comes in the world not because God created it but because we did okay does that make sense as a beginning point okay any questions so far all right so that's Genesis from here John Paul to skips up to Jobe right now um we here read job chops a great book I love job okay because it sort of captures who we are in such a beautiful way right if you don't know the story mm-hmm so job is this righteous man and by righteous that means that in God's sight he is innocent he's not sinned okay I don't mean like what's the Virgin Mary never sinned I mean he's in good friendship with God okay and so he says righteous man and God is sort of dividing in the threats man who has all this property and he has you know all these children and these wives and his faith and he prays and he says to that God says the devil you see my servant job isn't he cool look at how well he listens to me and he's like my favorite kid you know you all have one I'm sure that you do right so it's my favorite kid right you know he doesn't bother me and then the devil comes along and says well you know I bet if I make his life hard enough he'll curse you I bet you if things just go poorly for him in other words got he's killing God he only likes you because it's going well okay what if it goes sour on him so God says all right well then you have my permission to test but only don't harm his basic person okay and so Satan begins to do so so job loses his possessions he loses his farm he loses his house he loses his wives he loses his kids he loses everything he develops these sores he develops all this pain and he's just his life just melts around him okay and and the devil is waiting him to curse God now he does not in the end job hangs on and does not curse God but he does a lot of shouting at him okay so so the book is this great sort of angry shouting after train you know Joe between God's saying Hocking let this happen curse the day that I was born I should never come into the world you know what was me it's it's you know it's it's me on a Monday right you know it's going this is awesome you've all been there okay and God like lets this happen job teaches me that we can argue about God and get away with it okay God doesn't just you know smote him like a little greasy spot the ground heat lets him shout because God knows that it's hard God shows how patient he is for our inability to deal with the garbage of life so job is arguing with God you know and then his three friends come along and they try and say to Joab now surely a job you must have done something wrong clearly you deserve this right because in their thinking right in their thinking in that time period you only suffered if you've done something wrong you must have committed a sin or maybe if your parents had sinned right this is how they explained suffering God's punishing you that's what his friends try to tell him now this makes sense right because you think about that time period and if you work through my Genesis courses you would have got a whole litany out of this in Mesopotamian culture and Babylonian religions I mean how they dealt with you know those gods of the time period you didn't want make the gods mad okay the gods lived in the rivers gods live in the rocks they lived in the Sun and the moon and the oceans which they were definitely afraid of okay the sea was a symbol of chaos okay so if you made those gods mad that means something that was happening to you right so in their kind of narrow view of what it meant to be a deity to be a God you didn't want to get got angry right so for these people they sort of thought that are the Jewish was kind of the same well let's see if I have cancer if my crops fail that my house was destroyed by a flood if my wife died my son was you know trampled by a cow I must have sinned if I'm blind I must have sinned my dad must have sinned I'm being punished and this life as all there is so he's working this all out right now you get the mindset okay so job's friends go job you know how this works you must have sinned and job says nope I did not do anything service and I know that I did not so he maintains his innocence he hangs on to the assertion that he is in fact righteous and he stumps his friends okay in the end as the story comes to a close in this sort of you know mysterious I am gada you're not kind of way which I kind of enjoy on my worst days in life you know God says to his three friends you're wrong job is innocent he did not deserve any of this at all okay so he silences the objectives so I tell this story because it reveals something very interesting about suffering look at quote a three job challenges the truth of the principle that identifies suffering with punishment for sin and he does this on the basis of his own opinion for he is aware that he's not deserve such punishment and in fact he speaks of the good that he has done during his life in the end God himself approves job's friends for the accusations and recognize the job is not guilty his suffering is a suffering of someone who is innocent it must be accepted as a mystery which individual is unable to penetrate completely by his own intelligence all right so something very important happens here in this particular portion of our journey through what suffering means we realize that it doesn't always have a reason there's a mysterious quality to it and in fact the innocent can suffer and indeed they do and there's not always a nice and simple answer for it and we learn I'll come back to the very end that sometimes in the face of suffering the best answer is to say nothing his three friends should not have opened their mouths right because they didn't know they're talking about now I mean if you think about it they're quite worried because it jobs innocent it messes up their whole meaning of suffering doesn't it they did all explain it makes total sense right suffering is from a bad action this stabilizes my worldview because I can make sense of it so if you're innocent and all of a sudden my philosophy is worthless alright so this is a scary thing for us friends it's a scary thing for us to realize that maybe suffering might be mysterious after all so job kind of pushes the envelope doesn't it makes you kinda have to think a bit that maybe there's more to this right so with Joe God kind of cracks open the conventional notion of the innocent and suffer right which leads us to the next part that to us of john paul ii talks about which is isaiah yes forever it's a historical character I'm not sure honestly he's one of later books the Bible he is in we would call one of the wisdom books actually um it's considered to be a bit allegorical by many people but frankly I'm not sure don't put good question since we're stopping here the questions who is who suffering at this point good ok you're offering it all up Thank You Barbara yeah good thing you're here alright so so john paul ii goes on to isaiah and it's not as though isaiah came up a joker they're kind of actually isaiah a little bit earlier but isaiah opens up this extra doorway now so we've gone from in genesis you know our sin caused our suffering that is true in the in the general sense of the term right we get a joven and says that our personal sins don't necessarily cause suffering so the innocent do cetera Isaiah Isaiah is this fascinating figure because he starts talking about this idea that at the time period they could not have understood what it meant right so you look at the quote from Isaiah there I believe it's a four this is from one of the six suffering seven passages in Isaiah and this particular one is a chunk of what we read on Good Friday in the liturgy okay it's a beautiful passage as I read it to be familiar to you yet it was aren't from a tease that he bore our sufferings and when we thought of him as stricken as one smitten by God and afflicted but he was pierced for our offenses and crushed for our sins upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole by His stripes we are healed we'd all gone astray like sheep each fond his own way but the Lord laid upon him the guilt of us all though he done no wrong or spoken any falsehood there is suffering my servant shall justify many and their guilt he shall bear therefore I'll give his portion among the great he should divide the spoils of the mighty he caused his friend himself to death and was Compton among the wicked and he should take away the sins of many and when pardoned for their offences now we are all Christian people here at least I think that we are right so as we look at this story who is he talking about Jesus but now this is way before Jesus ever shows up right so you see in some mysterious way Isaiah kind of looks out into the future and sort of you know understands what's coming down the road at the time they wouldn't have seen this we can look at it okay you know I mean for for the for the Christian the Old Testament is read with a different set of glasses on right you know it makes it makes it kind of sense to us that it wouldn't have made until the Christ event happened at a time right for the people of Isaiah's time period though this is a very mysterious idea so what so would I would begin to take root here is something very interesting not only can innocents suffer job kind of established that in a certain sense as we talked about our own dual evolution here tonight but beyond that an innocent person can suffer for the benefit of somebody else there is suffering my servant will justify many the lower lay upon him the guilt of us all so on behalf of a group of people on behalf of a nation on behalf of somebody else an innocent person can suffer very fascinating concept don't you think very new to these people they weren't quite sure what to make of this at the time right so that's true I mean let me ask you if a person can stand in and suffer for somebody else can take punishment for somebody else what would make a person do that love dead so love begins to become the answer to human suffering in this passage it begins to become the only real response to pain and misery and even frustration somehow love is the one thing that can hem it in and begin to pull back the boundaries of pain and evil in the world somehow a love and response is suffering is enough to overcome it in some way shape or form right so here that idea is born in the lines of the tradition right so in other words suffering can take on a salvific character now again at this time period this would have been in the the temple era depending upon how you want to date this maybe maybe post temple second temple whatever but the point is that that time period and this was true for all the ancient religions if you want it to become right with God again you had to offer up a sacrifice for your sins so we make a mistake and we realize in our hearts that something must make up for this we have fallen short visiting us and God and the oil that can make it up is something of value to go back to him right and so for the Old Testament it was you know goats it was cheap it was doves it was the firstfruits I mean it was it was Rams it was they offer these things up to God on the altars right and God told me to do this because again sacrifice is a part of every religion in some way shape or form and in the ancient world again the animal was sort of suffering for you it was paying the price for you okay but what Isaiah gets that is the idea that's that we realize in our heart of hearts that that's not quite enough is it that something more is required the Rams just weren't doing it and the further you get the page of the Old Testament the further down to the closer closer to when Jesus comes among us the more you see in the Psalms in the prophets in the wisdom literature that's this kind of creeping idea that the temple was wearing itself out it wasn't working anymore all the sins were just not getting washed away about all the goats they were killing in Jerusalem okay now if it was a bad thing they were following God's law but there was something missing Isaiah put his finger on it someone must suffer for somebody else out of love okay which brings us to the New Testament john paul ii leaps up to the coming of christ among us now there's an important theological concept at work here in this whole idea so we talk about the Incarnation in karna so Cana is flesh no God takes on flesh and the theological idea is that God saves what he assumes he sanctifies he makes holy he gives meaning to what he takes into himself so for example hmm because God became man because God became one of us he has sanctified a time because he dove right into it so time can become holy now and by sanctifying what I mean is that it becomes a pathway to God so time can now become a pathway to God Jesus was a carpenter and the son of a carpenter which means that he sanctified work work now becomes potentially a pathway to God okay I say this at Christmastime every year because I love thinking about it God wore diapers what are swaddling clothes they are diapers so God put on diapers and God filled his pants for our salvation which means where is he going with this one which means that the act of filling your pants can become in fact salvific I could you not parents you should think about this game changing diapers right wow this is amazing my son is saving her him or herself as they're feeling the pants right so but I mean my point is God is earthy and he's human okay so we can say with with complete sincerity and truth' that God in fact suffered right because he he assumed all of this God had friends Lazarus Martha Mary got lost a friend Lazarus God wept in John's Gospel and in Luke's Gospel Jesus weeps okay God cried got eight god slept God went to the bathroom God suffered he died so if he is going to save us he must become one of us and from the inside out shatter the boundaries of sin and death that we wrapped ourselves in an Eden pages and pages ago in the Old Testament you see so he sanctifies what he assumes very very important right now not only that hmm there's more to this okay so not only does Jesus almost an establish all the ordinariness of the life as this potential pathway back to friendship with him and therefore through him to the Father which is the goal of all things in life become friends with God nothing else should matter than that right but he also does some things that are very extraordinary he he heals people okay so he he raises three dead people he raises irises daughter he raises Lazarus he raises the widow of nain 's son and luke's gospel so he shows that in fact he has mastery over the one thing that we could never master sent to the fall he can raise the dead impressive it's a nice power trick don't you think the frame was not of course it was in fact God pushing back the boundaries he was saying no more they won't advance any further now right he cures the sick he cures the blind he cures the deaf he drives out demons so he shows that by his coming among us somehow in those wonders that he worked those miracles he performed that in fact sickness could be Cure okay so in that way he cures and deals with suffering but that one needs a big caveat okay because if you think about it that's all kind of temporary Lazarus still died later okay we don't hear that part of the story but you know he's raised and eventually he dies so does iris his daughter at some point so did the widow of nain son I mean they all died so the cure is one permanent and the fix wasn't permanent so that means there's something about it wait to think about it was not an end in itself he didn't cure just for caring sake he didn't raise him dead to make people in mortal that's not the idea he did it to save them and save other people through it somehow okay so I mean he did it to show that the kingdom of God was in our midst and to encourage faith in the heart of believers and so therefore the churches and I said if it's really necessary for your salvation you'll be physically cured but if not something else must be in a store freak okay so that being said he dead was suffering by curing it in certain respects he sanctified what he assumed right he also relieved the suffering of sin in the sense that he made mercy abundantly available to all of us okay so min-hee he preaches forgiveness he preaches boundless compassion I mean there's the moving story of the prodigal son right in the whole idea that story you know the prodigal son Lewis Gospel is that you know this forgiving father is supposed to kind of woo the hardened hearts the Pharisees were listen to this story to say wow I could be a lot nicer than I am right the story just makes you want to weep when you read how the father who is so mistreated loves his sons so all the suffering that sin causes all the although all the effects of the cinema we carry with us down through our lives all the boulders that would carry on the backpacks of our backs that are our dumb mistakes he makes it past with him all be taken away so by His mercy we are healed by his mercy suffering is taken away I can be forgiven of my sins in the confessional I can be washed clean he makes that possible right so in that way he pushes back the boundaries of suffering and then finally as I said before he does in fact die and he shatters the power of death from the inside out because he rises from the dead and in rising the dead he enters into this new state of being that none of us have ever really encountered before a Pope Benedict when he was comin Ratzinger talked about the resurrection of the dead as a sort of final leap and evolution if man develops all through history through these different stages of who were supposed to be you know we get to be we get to be man he said this is not our final state the final state has resurrected man you know Homo sapiens and then Homo sapiens resurrected that's interesting to contemplate don't you think so Christ want to take our nature and push it to a whole other plane a whole the realm one that would push back what garden the garnet Eden destroyed a long time ago at that point we finally overcome heat because he rose and we can rise with him if we believe in him and we give ourselves to him all through our lives and trust in His mercy okay so all those ways mmm Christ confronts suffering Christ confronts suffering he confronts death he confronts evil he destroys it he aims it indeed he does it in a spirit of Isaiah in love he is the innocent victim suffering on behalf of the guilty and so therefore suffering takes on a whole new meaning in his incarnation his wife his teachings his death and in his resurrection right questions now it makes sense so far right okay we're not done though there's more to this John Paul Paul keeps going and because there's more than testament right now not only to Christ do all of that and make certain things possible the next thing to consider is that his followers began to realize that perhaps because he sanctifies what he assumes suffering can actually have a value to the extent that it brings us closer to him if the most important thing in life and indeed this is the right answer the most important thing in life is always friendship with Christ then we want anything that's going to get us into deeper friendship with him we want to experience what he experienced we want to know what he knows we want a common bond with him right so suffering might become an avenue to bring us into his heart the disciples figure this out his followers just after him figured this out so we begin to get the idea that Conger the Old Testament suffering is not a punishment for sin job threw that out that beyond Isaiah the innocent can suffer in love actually we get the idea that suffering can actually benefit our own personal transformation as believers in Jesus Christ in fact it's necessary in fact Jesus says you can't be my followers without it what did he say in the gospel if you would be my disciple you must take up your cross daily in Luke's Gospel he says and follow after me so it's amazing to me the people who raised these objections you know a loving God wouldn't allow suffering and I said well you know what you never said that no where the Bible is you say you're not gonna suffer in fact in the gospel says you're going to you're gonna be persecuted you're gonna be hauled before a tribunals he says you will be martyred you will suffer you will die he promises it there's no escaping this because he says to believe in me is to be opposed to the world in certain fundamental respects that are unavoidable and if that is the case you will suffer for it if you don't suffer for it you're not following me close enough this isn't good quotes on here about this right b3 st. Rose of Lima apart from the cross there's no ladder other ladder by which we may get to heaven so if friendship of Christ is the goal and heaven is friendship with him the cross is integral to it right acts and not just his cross our crosses acts 14:22 they strengthen the spirits the disciples and exhorted them to persevere in the faith saying it necessary first undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God Romans I urge you therefore brothers but the mercies of God to offer your bodies as living precise holy and pleasing to God your spiritual worship Galatians - I've been crucified with Christ Paul says yet I live no longer i but Christ lives in me into FAR's and I live in the flesh I live by faith the son of God who has loved me and gave himself up for me and the best one of all first Peter but rejoice to the extent that you share the sufferings of Christ so that when his glory is revealed you may also rejoice exultant Li rejoice to share in sufferings because then your being you're going through what he went through you're Peter say he's your friend right Jesus your friend don't you want to know what he knows and experience what he experiences don't you want a bond right so I mean as you suffer you're growing closer to him you're following him so if discipleship is the highest good in friendship is the highest good and it is that suffering is a pathway to it and must be welcomed that's the Christian message of the Gospels okay so that takes us to yet another level right so Frank unites us to Christ suffering unites us to Christ this is a hard thing and you know I've shared with some of you the story because I don't have that many of them ever use them because I'm pretty boring as a person but you know I mean I it's not like I get all this just intuitively right I mean I I wrestled with this - okay I pray a lot of my life about what it means to you know to suffer for Christ and to be able Arthur for his sake indeed perhaps I will be one day the way the things are moving in this country in the world right so you know me here we are yet I have this great way of trying to push the crosses away from me you know I will say it to God make me a holy priest make me a good trees take these sinful tendencies out of my heart and I have so many of them I can't overcome them and then he puts situations in front of me that really really challenged me that I really want to get out of like st. Paul I say why can't you take this away why can't you take this thorn of from out of my flesh this angel Satan to beat me and God says to me no you need this there's no other way to teach you you you fool you know you're not going to learn any other way suffering breaks us open suffering makes us listen to his voice because we're all so proud I certainly am anyway I love thinking I'm in control and I love thinking out of it I have it all figured out and God just sits there and goes hey you don't it's all gone you know it's like it's like you have you know all the toys in your hands and he says they're gone pick him up you know it's not because he's mean he says if you don't do that you're not gonna surrender to me you must be like a child before me and suffering reduces you to being a child that's what it doubts okay so the Christian sees suffering for his own benefit in a different kind of way right that is the idea here b9s d23 to suffer means to become particularly susceptible particularly open to the working of the subject powers of God offered to humanity in Christ in him God has confirmed his desire to act especially through suffering which is man's weakness and edify emptying himself and he wishes to make his power known precisely and weaknesses and empting of the self that's the same Paul is getting at in 2nd Corinthians that be 8-quart right above that was opening prayer okay think about our door in the Garden of Gethsemane you know you can contrast and I'll the next talk that I'm doing is on prayer and I'll come back to this then but I'll say the same thing now because again I don't have that many stories you know so um you can contrast Paul's prayer and Corinthians saying take this away from me take this away from me with Christ prayer in the garden this is actually from a letter that Agustin wrote to Provo you know 4th century on prayer right so he's talking about this is you realize that one of them got prayer right and then got prayer wrong Paulus didn't have his parents because he's praying for the wrong thing okay Jesus says in the garden if it's possible let this cup of suffering pass by me but not my will but your will be done see in the end he really rescues it by saying in the end father your will is all that matters so his suffering becomes a prayer the suffering becomes a cry for help his suffering becomes a vehicle to become more and more dependent upon the father okay and for us it is the same thing only in my suffering do I become dependent upon God only when life falls apart around me do I learn to say thy will and not my will be done only in that moment am I really and truly brought to my knees and humbled okay and again it's not because God's punishing me it's because he can see what I can become and there's no other way to get to it but the winding road of frustration you you you this happened to me today actually where was I oh yeah I was watching you know was it mask he had you know service here and I and I this happens to his parents - okay you you teach a school kids look do this a certain way if you do it this way it'll be easier here is how you should do it ABCD and what do they do they go and do it completely other way right and they get frustrated because of it you see if you do if you don't do it this way it'd be a lot better you can see all this and they don't get it God looks at us and says if you only do it this way it'll be fine for you what do we do we run the other direction all the time so he goes no you know you you're suffering because you're not listening okay so that's what's going on bracket that next level that john paul ii takes us to and again we've gone from suffering is because it is a punishment to the innocent suffer to the innocent may suffer for other people to Christ coming among us and giving suffering meaning to the idea that suffering benefits us personally for our own salvation and the final level is our suffering can benefit other people's salvation not just mine but other people's salvation it sort of graduates the level of the universal okay and this is the last piece second last piece actually okay so in the the sea quotes here right see one and this is crucial for this and this Colossians quote befuddled people it's very very puzzling at first glance and and if I dare say so every evangelical protestant I film this when that is never had an answer for this court they can't figure this out it does not fit in their theology okay the Catholics in their hand kind of have a place for this so in Colossians he says now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and a my flesh I am filling up with lacking and the sufferings of Christ on behalf of his body which is the church also say it again in my flesh I'm making up or filling up what it's lacking the afflictions of Christ so how could st. Paul be so audacious as to look at that and say something is lacking in that what could he be talking about okay that's what he said it's right there you know he didn't make it up I don't think he did anyway right so where to get at that we had a forgot a pray through there right how can the cross be somehow insufficient how could that sacrifice which is to reflect all sacrifices to to perfect the temple sacrifices to to fulfill Isaiah's prophecies how could that somehow be lacking or missing anything and the answer is that how would I put it the only way it's really going to come to fruition is if we take it in the the lacking part is our own grabbing on to it not so much what he did but the fact that it's really not often manifested very well in our hearts in our lives so what does that mean it means that somehow our own sufferings share in his own sufferings look at SD 24 quote see to john paul ii says in this body that is the church christ wishes to be united with every individual and especially where he's in added with those who suffer the words quoted above that's colossians the letter the colossians bear witness to the exceptional nature of this union so we know this from our baptism and st. Paul says as in Corinthians this is very Paul 9 way of thinking about the church the church is Christ's body never a literal real sense he's the head st. Paul says we are the members so we're hands and feet and fingers and toe and you know perhaps even the appendix I suppose if you wish to put that in there right some of the idea is that we are all an outgrowth of him and when we're baptized we no longer belong just to ourselves we belong to him and to every single other believer in the church baptism makes us into an organic unified body whether you like it or not you're stuck with me vice versa forever oh my gosh okay so the church is a body the church is this living breathing entity of Christ and it's real because he rose from the dead so he can transcend time and space and exist in a plane of reality that is different than this finite little physical world right so think about how Mother Teresa so on in the sick in her hospital beds in Calcutta the the face of Christ Christ in distress disguise she called him so it was almost like sacramental I mean you know like like think of the tabernacle think of the real presence you know so so crisis in our bodies he's here in the assembly and he's in the sick especially welcome back to this in a second right you know so he's in us mm-hmm so that's true that's true that means that his to put this very plainly his cross goes on through time it doesn't really stop it's not like a moment to sound like he died and he was done what that is is something that happens again and again it's it never it's an offering that goes on for eternity it's an eternal offering okay and the offering continues on through his body so what st. Paul is trying to say and what john paul ii is gonna say here in a second I'll read it to you is that whatever time I'm having a paper cut every time I'm feeling some sort of emotional pain every time I'm suffering in some way when I really actually living out is the cross just continuing it doesn't stop my sufferings are his my joys can be his joy is to because he became man because he sank to that what he assumed my sufferings are his sufferings his death is my death his resurrection is also my resurrection you see if you can't believe in heaven it's a package deal you believe the suffering too that goes along with it to get you there there's no escaping one for the other okay so the sufferings of his body this body are the cross the offering just continues on right see three in this dimension the dimension of love the redemption which has already been completely accomplished is in a certain sense constantly being accomplished Christ achieved redemption completely into the very limits but at the same time he did not bring it to a close in this redemptive suffering through which the demson the world's accomplished Christ open himself from the beginning to every human suffering and constantly does so yes it seems to be a part of the very essence of Christ's redemptive suffering but the suffering requires to be unceasingly completed so it can't stop or we're not complete okay and so Kaveri is going on 2,000 years later in all of my sufferings all of your sufferings we were just were on the cross with him that's what this is see for down to the centuries and generations that's been seen that in suffering there is concealed a particular power that draws a person in truly close to Christ a special grace to this grace many Saints such as France of Assisi Ignatius of Loyola and others or the profound conversion result of such conversion is not only that the individual discovers the SAVAK meaning of suffering but above all then he becomes a completely new person he discovers a new dimension and as it were of his entire life and vocation and then on the last one here s d-27 C 5 faith and sharing the suffering of Christ brings with it the interior certainty that the suffering person completes what's lacking in Christ's afflictions the certainty that in the spiritual dimension of the work redemption he is serving like Christ the salvation of his brothers and sisters therefore he is carrying out an irreplaceable service that's crucial he's carrying out an irreplaceable service in the body of Christ which is cecily born of the Cross or Deemer is precisely suffering permeated with the Spirit of Christ sacrificed replaceable mediator and offer the good things which are indispensable for the world's salvation it is suffering more than thing else which clears the way for the grace which transforms human souls you are familiar with the phrase offer it up who's heard that before from the good nuns from Once Upon a Time yeah that's where this comes from if my sufferings are in fact his and indeed they are if we are in fact his body then think back to Isaiah think back to the cross my sufferings can save somebody else they're joined to his for the salvation of the whole world every pain that i go through every frustration that i have every papercut that I get you know every chemo treatment that I make myself sit through in the hospital I can offer up for somebody else's salvation because there is it's being offered up all the time you see the suffering that I endure can save somebody else that's very very powerful that's what it means to say offer it up okay it's all joined together right so suffering is a vocation it's a calling it's an invitation it is it is you know in the whole body of the church there always must be a suffering member somaye because if there is not the church is not effective it's not efficacious we can go to the sick in their in their hospital beds and we can say you are a valuable part of our Christian community because you are the suffering face of our community you are Christ on the cross and you're offering up what you're going through to save the rest of the community and to save the world you make of your life and offering its invitation you see and and how lost we would be if people weren't actively choosing to link if you will their sufferings to Jesus's someone asked me the question this morning is this automatic well not exactly in the sense that we have to be able to make the conscious decision to be aware that my sufferings are linked to Christ that act becomes redemptive my will is joined to his will in that moment okay another example in a different kind of suffering not so much in the hospital right and I've used this before you've heard me speak about my my sister in Denmark Wisconsin up by Green Bay in the Carmelite monastery there and the Carmelite Sisters the cloistered sisters if you're not familiar with their spirituality their whole occasion their whole focus is to make of their entire life and offering their to offer up the very day their work and when the neon the hard cold floor to pray for hours and Chapel in the morning when they sleep in simple beds you know in their cells they have nothing in them when they get up in the cold because every time I go to the for goodness sakes the heat is never on you think it's bad around here okay I mean they just their whole life is a sacrifice they offered for priests and they offered for all that they get all these prayer requests from all over the world you know and they just they just understand that if they consciously choose to join all these little bitty inconveniences and discomforts and offerings to Jesus Christ then they're becoming his cross you see so and the church would be nothing if those monasteries went away those sisters never travel they don't go teach anywhere but they are so dire because they pray and they're a living sacrifice take that out the church has nothing okay so it's it's a unique location a personal hospital bed as much the same vocation they are they're invited to say my sufferings benefit the world make sense okay so so what does Christ have done frankly he's given suffering meaning right he's given it meaning to me the worst suffering of life isn't so much you know the physical part of it I mean that's pretty bad right I mean I don't like having the flu I don't like being sick you don't like the flick shion's you know nobody likes losing family members nobody likes it when you know the jobs going to work out they get unemployed I mean you know all this garbage happens to us right now I mean nobody likes it but but the worst part is thinking it doesn't mean something if we can say it means something if we can put a meaning behind if there's a purpose to it than all of a sudden it becomes a little more bearable you know even the house a little bit I can stop at the okay wait a minute this is awful but this is helping somebody else so it might not ever even meet they might be in you know China you know if I can know that in faith then I then I will make myself endure it in love it like like Isaiah an innocent person innocent in my case suffering for the guilty right and in love I will do that the meaning helps me make sense of it okay if I train myself to pray my way through that in the moment all right so that's the grand evolution if you will of this whole idea mm-hmm we go from again back to eating the the simple and enduring truth that the suffering in the world is not what God originally intended that it came in because we had somehow turned in on ourselves that's true we get up to you know job what they do the innocent actually can suffer so it opens us up to the mystery of suffering we get to Isaiah the idea that innocent person can suffer for they guilty Christ fulfills that in all those many ways shapes and forms Christ gives meaning to our suffering because it says that it joins us to him and because the mystical body the church is real because we really are bonded together and to him my suffering say is not only me but saves somebody else so you see what's happened is we have become another Christ his suffering saved himself and everybody else my suffering can save myself and everybody else okay that is a Christian meaning of human suffering it's beautiful its mysterious questions about that so far there's one last piece of this questions yes we'll reach further understanding the progression the earlier ones are superseded in other words you know is is there still suffering that goes on because of sin or is al over once we realized that nature so well I can answer some two levels it there is suffering that goes on because of sin because sin still goes on I make poor choices and I suffer for them unfortunately happens to me all the time those if you know me as my parents they understand it's right yeah um does our progression of suffering understanding supersede the other ones well you might say they're folded into it you know it's kinda like saying does the New Testament super city Old Testament well sort of you might say the New Testament sharpens our focused so that we can see the Old Testament in a deeper way than we would have otherwise right so if you will and I'm speculating a little bit here the next evolution our thinking is going to come when Christ comes again right in the fullness of time and reveals all things to all people and lays all hearts of beer and at that point even what I'm seeing right now will will make a lot more sense and it currently does because the fullness of salvation was revealed okay so but it's not like it's wrong per se it's just we see in each thing leading up to it something that could have been built onto this is answering your question at all each individual has to go through this progression you know that some of us some of us may have an understanding of suffering at a different level and so we can actually participate in Christ's suffering where someone else hasn't confronted it's both it's a communal journey that I've walked you through that one and it must be as a personal journey to you know the idea of making up with lacking Christ's sufferings means of each of us we must come to terms with that and it's different for all of us right you know somebody once asked Conrad singer when he was still color-matching him before with John Paul or Benedict a second and he said how many different pathways are there for God he said as many pathways as there are people right and it's true for this true you know how many different the pathways are the to to internalizing the truth in meeting a suffering in many pathways as there aren't people and they're all different right so yes it's a personal journey for each of us and in the the awesome it madan think about it is at the same time is that as soon as you think you've got it figured out he teaches you that you don't and how did you do it always through suffering okay so if you're done suffering you graduated but no one's there yet from what I can tell right yes just suffering in with yet or is it eternal hmm so he asked his suffering him with death or is it eternal the well what does God hold on for us right he holds out the promise of salvation and the V had a vision of heaven and I'd never been to heaven right I mean you haven't either you know but I don't think you have but but the idea is that heaven is supposed to be as the scripture sort of tease us about it the elimination of all pain all hardship all suffering all those things that hold us bound because in that sense we have graduated right and we have we have fought the fight and run the race and attain the imperishable crown of glorious as st. Paul says to us right there is the purgatory piece of it and the church talks about purgatory and we'll get to this I think in my fourth session of these things what yeah fourth session purgatory is talked a bit about as the sort of there's a suffering to that right and I want to go into what that all means right now because that's a long topic okay come back in a couple of weeks we'll talk about that right but but even the suffering of purgatory I would characterize that not so much as like any kind of physical suffering which were done with the death okay that's done because their bodies are done the suffering of purgatory is what I would call the suffering of regret you know I mean when you when you look back your life and go oh I should have done that you know I that was a missed chance to love it was a missed opportunity to reach out to somebody that was a poor decision and you know a person I know would always say to me you realize when you finally reach adulthood when you have begun to taste what regret feels like you know it's just this part of growing older okay so as suffering done we die in the physical sense yes and the purgatorial sense no but even purgatory exists to get us to the next level if you're in purgatory you're going to heaven and you're on the way that's like it's guaranteed you know so it has a purpose to it it has an end to it it has a necessary quality to it right and I won't get into hell that's and that's another that's again that's the final session you can make it all the way to hell if you come back to all these things in that nice good for you it is what if you offer something up um does it help you and pretory or somebody else yes it can because we're all joined the dead living wrong this Friday All Souls Day and this Thursday All Saints Day are all about the irrevocable truth that where the dead and living are joined up this whole body thing you know it doesn't end when you're dead okay I mean we're joined to the Saints they're part of the body - they're pulling us up with them thank God okay and in Friday we pray for the souls of the departed all the ones who are on their way to heaven our sufferings help them indulgences help them that's why we have indulgences and all those things all those great Catholic things that nobody talks about anymore you know to all fits together right I just add you like one last point before I one at a time here because um there's a crucial pieces that we have not quite touched on here is why everything I just got in telling you is really all a bunch of garbage it reminds me of st. Thomas Aquinas no because if you know the story he he was a brilliant theologian right you know in he systematized theology and you know brought beautiful Eucharistic hymns and just the stunningly amazing intellectual and he gets the end of his life and has this sort of mystical and con regarding ghosts all that writing it's so much straw he said I ever after all are the articulating all the synthesizing all the thinking I'm confronted with the fact that it's just a mystery suffering is the same okay after all I mean I this is a nice tidy explanation you know edan job Isaiah Jesus st. Paul that that's great right but you know what when you're the one in the hospital bed it's really hard it's really really hard isn't it and when you're watching your spouse go through it or your son your daughter go through it you don't want to hear this hour-long steal from me okay I mean it might be kind of helpful but I doubt it and you throw me out of your hospital room if I did this to you right so I mean no you want something else what you want is someone to be with you because the worst part about suffering actually isn't even beyond thinking there's no meaning to it which is pretty bad I think because as creatures we need meaning that's how God made us even worse than having no meaning put toward it is thinking that we are going through it alone that we're suffering alone humans cannot stand isolation we are not made for it what does sin do it isolates us that's why sin is painful okay so if I think I'm suffering alone if I think no one's going through with me if I think no one's there no one cares I'll be miserable john paul ii ends this whole long thing with a meditation on the good samaritan because the only real answer their suffering in the end is compassion and by a compassion i mean that in a very technical sense compassion comes from two Latin words calm possio to suffer with compassion means I'm suffering with somebody I'm going to get in right there beside them I'm going to take their hand I guess I am suffering with you that's the only answer to human suffering love okay what is a Good Samaritan story all about if you know the story mm-hmm man falls prey to robbers on the road to Jericho which was common in that day because of the you know of the of that area right he's laying there on the side he is hurt and the priest goes by and doesn't stop Levite goes by doesn't stop because they are to their credit worried about their own safety I would be too probably right you know but the one who stops is a Samaritan not a Jew the foreigner and he attends to him benetiz his wounds carries him to an end gives the innkeeper some money and says look if you run out I'll pay you back when I come back tomorrow okay so he he goes out of his way for this person right and the Church Fathers looked at this story as an allegory for Christ they would say we battered it fallen sinful humanity are this guy in lying us out of the road and who came to our aid Christ okay so when humanity had fallen when humanity thought that we were alone God came to be with us in our suffering look at the last two quotes c67 the parable the Good Samaritan belongs to the gospel is suffering for it indicates to the relationship of each of us must be towards our suffering neighbor were not allowed to pass by on the other side differently we must stop beside him everyone who stops beside the suffering of other person whatever form may take is a good Samaritan the stopping does not mean curiosity but availability it's very interesting isn't it next court find the pair of the gospel we get to that suffering which is present under so many different forms in our human world is also present in order to unleash about in the human person why is there suffering to teach us to vote okay so think about this God looks in the world and says look I can't take suffering away from you I can't take it away okay because if I did you wouldn't be free anymore your suffering is is somehow unnecessarily wrapped up with your freedom if I take one away you lose the other one and I can't do that so what I will do God says since I can't take it away I'll separate with you I will come to you on the side of the road I will sit with you I will hold your hand in the hospital bed and I will say nothing okay so what does the Christian say about suffering and about God the Christian says we don't suffer alone God suffers with us God indeed suffered and sometimes in the face of suffering the best thing to say is nothing at all think about job's friends they should have been quiet they just should have been with them right sometimes you go to the hospital the best thing to say is nothing you just sit there with them you take their hand right because you're just with them okay that's being available if you just listen to a person just vent and just kind of talk you just kind of sit there you know that's being available to somebody they just want to talk they don't want a nice clean little answer right think of the damage that some people have done very well in terms of people when a person you know sup and says you know my my son you know has cancer and this other faithful devout well many person says oh well you know it's in God's plan and they go home you know and did they leave the church ever stuff like that right you know I mean so you get be very careful okay so why is your suffering in the world why does got loud because he wants it as John Paul says to unleash love in our hearts we should look at the suffering and amidst and have compassion on them and if there wasn't suffering in the world we wouldn't be moved to go to Haiti and start missions we wouldn't be moved to go and start you know food for the poor and start religious orders and go to Denmark and offer up our lives in the convent to become a priest to become a parent you know I mean it's just it drives the world okay so in the end and as tidy as all of this is the only answer that we have is that God came and took pity on us and then we do not do this all by ourselves he is in the midst of our sufferings nobody else would say that a Muslim can't say that Buddhist can't say that even the Jews you know they get pieces of it right but in the end the Christian says he became one of us which means he suffers with us which means that in the collective hospital bed of human history he sits there by the bedside with her hand in his saying I'm not abandoning you and I'll be with you until the end of time okay so all of that is the Christian meaning of human suffering it is compassion Unleashed as God has compassion on us the end questions yes Jean yeah yep this question if you didn't hear is about encyclical which is a particular papal document now first of all this is not an encyclical it's action apostolic letter there are different degrees of papal teaching and encyclical is sort of among the higher of the degrees of you know an authority he said near a faith were encouraged to read these things yes you should where do you find them you can actually find them all online isn't it amazing I'm so glad I'll go invented it for us you know we here we are and if you go on to WWII can dot VA that's the Vatican website and they have this you got you push Holy Father the Pope you know the Benedict comes up john paul ii comes up all the six comes up john xxiii pints of twelfth i think i forget how far back it goes but if you click on the pope it breaks down all their writings so am encyclicals apostolic exhortation zebus not like letters homilies castro visits and click on encyclical they all come up and they're in English Dutch Spanish French German Latin Italian Russian Greek they're all they're all there okay so you could read them online and you can print them off whatever Benedict has written embarrass aside and notice I believe three and cyclicals you know one on his first one on love a second one on hope and then he wrote a one on the if you will the social gospel okay they're very interesting I would recommend is first to over the third one honestly but so anyway that's refined in their on their online other questions then the experiment yes just like life you know once my experiment come to an end Lord um job ends mmm job ends with him getting everything back tenfold right it's all rewarded for him okay and what it says is that in the end God does vindicate the righteous and indeed job was okay and you might see in that story a bit of a foretaste a foreshadowing of the promise of heaven we begin to realize that in this life God just can't possibly divvy out everything justly there must be a second part of all this to make it all work out okay the just really do get rewarded and the unjust really do get what they deserve okay so the end of job tells us that if we suffer bravely it will in fact benefit us for salvation right so and that can take a lots of different forms so yeah good question anybody else yes well you know yeah that's a good question so he says is it equal to pushing away the suffering by not asking for more um this is funny good spiritual directors will tell you don't ever ask for suffering I have broken this room anytime is by the way don't ever do it I'm gonna tell you they're right don't ever do it but the Saints do it the same to do you know if you read their writings you know they're really kind of long for it right so what you're talking about that the church has this term called the heroic okay you know there's what's required of us and expected of us and then there's the heroic okay and they don't require the heroic of everybody it's a special calling so if in your heart in your prayer and within conversations with a spiritual director you really do feel a move to say yes I want the suffering I want the cross then you will be given it okay but that's not for everyone right so I wouldn't say it's wrong to not ask for it that's that's above and beyond if that makes any sense right and any good spiritual director would probably tell you that I unfortunately listen to mine well that's my problem yes yeah and yeah so what I would say to that is that you're living out what john paul ii says at the end of his letter you know we we be with people in their suffering and that is the the best stuff that we can be to them without saying anything sometimes we'll I haven't have some amazing brilliant answer about what's happened to them you just simply be with people and you you you treasure them in their dignity you know that even in those last stages as frail she was she was still a daughter of God who is to be protected and helped and I'm careful yeah yeah now that's good one last question yep stuff if there one more sure I'll offer it up how does that sound well I could use some would you would you insert my name well um to your first question do you offer stepping up for a particular person by name or in general you can do either one I've done both you know and not because I'm holy but just because I'm aware of these things okay you know so um yeah it depends upon whatever I think is God calls it to do right you know and then do you take on their suffering it can't happen you know I'm trying to think of an example jet Saint John Vianney that's something Saint John Vianney who was one of my heroes who I hope to be just a shred of one day as a priest okay he used to in the confessional he would tell he heard confessions for sixteen hours a day right in the summertime he was just for hours and hours and hours is they poured in from all their friends to come and to see this holy priest who we had a parish who offered who ate potatoes every day and nothing else and slept on the floor and just you know penitents would come to him and he'd be able to tell them after a while what they're gonna say before they said it he was so close to Christ he could read their hearts really kind of cool and they and they with this all documented stuff nothing this it's not very long ago so we didn't make all this up okay once in a while he would tell them I'll do your penance for you don't worry I'll take your punishment before you right as if to suggest that is he join himself to Christ and to them as a priest all the more fully he would take their punishment for them as an act of love right so we're talking about is possible that's what it means to be in communion with our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ in communion with the saints but that's a heroic calling that's a heroic calling and it's um it's a grace from God I don't I don't take that on it's it's given to me right so good thank you for all of this if you wanna ask me thing I'll be up here for a few minutes but thanks for coming and and the next session is on prayer and it's a week Monday and Tuesday

Channel: StFrancesCabriniWB

Views: 31,019

Rating: 4.9060054 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, Catechism, Scripture, Suffering, Nathan Reesman, talk, Christianity (Religion)

Id: MrINLb-tAV8

Length: 83min 56sec (5036 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 27 2012