The Grace to Take Up Our Cross
Pain, sickness, trouble, seem to strike senselessly and often warp the lives they touch. Why this one or that one should be singled out for suffering is more than anyone can know here and now…. What we do know is that God is our Father and that he permits only those things to happen to us that are for our good. They are indeed for our own good if we use them rightly.
“Offer it up!” is a stock phrase that will bring a smile of recognition to anyone who has ever gone to a Catholic school. It was a little phrase that in childhood could transform everything from a lost prize or a skinned knee to a dose of bitter medicine or the teasing of a trying companion. With older years and the sophistication of our age it is easy to forget that life’s biggest, sorest, bitterest crosses can be “offered up” in union with our suffering Lord just as successfully as the smaller trials of childhood. Furthermore, they can be endured cheerfully, not just as a medical measure to help our cure, but as coin for heaven. Every pain is expendable, and it is a pity to waste even the tiniest bit. Naturally this does not mean that a person with appendicitis is expected to fold his hands and die piously without ever calling the doctor. The Lord who gave us remedies expects us to use them. But there will always be pain which no doctor can alleviate, and there will always be suffering which no remedy can cure. What is to be done with that? It is a free gift to us, like the cross thrust on Simon of Cyrene’s shoulders. To grumble while we bear it will not make it any lighter nor relieve us of it…. To bear the cross of suffering with regard for him who allows us to carry it is to use wisely and well a sure means to heaven.
Sister Mary Jean Dorcy, o.p.
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