Homily for Ordinary Time 5 - February 8, 2015

Homily for Ordinary Time 5

February 8, 2015

On Christian Suffering

 

            In November of last year, 29-year-old brain cancer victim Brittany Maynard ended her own life, choosing to die on her terms rather than suffer any longer. Many people applauded her decision and hope that assisted suicide becomes legal in every state.

            At the same time that this young woman, in the prime of her life, was fighting her personal battle with cancer, last September a 13-year-old boy named Ethan Hallmark quietly passed away from his own terminal cancer, but with a completely different outlook. Ethan said in a video interview two months before his own death: “Of course I want to live a long life – who doesn’t? But even though this cancer has had a lot of bad stuff, it has had a lot of good stuff too. I met friends I wouldn’t have met [without it]. I’ve grown closer to God, my family has. I wouldn’t trade my relationship with Jesus for anything. Even if I pass away from cancer, I’m going to be focused on the goal, and I hope to hear Him say, Well done, good and faithful servant.”

            That is two very different views of suffering. One view sees suffering as a punishment, or at least meaningless and to be avoided at all costs. The other view sees suffering as a mystery within God’s plan, a mystery for our sanctification.

            We were made for one purpose only: to become saints. To be holy. And so everything God does or allows is directed to this goal. This includes our suffering!

The Christian view of suffering is much like a father who takes his young son to get a vaccine. The boy cries out in fear and pain as he is pricked by the needle, and he tells his father to make that bad doctor stop. But the father sits by – not because he doesn’t love the son, but because he loves him so much that he wants him to grow strong and healthy.

I have met many, many people who have lost their faith in God because they have suffered. Where is God in all this suffering?, they wonder. Why doesn’t He take it away? Is He punishing me?

The answer is, no. He is not punishing you. He is forming you to become the best-version-of-yourself, a saint. He doesn’t take it away immediately because He wants to use it to help you develop virtues and strengths that wouldn’t be developed otherwise. And where is He in this suffering? Look at the cross – He is suffering right there with you.

Let’s take the example of someone who is suffering from the grief of having lost a loved one. They may cry out, “Why, Lord? Why did you take this person from me?” But looking at it from a truly spiritual perspective, grief can teach us much about the shortness of our life. It may help us to better cherish our relationships. It can lead us to understand the Communion of Saints in a deeper way, as we pray for our deceased loved one and ask them to pray for us. We can be formed to become saints if we know that this comes from the hand of our Loving God.

Now, please understand – it is perfectly all right to seek legitimate ways to avoid suffering. If we have a headache, we can take Tylenol. If we’re working in a job we hate, it’s okay to find a new job. If we find ourselves in an abusive relationship, we should get out of that. God is not sadistic; He does not want you to suffer when there is a morally legitimate way to escape it.

But much of life’s suffering is unavoidable. Family tension. Physical illness. Misfortunes. Look at all of this through the lens of eternity, and all of a sudden they take on a different light. Just a couple days ago, one of the kids in our religious education class asked me, “Why did God make snakes with venom?” That made me reflect – why did God make things that are harmful to us like cancer or tarantulas or hurricanes? I think it’s so that we would remember that this world is not our home. He made this world imperfect so that we would be consumed with desire for the perfect home of Heaven.

And in the meanwhile, He continues to prepare our hearts for such a gift, sometimes through suffering. One of my favorite movies is “The Robe,” about the Roman Soldier who crucifies Jesus and ends up obtaining the Lord’s robe as a result. The soldier, racked with guilt about crucifying Jesus, searches all over for a way to be at peace again. He ends up meeting this Christian woman who is paralyzed from the waist down. She had met Jesus and spoken with him, and she begins to share the Good News with the soldier. But the soldier challenges her and says, “If you really met Jesus, why didn’t He heal you?”

She replies, “But He did heal me.”

“What do you mean?” the angry soldier demands. “You’re still unable to walk.”

“This is true,” she responded kindly, “But before I met Jesus, my heart was full of bitterness and anger at my situation. He healed me of that, which was far more important than my physical healing.”

 I can only speak for myself, but the greatest lessons I have ever learned in my life were through suffering. Of course, this is easy to say but hard to live out, especially when we’re in the midst of some suffering. But I truly and passionately believe that God wants us to be supremely happy with Him in eternity – so don’t waste any suffering that you go through. Instead, offer it up to the Lord, ask Him to use the suffering to heal your soul, and allow Him to form you into a saint through the fire of trials.