MONDAY OF THE SEVENTEENTH WEEK OF ORDINARY TIME
Feast of St. Samson (536), Bishop of Dol and St. Innocent I (417), Pope, Martyr

Dear Father:

Suffering as been much on my mind lately -- suffering not only of body, but of spirit. I am across a Newsletter of the Abbey of Saint-Joseph de Clairval in France, the November 21, 1996 issue, about the meaning of suffering. I excerpt a small portion below:

Meanwhile, a sister, a Franciscan missionary of Mary, that Jacques had met during a previous visit to Damascus, learned that he was in the hospital. She came to see him regularly. "She spoke to me of Job, who did not curse God. She referred to the words of the Gospel: 'If the seed of wheat doesn't die in the earth, it doesn't bear fruit.'" The sick man feels these truths penetrate into his soul. He starts to pray again and to receive the sacraments. He even accepts Communion twice a week, and then every day. Thus he discovers the love that pushed Jesus, "man of sorrows," to die for us on the Cross. He experiences a mysterious force that brings him near to Christ. Thanks to the vigor of his newly found faith, he sees in his suffering a hidden redeeming value. Then, resting on divine force and not on his own weakness, he makes God the heroic offering of his eyes and of his hands. He decides to no longer "undergo" his tribulation, but to "accept it." Accepting it is a victory. "Before being wounded, I knew laughter, but not joy, true joy. Really, I wept with joy on my hospital bed. I even said to the nurse sister: `I haven't lost anything!'"

Love transforms hearts, and makes suffering meritorious. According to Saint Francis de Sales: "Divine love not only softens what is bitter, but transforms the cross into joy, because God is the God of joy." Jacques Lebreton experienced it. The joy which infuses the heart by grace, even in the middle of suffering, is not a joy of the senses but a peaceful and mysterious contentment in the faith, which made Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus say: "Down here everything tires me, everything burdens me... I only find one joy, that of suffering for Jesus, but this unfelt joy is above all other joy!" (Letter, March 12, 1889).

But when suffering only brings us sadness and weighs us down, let us recall these other words of the "little" Theresa: "Let us suffer, if necessary, with bitterness, without courage. Jesus truly suffered with sadness: without sadness, would the soul suffer? It is really consoling to think that Jesus, divinely Strong, knew all our weaknesses, that He trembled at the sight of the bitter chalice, this chalice that He had once so ardently desired" (Letters, April 26, 1889, December 26, 1896). Also, when we suffer, let us think that Jesus is there, compassionately close to us, to help us carry today's cross.

Oh, Father in heaven, thank you for bringing your Son to us to suffer for us and thus give us the means to offer our suffering to you for your salvific will and for your glory and for the salvation of our own souls.

Your miserable servant,
Brother Bubba

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