Christ has suffered for us and for our sins. The Lord does not conceal from us that we are the reason for all His torments and afflictions: "You have been bought at a great price" (1 Cor. 6:20). Thus, He again reveals the Love of God for His children: "Greater love than this no man has . . ." (Jn. 15:13).

However, the mystery of Christ’s love and suffering is even greater. As always, God does not leave us at being passive bystanders of our own redemption. The grace that saves us also restores our dignity as collaborators in the Divine plan of salvation. Through the Blessed Mother, He has asked our assent to this plan; through the humanity of Christ, he has made our flesh the instrument of our own liberation; through the Church, He allows human signs and words to become efficient tools of Divine power. This law of Incarnation continues when it comes to the redemptive sufferings of Christ. God has given us the dignity to partake in them and hence to fill our afflictions with His grace.

St. Paul was so full of this truth that he exclaimed: "I find joy in the sufferings I endure for you. In my own flesh I fill up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of His Body, the Church" (Col. 1:24). Obviously, there is no objective lack in the Redemption the Lord has operated for us on the Cross. St. Paul rather indicates the mysterious fact that we, by Divine power, are enabled to participate in the translation of the graces Christ has merited, into the Body of the Church and to all its members.

 

The Servant of God Pope Pius XII explains this link in his encyclical on the Mystical Body of the Church: "In carrying out the work of redemption Christ wishes to be helped by the members of His Body. This is not because He is indigent or weak, but rather because He so willed it for the greater glory of His spotless Spouse. Dying on the Cross, He left to the Church the immense treasury of the Redemption. Towards this she contributed nothing. But when those graces come to be distributed, not only does He share this task of sanctification with His Church, but he wants it, in a way, to be due to her action. What a deep mystery . . . that the salvation of many depends on the prayers and voluntary penances which the members of the Mystical Body offer for that intention..."

 

Every time we accept our own sufferings and, thus, partake through Christ in the work of redemption, the struggles of our life begin to make sense and are brightened by His grace. In his Apostolic letter, Salvifici doloris, the late Pontiff John Paul II enlightens us about this providential change in the meaning of our suffering: “Faith in sharing the suffering of Christ brings with it the interior certainty the suffering person 'completes what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions'; the certainty that in the spiritual dimension of the work of revelation he is serving, like Christ, the salvation of his brothers and sisters. Therefore he is carrying out an irreplaceable service."

 

The joy of suffering, coming from this truth, is certainly not a joy in our afflictions as such. Rather, it is a quiet happiness coming from the hopeful conviction of faith that Christ has elevated those who suffer in a very special way to a stronger unity with Himself, and thus enabling them to offer consolation to Him in His own human suffering. Hence, every cross presented to us becomes a sign of Divine Love which draws us nigh to Him on Calvary. In these occasions of grace, we follow the Blessed Mother, who, in the moment of the Supreme Sacrifice of Her Divine Son, accepted again the Holy Will of the Father and received the unique privilege of becoming the Co-Redemptrix, the one who participated to the fullest in the redemptive suffering of the Victim-Victor on the Cross.

 

Msgr. R. Michael Schmitz