Ruminations of an Irascible Hermit.: Invalidating your suffering does not make it holy

Tuesday, April 4, 2023

Invalidating your suffering does not make it holy

I came across this on Instagram and wanted to share it in case any of you need to hear it.

As we are now in Holy Week and prepare to celebrate the Resurrection, it can be important not to try and minimise the suffering of Jesus or our own. When we invalidate or dismiss our pain and suffering it does not make us more “spiritual” but rather it means we are trying to find God where we want, on our terms - rather than where He is leading us and He in fact already is present.

This Lent for me I have to admit had been the “lentiest Lent I have ever lented”, and yet I know that in the pain and hurt and even emptiness that it is exactly there that Jesus is most with me and offering be transformative union. If you are going through something too atm, you are not alone, your hurt is real and it is horrible - but through the mystery of the Paschal Mystery, your pain is not less painful, but somehow there is grace to be found there.

We don’t have to take up grandiose penances to become holy. But we do need to embrace our daily struggles, hurts, disappointment, bitterness, loneliness, anxiety, anger, sadness and all the human emotions we have - in the knowledge that they have all been redeemed and that union with Jesus can be found precisely there where he has placed us, where He has allowed us to fall or hurt - and not where we think He should be. In the abandonment there is also fulfilment, this is the mystery of the cross we are each called to embrace.

If we saw Jesus crucified, would we dare say to him: “it’s ok, you’re the Son of God and you’ll be resurrected, so yeah it’s painful but you’ll be fine”?

If not, then don’t also say it to others or to yourself. Don’t invalidate the reality of someone else’s pain or your own - Unite it with Jesus abandoned on the cross.

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Disclaimer

Please note. I am a Catholic layman, not a qualified theologian or philosopher. What I say and write here are my own personal thoughts and ideas, although I always try to conform my writings to the Magisterium of the Church.

I- with firm faith believe and profess everything that is contained in the symbol of faith: namely,

I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven: By the power of the Holy Spirit, he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died and was buried. On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. I believe in the one holy catholic and apostolic church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

With firm faith I believe as well everything contained in God's word, written or handed down in tradition and proposed by the church--whether in solemn judgment or in the ordinary and universal Magisterium--as divinely revealed and called for faith.

I also firmly accept and hold each and every thing that is proposed by that same church definitively with regard to teaching concerning faith or morals.

What is more, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman pontiff or the college of bishops enunciate when they exercise the authentic Magisterium even if they proclaim those teachings in an act that is not definitive.