Christ Uses Our Sufferings for Good
The Christian life is a long progression of letting go of our own wants and desires in order to live in greater union with Christ and to love as He loves. This is a painful purification process for all of us that most often comes about through suffering. Jobs are lost. Successes come and go. Relationships fall apart. Medical diagnosis or old age take away our health. It’s during these times that the Lord is reminding us that we are made for him alone. Suffering is never wasted. The Lord uses it for our deeper conversion and put love in the world where it is most needed.
Lent is a microcosm of the reality that we are called to rely on God alone and to die to the things of this world. The Lord often has greater plans for our holiness than we had in mind at the beginning of this holy season of prayer and penance. The Lord reminds us that we are made for Him alone every time our plans fail, in seasons of isolation and waiting, in illness, the death of loved ones, or in other circumstances.
My family started Lent with my husband in the hospital and with him ill for the first half of Lent. After he started feeling better, our plumbing went out and sewage came pouring up in our bathtub. The Lord provided through a loving place to stay with my spiritual parents and the city covering the repairs since it was their line causing the problem. In the moment, however, it was one more thing in a long list of difficulties and an opportunity to love when I dawned gloves and held my breath as much as possible while cleaning up the nasty mess.
Close friends of ours have spent almost the entirety of Lent in the hospital with complication after complication from abdominal surgeries. The husband went into respiratory and cardiac distress and nearly died when a massive blood clot cut off blood supply to both lungs and his heart. He recovered, but is currently in the ICU recovering from yet another surgery and is battling an infection. We credit his still being here to St. Joseph’s intercession. Their Lent has been one of constant surrender in each moment and openness to God’s healing and ministering through the priesthood.
