Mar 15 Sun
Is joy compatible with suffering?
The strictness of the Lenten liturgy is interrupted on this Sunday with words that speak to us of joy.
The Church wishes to remind us that joy is perfectly compatible with mortification and pain. It is sadness and not penance that is opposed to happiness.
The mortifications we do during these days should not cast a shadow over our interior joy. Rather, it ought to increase it, because our Redemption is near at hand; the pouring out of love for mankind, which is the Passion, is coming, and the joy of Easter will soon be upon us.
We therefore feel the need to be very closely united to Our Lord, so that our lives too may reflect once more the suffering He underwent for our sakes, as well as experiencing great happiness in the attainment of the glory and joy of the Resurrection through his Passion and his Cross.
Christians are aware that joy and happiness stem from a heart that knows itself to be loved by God and which, in its turn, is madly in love with Him.
Suffering and tribulation are inevitably and eventually the lot of everyone on this earth. But suffering of itself alone neither transforms nor purifies. It may even be the cause of rebellion and hatred. Some Christians abandon Our Lord when they meet the Cross, because they seek a purely human happiness, free from pain and accompanied by material wealth.
God asks us to lose our fear of pain and tribulation and unite ourselves to him, as He waits for us on the Cross. Our soul will then be more purified, our love stronger. And we will realize that joy is inseparable from the Cross. Not only that, but we will also understand that we can never be happy if we are not united to Christ on the Cross, and that we will never know how to love if we do not at the same time love sacrifice.
Those tribulations that appear to our poor human reasoning as unjust and meaningless are necessary for our personal holiness and for the salvation of many souls. Within the mystery of co-redemption, our sufferings united to those of Christ acquire an incomparable value for the entire Church and the whole of mankind. If we humbly have recourse to God, He will make us see that everything, even events and circumstances apparently least likely to do so, work together for the good of those who love him. Suffering, when seen in its true light, when it serves as a means of loving more, produces great peace and deep joy. That is why God often blesses us with the Cross.
“That is how we must travel along the way of self-giving: the Cross on our shoulders, a smile on our lips, and light in our hearts."
If at times we have been afraid of penance and atonement, we will be filled with courage at the thought of how short the time involved is, and how great the reward, a prize entirely disproportionate to our own little efforts. So let us cheerfully follow Jesus to Jerusalem, to Calvary, to the Cross.
Excerpts from F. Fernandez Carvajal