Catechism on Suffering
Whether we
will or not, we must suffer. There are some who suffer like the good thief, and
others like the bad thief. They both suffered equally. But one knew how to make
his sufferings meritorious, he accepted them in the spirit of reparation, and
turning towards Jesus crucified, he received from His mouth these beautiful
words: “This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise. ” The other, on the
contrary, cried out, uttered imprecations and blasphemies, and expired in the
most frightful despair. There are two ways of suffering — to suffer with love,
and to suffer without love. The saints suffered everything with joy, patience,
and perseverance, because they loved. As for us, we suffer with anger,
vexation, and weariness, because we do not love. If we loved God, we should
love crosses, we should wish for them, we should take pleasure in them. . . .
We should be happy to be able to suffer for the love of Him who lovingly
suffered for us. Of what do we complain? Alas! the poor infidels, who have not
the happiness of knowing God and His infinite loveliness, have the same crosses
that we have; but they have not the same consolations. You say it is hard? No,
it is easy, it is consoling, it is sweet; it is happiness. Only we must love
while we suffer, and suffer while we love.
On the Way of the Cross, you see, my
children, only the first step is painful. Our greatest cross is the fear of
crosses. . . . We have not the courage to carry our cross, and we are very much
mistaken; for, whatever we do, the cross holds us tight — we cannot escape from
it. What, then, have we to lose? Why not love our crosses and make use of them
to take us to Heaven? But, on the contrary, most men turn their backs upon
crosses, and fly before them. The more they run, the more the cross pursues
them, the more it strikes and crushes them with burdens. . . . If you were
wise, you would go to meet it like Saint Andrew, who said, when he saw the
cross prepared for him and raised up into the air, “Hail O good cross!
O admirable cross! O desirable cross!
receive me into thine arms, withdraw me from among men, and restore me to my
Master, who redeemed me through thee. ”
Listen attentively to this, my
children: He who goes to meet the cross, goes in the opposite direction to
crosses; he meets them, perhaps, but he is pleased to meet them; he loves them;
he carries them courageously. They unite him to Our Lord; they purify him; they
detach him from this world; they remove all obstacles from his heart; they help
him to pass through life, as a bridge helps us to pass over water. . . . Look
at the saints; when they were not persecuted. they persecuted themselves. A
good religious complained one day to Our Lord that he was persecuted. He said,
“O Lord, what have I done to be treated thus?” Our Lord answered him, “And I,
what had I done when I was led to Calvary?” Then the religious understood; he
wept, he asked pardon, and dared not complain any more. Worldly people are
miserable when they have crosses, and good Christians are miserable when they
have none. The Christian lives in the midst of crosses, as the fish lives in
the sea.
Look at Saint Catherine; she has two
crowns, that of purity and that of martyrdom: how happy she is, that dear
little saint, to have chosen to suffer rather than to consent to sin! There was
once a religious who loved suffering so much that he had fastened the rope from
a well round his body; this cord had rubbed off the skin, and had by degrees
buried itself in the flesh, out of which worms came. His brethren asked that he
should be sent out of the community. He went away happy and pleased, to hide
himself in a rocky cavern. But the same night the Superior heard Our Lord
saying to him: “Thou hast lost the treasure of thy house. ” Then they went to
fetch back this good saint, and they wanted to see from whence these worms
came. The Superior had the cord taken off, which was done by turning back the
flesh. At last he got well.
Very near this, in a neighbouring
parish, there was a little boy in bed, covered with sores, very ill, and very
miserable; I said to him, “My poor little child, you are suffering very much!”
He answered me, “No, sir; today I do not feel the pain I had yesterday, and
tomorrow I shall not suffer from the pain I have now:’ “You would like to get
well?” “No; I was naughty before I was ill, and I might be so again. I am very
well as I am. ” We do not understand that, because we are too earthly. Children
in whom the Holy Ghost dwells put us to shame.
If the good God sends us crosses, we
resist, we complain, we murmur; we are so averse to whatever contradicts us,
that we want to be always in a box of cotton: but we ought to be put into a box
of thorns. It is by the Cross that we go to Heaven. Illnesses, temptations,
troubles, are so many crosses which take us to Heaven. All this will soon be
over. . . . Look at the saints, who have arrived there before us. . . . The
good God does not require of us the martyrdom of the body; He requires only the
martyrdom of the heart, and of the will. . . . Our Lord is our model; let us take
up our cross, and follow Him. Let us do like the soldiers of Napoleon. They had
to cross a bridge under the fire of grapeshot; no one dared to pass it.
Napoleon took the colours, marched over first, and they all followed. Let us do
the same; let us follow Our Lord, who has gone before us.
A soldier was telling me one day that
during a battle he had marched for half an hour over dead bodies; there was
hardly space to tread upon; the ground was all dyed with blood. Thus on the
road of life we must walk over crosses and troubles to reach our true country.
The cross is the ladder to Heaven. . . . How consoling it is to suffer under
the eyes of God, and to be able to say in the evening, at our examination of
conscience: “Come, my soul! thou hast had today two or three hours of
resemblance to Jesus Christ. Thou hast been scourged, crowned with thorns,
crucified with Him!” Oh what a treasure for the hour of death! How sweet it is
to die, when we have lived on the cross! We ought to run after crosses as the
miser runs after money. . . . Nothing but crosses will reassure us at the Day
of Judgment. When that day shall come, we shall be happy in our misfortunes,
proud of our humiliations, and rich in our sacrifices!
If someone said to you, “I should like
to become rich; what must I do?” you would answer him, “You must labor:’ Well,
in order to get to Heaven, we must suffer. Our Lord shows us the way in the
person of Simon the Cyrenian; He calls His friends to carry His Cross after
Him. The good God wishes us never to lose sight of the Cross, therefore it is
placed everywhere; by the roadside, on the heights, in the public squares — in
order that at the sight of it we may say, “See how God has loved us!” The Cross
embraces the world; it is planted at the four corners of the world; there is a
share of it for all. Crosses are on the road to Heaven like a fine bridge of
stone over a river, by which to pass it. Christians who do not suffer pass this
river by a frail bridge, a bridge of wire, always ready to give way under their
feet.
He who does not love the Cross may
indeed be saved, but with great difficulty: he will be a little star in the
firmament. He who shall have suffered and fought for his God will shine like a
beautiful sun. Crosses, transformed by the flames of love, are like a bundle of
thorns thrown into the fire, and reduced by the fire to ashes. The thorns are
hard, but the ashes are soft. Oh, how much sweetness do souls experience that
are all for God in suffering! It is like a mixture into which one puts a great deal
of oil: the vinegar remains vinegar; but the oil corrects its bitterness, and
it can scarcely be perceived.
If you put fine grapes into the wine
press, there will come out a delicious juice: our soul, in the wine press of
the Cross, gives out a juice that nourishes and strengthens it. When we have no
crosses, we are arid: if we bear them with resignation, we feel a joy, a
happiness, a sweetness! . . . it is the beginning of Heaven. The good God, the
Blessed Virgin, the angels, and the saints, surround us; they are by our side,
and see us. The passage to the other life of the good Christian tried by
affliction, is like that of a person being carried on a bed of roses. Thorns
give out a perfume, and the Cross breathes forth sweetness. But we must squeeze
the thorns in our hands, and press the Cross to our heart, that they may give
out the juice they contain.
The Cross gave peace to the world; and
it must bring peace to our hearts. All our miseries come from not loving it.
The fear of crosses increases them. A cross carried simply, and without those
returns of self-love which exaggerate troubles, is no longer a cross. Peaceable
suffering is no longer suffering. We complain of suffering! We should have much
more reason to complain of not suffering, since nothing makes us more like Our
Lord than carrying His Cross. Oh, what a beautiful union of the soul with Our
Lord Jesus Christ by the love and the virtue of His Cross! I do not understand
how a Christian can dislike the Cross, and fly from it! Does he not at the same
time fly from Him who has deigned to be fastened to it, and to die for us?
Contradictions bring us to the foot of
the Cross, and the Cross to the gate of Heaven. That we may get there, we must
be trodden upon, we must be set at naught, despised, crushed. . . . There are
no happy people in this world but those who enjoy calmness of mind in the midst
of the troubles of life: they taste the joys of the children of God. . . . All
pains are sweet when we suffer in union with Our Lord. . . . To suffer! what
does it signify? It is only a moment. If we could go and pass a week in Heaven,
we should understand the value of this moment of suffering. We should find no
cross heavy enough, no trial bitter enough. . . . The Cross is the gift that
God makes to His friends.
How beautiful it is to offer ourselves
every morning in sacrifice to the good God, and to accept everything in
expiation of our sins! We must ask for the love of crosses; then they become
sweet.
I tried it for four or five years. I
was well calumniated, well contradicted, well knocked about. Oh, I had crosses
indeed! I had almost more than I could carry! Then I took to asking for love of
crosses, and I was happy. I said to myself, truly there is no happiness but in
this! We must never think from whence crosses come: they come from God. It is
always God who gives us this way of proving our love to Him.
By St. John Vianney
Photo taken from MorgueFile Photos
