Lenten Holy Hour Monday reflection
Suffering
First Day
Dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
I am aware that I had taken a very difficult theme to explain; suffering but together we will try to get the heart of it.
A man found a cocoon of a butterfly.
One day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther.
Then the man decided to help the butterfly, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon.
The butterfly then emerged easily.
But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.
It never was able to fly.
What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were God's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If God allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us.
We would not be as strong as what we could have been.
And we could never fly.
If we think that because we are being faithful to God’s will and following his commandments that we will walk unmolested through life, we are mistaken. Scripture forces us to understand that our righteous actions will be met with resistance in this secular world. If we are following the Lord because we think that path will always provide happiness and peace, we are mistaken. If you want to do the right thing always you are sure these right things are not always the easy thing.
Brenda was almost halfway to the top of the tremendous granite cliff. It was her first rock climb. As she rested there, the safety rope snapped against her eye and knocked out her contact lens. 'Great', she thought. 'Here I am on a rock ledge, hundreds of feet from the bottom and hundreds of feet to the top of this cliff, and now my sight is blurry.'
She looked and looked, hoping that somehow it had landed on the ledge. But it just wasn't there.
She felt the panic rising in her, so she began praying. She prayed for calm, and she prayed that she may find her contact lens.
When she got to the top, a friend examined her eye and her clothing for the lens, but it was not to be found. Although she was calm now that she was at the top, she was saddened because she could not clearly see across the range of mountains. She thought, 'Lord, You can see all these mountains. You know every stone and leaf, and You know exactly where my contact lens is. Please help me.'
Later, when they had hiked down the trail to the bottom of the cliff they met another party of climbers just starting up the face of the cliff. One of them shouted out, 'Hey, you guys! Anybody lose a contact lens?'
Well, that would be startling enough, but you know why the climber saw it? An ant was moving slowly across a twig on the face of the rock, carrying it!
The story doesn't end there. Brenda's father is a cartoonist. When she told him the incredible story of the ant, the prayer, and the contact lens, he drew a cartoon of an ant lugging that contact lens with the caption, 'Lord, I don't know why You want me to carry this thing. I can't eat it, and it's awfully heavy. But if this is what You want me to do, I'll carry it for You.'
I think it would do all of us some good to say, 'God, I don't know why You want me to carry this load. I can see no good in it and it's awfully heavy. But, if You want me to carry it, I will.'
God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called. Sometimes we complain that our cross is very heavy and I can’t take it anymore. But remember He is the one who helps us to that point. He keeps me functioning each and every day Without Him, I am nothing, but with Him....I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. (Phil. 4:13)
It is not the suffering of Jesus that is redemptive - it is God’s willingness to share in it that saves. This is the pattern that Jesus Christ sets for us in his life and death – solidarity in suffering that leads to healing of individuals and communities alike. That kind of healing has a cost. Sharing in suffering is painful. Take an example. You may be helping the homeless people throwing out couple bucks into their box. When you decide to work for the uplifting of their lives; then the whole situation will change. it is difficult to go to sleep at night, hearing someone you knew, someone you cared about, coughing and shivering just outside your window. Then you will feel that “It was much easier when you were living at a distance from this kind of suffering.”
It is so much easier when we live at a distance from this kind of suffering. It is easier to cure a patient than to risk healing one who cannot be cured. It is easier to give a homeless man some pocket change, than to listen generously to his story. It is easier to live at a distance, because at a distance we do not have to risk sharing pain, we do not have to risk sharing in loss, we do not have to risk sharing in grief. It is easier to live at a distance. From a distance, there is nothing to fear.
We know there is suffering in the world. And if we ask, “What is God doing about it?” we are asking the wrong question. The question we should ask is, “What are we doing about it?” For many of our sufferings come from us or our fellowmen. That old man was suffering from lung cancer because he smoked. If you don’t want to get cancer, don’t smoke. We have to act not God.
I know and you know that we cannot think like God. And that is okay.
But what about this command to carry our cross and follow Jesus? How do we do that if we do not fully understand the mystery of the cross and how it all works?
What does this command really mean?
It means that sometimes doing the will of God is hard, and involves suffering.
It means that sometimes following the example and teaching of Jesus is a real challenge.
It means that doing the right thing and loving our neighbor can be downright dangerous.
It means that sometimes loving demands sacrifice.
And so many of us here are already carrying crosses. You do not have to go looking for them. They find us.
And I think if we could see each other’s crosses we would be humbled and in awe. Then we won’t complain about our silly matters.
Suffering bruises us in various places and many times will eventually kill us. Salvation and healing are side effects. But they are not automatic-they work only if we work with them. Suffering can teach us a great deal, but only if we are good learners.
Suffering teaches us something about reality. We learn very little from success because success teaches us that we know how the game is played, and that we are doing something right. Then suddenly something blows up—and we learn that we don’t know everything, that we can’t do everything, and that there is always more than we can see that we are not in charge of reality.
The mere fact that every day we ask each other, “How are you?” shows just how vulnerable we are to daily misfortune.
Suffering can teach us something about ourselves. When we are poked and scratched by suffering, we discover whether we are real, sound and solid, or just cheap imitations. As the Philosopher Karl Jaspers said, “It is only in extreme situations that we become aware of what we are.” These are the times we either fall to pieces or we dig deep within our souls to draw on the strength God has ingrained us.
A great tragedy can either burn all the trash out of our life or reduce us to ashes. So in those times when our lives are relatively painless, we need to plan a strategy against suffering. First, we need to link it with the pain of Jesus. We don’t need to know how that works; better there than sunk in a bottomless black hole. When in pain we must remember that every suffering is a new window open to reality. Let us not close that window until we see everything there is to see.
Suffering happens. It is part of life. No one, not the richest person or poorest, not saint or sinner, can get through life without suffering. God doesn’t cause it; God doesn’t plan it. God is just there to see us through it. When we say yes to God, God’s life becomes our life. And we open ourselves to the peace, courage and perseverance that God’s love offers. It can be so much easier to endure suffering when we know that our good and loving God is with us, as close as the next breath we take in.
Jesus says that no matter the circumstances, no matter how much it may seem that evil is prevailing, God's goodness is still present, is still at work in our midst. And God's goodness will overcome the evil. The suffering will be transformed into the reign of God, with justice, peace, joy and fullness of life all present.
“Where is God? Does God really care about me? How could God possibly know what we have to suffer?” These are questions that we may ask sometimes, especially in moments of pain. The answer to these questions is, “God does really care, God is closer than your own heart and God does indeed understand your suffering.”
‘The Word became flesh.’ Why? Because God does care. God had absolutely no need to become one of us but did so to convince us how much we mean to him. Think about how much you mean to God! You mean so much to God that God became a human, just to convince you, and if that isn’t enough to convince you, Jesus died for you. What more can God do to convince you he cares about you?
I would like to conclude today with the beautiful sentence from St Paul’s Letter to Ephesians and will continue this theme of suffering following Monday.
May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him. May he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call holds for you, what rich glories he has promised the saints will inherit. (Eph 1:17-18)
Oh Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar
Be everywhere praised and adored.
First Day
Dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
I am aware that I had taken a very difficult theme to explain; suffering but together we will try to get the heart of it.
A man found a cocoon of a butterfly.
One day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther.
Then the man decided to help the butterfly, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon.
The butterfly then emerged easily.
But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.
It never was able to fly.
What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were God's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If God allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us.
We would not be as strong as what we could have been.
And we could never fly.
If we think that because we are being faithful to God’s will and following his commandments that we will walk unmolested through life, we are mistaken. Scripture forces us to understand that our righteous actions will be met with resistance in this secular world. If we are following the Lord because we think that path will always provide happiness and peace, we are mistaken. If you want to do the right thing always you are sure these right things are not always the easy thing.
Brenda was almost halfway to the top of the tremendous granite cliff. It was her first rock climb. As she rested there, the safety rope snapped against her eye and knocked out her contact lens. 'Great', she thought. 'Here I am on a rock ledge, hundreds of feet from the bottom and hundreds of feet to the top of this cliff, and now my sight is blurry.'
She looked and looked, hoping that somehow it had landed on the ledge. But it just wasn't there.
She felt the panic rising in her, so she began praying. She prayed for calm, and she prayed that she may find her contact lens.
When she got to the top, a friend examined her eye and her clothing for the lens, but it was not to be found. Although she was calm now that she was at the top, she was saddened because she could not clearly see across the range of mountains. She thought, 'Lord, You can see all these mountains. You know every stone and leaf, and You know exactly where my contact lens is. Please help me.'
Later, when they had hiked down the trail to the bottom of the cliff they met another party of climbers just starting up the face of the cliff. One of them shouted out, 'Hey, you guys! Anybody lose a contact lens?'
Well, that would be startling enough, but you know why the climber saw it? An ant was moving slowly across a twig on the face of the rock, carrying it!
The story doesn't end there. Brenda's father is a cartoonist. When she told him the incredible story of the ant, the prayer, and the contact lens, he drew a cartoon of an ant lugging that contact lens with the caption, 'Lord, I don't know why You want me to carry this thing. I can't eat it, and it's awfully heavy. But if this is what You want me to do, I'll carry it for You.'
I think it would do all of us some good to say, 'God, I don't know why You want me to carry this load. I can see no good in it and it's awfully heavy. But, if You want me to carry it, I will.'
God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called. Sometimes we complain that our cross is very heavy and I can’t take it anymore. But remember He is the one who helps us to that point. He keeps me functioning each and every day Without Him, I am nothing, but with Him....I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. (Phil. 4:13)
It is not the suffering of Jesus that is redemptive - it is God’s willingness to share in it that saves. This is the pattern that Jesus Christ sets for us in his life and death – solidarity in suffering that leads to healing of individuals and communities alike. That kind of healing has a cost. Sharing in suffering is painful. Take an example. You may be helping the homeless people throwing out couple bucks into their box. When you decide to work for the uplifting of their lives; then the whole situation will change. it is difficult to go to sleep at night, hearing someone you knew, someone you cared about, coughing and shivering just outside your window. Then you will feel that “It was much easier when you were living at a distance from this kind of suffering.”
It is so much easier when we live at a distance from this kind of suffering. It is easier to cure a patient than to risk healing one who cannot be cured. It is easier to give a homeless man some pocket change, than to listen generously to his story. It is easier to live at a distance, because at a distance we do not have to risk sharing pain, we do not have to risk sharing in loss, we do not have to risk sharing in grief. It is easier to live at a distance. From a distance, there is nothing to fear.
We know there is suffering in the world. And if we ask, “What is God doing about it?” we are asking the wrong question. The question we should ask is, “What are we doing about it?” For many of our sufferings come from us or our fellowmen. That old man was suffering from lung cancer because he smoked. If you don’t want to get cancer, don’t smoke. We have to act not God.
I know and you know that we cannot think like God. And that is okay.
But what about this command to carry our cross and follow Jesus? How do we do that if we do not fully understand the mystery of the cross and how it all works?
What does this command really mean?
It means that sometimes doing the will of God is hard, and involves suffering.
It means that sometimes following the example and teaching of Jesus is a real challenge.
It means that doing the right thing and loving our neighbor can be downright dangerous.
It means that sometimes loving demands sacrifice.
And so many of us here are already carrying crosses. You do not have to go looking for them. They find us.
And I think if we could see each other’s crosses we would be humbled and in awe. Then we won’t complain about our silly matters.
Suffering bruises us in various places and many times will eventually kill us. Salvation and healing are side effects. But they are not automatic-they work only if we work with them. Suffering can teach us a great deal, but only if we are good learners.
Suffering teaches us something about reality. We learn very little from success because success teaches us that we know how the game is played, and that we are doing something right. Then suddenly something blows up—and we learn that we don’t know everything, that we can’t do everything, and that there is always more than we can see that we are not in charge of reality.
The mere fact that every day we ask each other, “How are you?” shows just how vulnerable we are to daily misfortune.
Suffering can teach us something about ourselves. When we are poked and scratched by suffering, we discover whether we are real, sound and solid, or just cheap imitations. As the Philosopher Karl Jaspers said, “It is only in extreme situations that we become aware of what we are.” These are the times we either fall to pieces or we dig deep within our souls to draw on the strength God has ingrained us.
A great tragedy can either burn all the trash out of our life or reduce us to ashes. So in those times when our lives are relatively painless, we need to plan a strategy against suffering. First, we need to link it with the pain of Jesus. We don’t need to know how that works; better there than sunk in a bottomless black hole. When in pain we must remember that every suffering is a new window open to reality. Let us not close that window until we see everything there is to see.
Suffering happens. It is part of life. No one, not the richest person or poorest, not saint or sinner, can get through life without suffering. God doesn’t cause it; God doesn’t plan it. God is just there to see us through it. When we say yes to God, God’s life becomes our life. And we open ourselves to the peace, courage and perseverance that God’s love offers. It can be so much easier to endure suffering when we know that our good and loving God is with us, as close as the next breath we take in.
Jesus says that no matter the circumstances, no matter how much it may seem that evil is prevailing, God's goodness is still present, is still at work in our midst. And God's goodness will overcome the evil. The suffering will be transformed into the reign of God, with justice, peace, joy and fullness of life all present.
“Where is God? Does God really care about me? How could God possibly know what we have to suffer?” These are questions that we may ask sometimes, especially in moments of pain. The answer to these questions is, “God does really care, God is closer than your own heart and God does indeed understand your suffering.”
‘The Word became flesh.’ Why? Because God does care. God had absolutely no need to become one of us but did so to convince us how much we mean to him. Think about how much you mean to God! You mean so much to God that God became a human, just to convince you, and if that isn’t enough to convince you, Jesus died for you. What more can God do to convince you he cares about you?
I would like to conclude today with the beautiful sentence from St Paul’s Letter to Ephesians and will continue this theme of suffering following Monday.
May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him. May he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call holds for you, what rich glories he has promised the saints will inherit. (Eph 1:17-18)
Oh Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar
Be everywhere praised and adored.
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