more on suffering

Here is the Meditation of the Day for this past Tuesday in the periodical Magnificat for the Gospel of St. John 5:1-16:

It's entitled "Do you want to be well?" by Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection (+1691) who as a young man was a soldier in France who later became a French Carmelite friar.

"I will not ask God to deliver you from your trials, but I will ask Him earnestly to give you the patience and strength needed to suffer as long as He desires. Find consolation in Him who keeps you fixed to the cross; He will release you when He judges it appropriate. Happy are they who suffer with Him. Get used to suffering, and ask Him for the strength to suffer as He wants, and for as long as He judges necessary. The worldly do not understand these truths, and I am not surprised; the reason is that they suffer as citizens of this world and not as Christians. They consider illnesses as natural afflictions and not as graces from God, and therefore they find in them only what is difficult and harsh for our nature. But those who regard them as coming from the hand of God, as signs of His mercy and the means He uses for their salvation, ordinarily find great sweetness and perceptible consolations in them.

I wish you were convinced that God is often closer to us in times of sickness and suffering than when we enjoy perfect health...Place all your trust in Him, and you will soon experience the benefits we resist when we trust more in medical remedies than in God.

Whatever remedies you may use, they will only work to the extent that He will permit. When suffering comes from God, He alone can cure it, and He often leaves us with physical illness in order to cure our spiritual illness. Find consolation in the sovereign doctor of body and soul."

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I love the idea that our afflictions in this world are graces from God, the means for our salvation. For, after all is said and done in our lives, the only goal, the one that truly matters, is that we be in heaven with our dear Lord one day. It is a consolation, then, to know that our suffering is meant for the good of our souls.

I hope someone will remind me of this when I am called to suffer one day...Human nature, being what it is, would incite me to complain and feel sorry for myself.