Saints of Impossible Causes

God often permits trials in our lives so that we can learn to rely on no one but Him.  To encourage our love for His saints and to give us models of heroic virtue, He also permits prayers to be answered through their intercession.


There are instances in every person’s life when it seems that a problem or a cross is insurmountable and unbearable.  In these cases, pray to the patron saints of impossible causes: St. Rita of Cascia, St. Jude Thaddeus, St. Philomena and St. Gregory of Neocaesarea.


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Our Blood is the Same

Christian suffering was the topic when the pope and the patriarch met in Jerusalem.  During the liturgy Pope Francis said something very important.  When we suffer we suffer together, there are no distinctions.   We should take consolation in this message.

POPE FRANCIS

"We need to believe that, just as the stone before the tomb was cast aside, so too every obstacle to our full communion will also be removed.”

The Pope said the work of their predecessors, 50 years ago, showed that it's possible to take steps towards unity. But he added that violence and persecution around the world today also force Christians to come together. 

POPE FRANCIS

"There is born an ecumenism of suffering, an ecumenism of blood, which proves particularly powerful not only for those situations in which it occurs, but also, by virtue of the communion of the saints, for the whole Church as well. Those who, in hatred of their faith, kill and persecute Christians, don't ask if they are Orthodox or Catholic. They are Christians, and Christian blood is the same.”

Emotional Sense

Full Question

My husband and I have been involved with the Word Faith Movement. I have become disillusioned with their theology of suffering. I know the Scripture verses that show we are to expect suffering in this life, but how can I make emotional sense out of suffering when it happens?

Answer

Human suffering entered the world due to the effects of original sin. God does not cause the suffering. He simply permits it to happen in our lives. To understand suffering, we must first understand some basic principles about God.
God is all-knowing. He is aware of every pain we feel and every tear we shed. He can see our entire life on earth as well as our eternal destiny. God is all-loving. He loves us more than we love ourselves and would not permit something to happen to us that would keep us from our ultimate good, which is God himself. God is all-powerful. He can bring good out of evil.
Bearing these facts in mind, sometimes God permits suffering to keep us from a greater suffering later or to preserve us for a greater good. For example, you might be passed over for a seemingly great job opportunity, only to get a better one later. Or God may know a danger lurking in the job environment that could bring you physical or spiritual harm. Trusting in God helps us deal with this kind of suffering.
Sometimes God permits us to suffer the consequences of our behavior. If we are sexually promiscuous, we might suffer disease, broken relationships, and other problems caused by our behavior. This suffering brings about good when we change our lives and abide by God's laws.
Further, God permits us to lose things that we have come to worship above him. For example, someone who has made money his god may suffer the shame and hardship of bankruptcy. This suffering can bring about a total dependence on God and submission to his will.
God may allow suffering that has no apparent reason--a child dies, we are injured in a car accident, or a natural disaster strikes. These situations are the most difficult to understand. Yet though we do not see the reason for such suffering we know that there is one, even if it is not apparent from our limited perspective.
We are particularly vulnerable and weak when we suffer because we recognize that we are not in control. Yet it is precisely at this moment that we can become our strongest, if we learn to depend on God. Christ died to save us from the loss of heaven. He did not die to save us from suffering in this world.
Yet suffering need never be in vain. St. Paul says, "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of the body, that is the church . . . " (Col 1:24). We can join our suffering with Christ's for the sake of others. In this way suffering becomes redemptive. It is not suffering but our response to it that makes it so.


Catholic Answers Link

Right and Wrong Ways to Suffer

Pope Francis met with members of the Apostolate of the Suffering and with the Silent Workers of the Cross on Saturday in the Paul VI Hall. Among the estimated 5,000 people in attendance, about 350 people were in wheelchairs.



The two apostolic associations were founded by Blessed Luigi Novarese for evangelization by and among people with illness and disability. According to its website, the purpose of the Apostolate of the Suffering is to bring about “a complete emancipation of suffering persons, through a work of evangelization and teaching of catechism directly carried out by the handicapped”. Its activity takes place in co-operation with the Silent Workers of the Cross, an association of priests and consecrated men and women.



In his message to the associations, marking the centenary of their founder’s birth, Pope Francis stressed that there are right and wrong ways to live with pain and suffering.



“A wrong attitude is to live pain in a passive manner, letting go with inertia and resignation. Even the reaction of rebellion and rejection is not a correct attitude,” he said. “Jesus teaches us to live the pain by accepting the reality of life with trust and hope, bringing the love of God and neighbour, even in suffering: and love transforms everything.”




Pope exhorts on right and wrong way to suffer

Spiritual Combat

We are in a spiritual combat.  We are not in war with others, but ourselves.  We are sinners.  Before we attempt to take the speck out of someone else's eye, we need to take the log out of our own. 


Venerable Fulton Sheen spoke about the sword and war, but he said the sword needs to be pointed inward, not outward, and that the war is not with others, but with ourselves. The following is a quote from Bishop Sheen from a retreat he gave on St. Therese of Liseux:

We are fond of talking peace today, but all we mean by peace is lack of disturbance. Our Lord said, "I came not to bring peace." God HATES PEACE in those who are destined for war! And we are destined for war, spiritual war. We've forgotten that we're in a combat. We are in genuine combat. When our first parents were driven out of the garden of Paradise, God stationed an angel with a flaming sword, a two-edged sword that turned this way and that. Why? To keep our first parents from going back to eat of the Tree of Life and thus immortalize their evil. And the only way we can ever get back again into paradise is by having that sword run into us. It's flaming because it's love. It's two-edged because it cuts, and it penetrates. It's not the sword that's thrust outward to hack off the ear of the servant of the high priest as Peter did. It's the sword that's thrust inward to cut out all of our seven pallbearers of the soul, the pride and covetousness, lust, anger, envy, gluttony, and sloth.

In one of the recent interviews given by Pope Francis, he was asked, "Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?"  His reply: "I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner."  We must all come to the same personal realization in our own lives.  We must turn the sword of God upon ourselves.    

As far as calling out other people as sinners, I refer to the words of our Lord:  "You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye."  (Matt. 7:5).  Does this mean never denouncing the evils in society? Absolutely not. Again, quoting Bishop Sheen (from his 1932 book, Moods and Truths):

Tolerance applies only to persons, but never to principles. Intolerance applies only to principles, but never to persons. We must be tolerant to persons because they are human; we must be intolerant about principles because they are divine. We must be tolerant to the erring, because ignorance may have led them astray; but we must be intolerant to the error, because Truth is not our making, but God's. And hence the Church in her history, due reparation made, has always welcomed the heretic back into the treasury of her souls, but never his heresy into the treasury of her wisdom.