I Am Well in My Suffering.

What does it mean to actually “suffer well”? Yes, we can unite our sufferings and trials to Christ’s Passion, as we should, but how do we know what that looks like?

Especially those who were raised as Catholics from birth, the familiar phrase “offer it up” or “unite your sufferings to Christ” rings all too well throughout our lives. But do we really know the depth of those phrases that seem like a cliché Catholic thing to say?

 
That is one reason why we look to the saints for guidance. Carlo Acutis, who died in 2006 at the age of 15 from leukemia, knew that “the infinite is our homeland.” He suffered well, we might say, in his illness. His joy and hope in Christ never left him, so much so that it has brought millions of people to Christ over the years following his death. His body is now incorrupt and displayed for thousands of pilgrims to pray with. But which is the true question: Did he suffer well? Or was he well in his suffering?

Reflections throughout this Lenten season, especially leading up to Carlo’s canonization on Divine Mercy Sunday, brought me to the conclusion that Christ is asking us not only to suffer well but, even more so, to be well in our suffering. For that was the disposition of His own Sacred Heart when facing His Passion and Death on the Cross. Yes, the reality was before Him in the Garden, His Agony was real and deep. He even asked the Father to “take this cup away from Me.” And as we know, He added “Not My will but Yours be done.” Then an angel ministered to Him to strengthen Him. (Luke 22:42-44) It is because HE went through the most horrible sufferings, it is because HE was “obedient to the Father even unto death” (Phil. 2:8) that we, who remain succumbed to the fallen state of human nature, can offer and unite our sufferings to HIM and, through HIM, glorify the Father.

As Christians and Catholic, we are asked to endure sufferings of this world for His sake and for the sake of the Kingdom of God. Indeed, that is the surest way of the path to holiness. But it doesn’t stop there. Not only are we able to “suffer well” by keeping our eyes on Christ in love and obedience, but we are able to actually be well in our sufferings. This does not diminish the pain and amount of seemingly impossible endurance! By no means! But it is a disposition of the mind and heart that is formed though years of great sufferings which lead us to be able to truly say “I am well in my suffering”. Our hope is in Christ Himself, in His Resurrection and the Resurrection of our bodies which He has promised in the end of times. “Glance at your problems; gaze at your Savior,” as a dear friend, Elise Angelette, once said in her recent journey and eventual death from cancer. So rather than doing things in order to suffer well, putting a frustrating pressure of grace on ourselves (which is impossible), being well in suffering brings the mind to a more passive stance of reception, joyfully accepting the trials in knowledge that God is right there, along with the saints, walking through them with you. Grace is given, not taken or earned. Simply given.

So what does it mean to say “I am well in my suffering”? Accepted suffering and full surrender to the love God are two key elements, but it also consists in living with our minds and hearts “in the infinite", as Carlo Acutis emphasized. I am well in my suffering, for it brings me ever closer to the Feet of our Beloved Jesus.