Through Suffering and Resurrection Christ presents New Life to us - Part Two

Through Suffering and Resurrection Christ presents New Life to us: - Part Two

In the past we have explored the thought of how suffering is an essential mode of becoming a realistic participant in the life that Jesus took upon himself.  The one challenge we all must endure to become just as our Lord, Jesus Christ, is to accept the very obstacle to inner peace is suffering.

The past 40 days we took upon ourselves by way of sacrifice, prayer, and giving alms to the needy were essential in preparing our souls for an empty participation in answering the understanding of the Passion of Christ.  But now, it is time to take what has become the Truth that he spoke to Pilate about and begin living the eternal entity of reaching those who have not yet received the message of the Cross.

Yet, I, like a trusting lamb led to the slaughter, had not realized that they were hatching plots against me: “Let us destroy the tree in its vigor; let us cut him off from the land of the living, so that his name will be spoken no more.”   But,  you, O Lord of hosts, O just Judge, searcher of mind and heart, Let me witness the vengeance you take on them, for to you I have entrusted my cause!   (Jer 11: 19 - 20).

We may question why there is suffering that comes through evil, and those of us must also accept the evil that sin creates.  When we question why with suffering; our answer is found in the tenacious manner we will work to allow the choice of holiness to become a reality as One with God, For God, and Of God.  

As written before, we cannot find what Christ died for through Crucifixion unless we find our own salvation which can only occur with personal suffering.  When Christ rose from the sleep of death the results are our belief in why he became Incarnated, assuming humanity and setting the stage for all of us to follow.  Here is where we as individuals must open our closed minds and be ready to become a martyr even in our belief of the cross in our lives.  

When believers also accept the reason for personal suffering, the sign of purity for souls will also become the only sign that future souls will find as the example that they need for their walk of faith in the eternal existence that awaits all of us. 

Liturgical catechesis aims to initiate people into the mystery of Christ (it is “mystagogy.”) by proceeding from the visible to the invisible, from the sign to the thing signified, from the “sacraments” to the “mysteries.”  Such catechesis is to be presented by local and regional catechisms.  This Catechism, which aims to serve the whole Church in all the diversity of her rites and cultures, will present what is fundamental and common to the whole Church in the liturgy as mystery and as celebration, and then the seven sacraments and the sacramentals.  (CCC 1075).

Ralph B. Hathaway