Our Mission Series, The Coming of Jesus is the Good News of Joy and Hope/Chapter 8: - C The Cross of Temporal Suffering With Christ, An Essential Element in the Earthly Kingdom of Christ

Chapter 8-C: The Cross of Temporal Suffering with Christ,

An Essential Element in the Earthly Kingdom of Christ

Human Suffering To The Christian Believers, and to the Unbelievers: In Following Christ, He Demands Absolute Detachment from Everything of This World, Our Taking Up of Our Cross, and Our Actual Following of Him.

    "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" The words of the God-man Jesus crying out to God the Father during the summit of His crucifixion pain, sorrow, heartaches, and perceived moment of near death. The man Jesus truly suffered, and really knew first hand exactly what it was to suffer. Moments previously before they began to lay hand on Him, as He was aware of His destiny to suffer, Jesus also said words revealing His desire to skip the ignominious and excruciating personal and physical ordeal of pain and violent death foresight. He said, "Father, you have the power to do all things. Take this cup (sacrifice of death at Calvary to the Father for the sins of men) away from me. But let it be as you would have it, not as I." Mark 14:36 Here, too, we see Jesus as a man wanting to be spared the Father's will for Him to undergo the sure and real pain He knew was awaiting Him. Before, and after the actual suffering, Jesus as a man resented the crucifixion ordeal and pain. And that the actual pain was unspeakably excruciating has been revealed most evidently by the indelible marks of suffering expressed by the face of Jesus as recorded in the historically preserved Shroud of Turin. At issue here is not if Jesus accepted to suffer for our human sinfulness but HOW, and HOW MUCH He suffered the pain. And we are saying that our Lord irrevocably underwent the extraordinary pain of the Cross.

Jesus' experience of suffering was real. It was, as an aspect of His Passion and Death, a hardest human experience even for our Lord. But Jesus embraced it because it is only this way by which He could accomplish His mission of Salvation of mankind where He shall be served as the Lamb Sacrifice to the Father for human sinfulness. As we already explained, His suffering was a central part of Jesus' Incarnation, death, and resurrection. And He fulfilled this earthly 'act' literally and completely. Nobody could ever merely allegorize or symbolize the Lord's going through the act of physical, emotional, and mental suffering on the Cross. He did suffer! And He cried suffering because of the total pain and sadness that came along with the complete act.  We have to recognize, however, the FACT within the Divine Plan of Salvation that the Heavenly Father did indeed leave His Son to die on the Cross, (did Himself suffer letting go of His Son on the Cross), to let us, the people of God, acknowledge the Father's ultimate price for saving mankind: He did offer up His Son as expiation, as THE oblation by His Son, because of His love for us, mankind.  "For God so loves the world that He sends His only begotten Son that we may have the eternal life with Him!"  And, thus, as well, both the Father and the Lord Jesus willed it thus being so.  Implicitly it may seem like the Father neglected Jesus, and that the holy Son was resentful of the Holy Father; but it is not so.  Within the mystery of salvation what is meant here is God's great loving act for man: both the Heavenly Father's love, and the Heavenly Son's love. 

And what Jesus underwent, each and every man is going to have to undergo. Jesus tried to refuse it so its natural we are going to want to refuse to suffer. Jesus went through it. And according to Him, if we are to be His true disciples, we have to go through our crosses, or our own types of suffering in life. And as Jesus cried as He suffered, we are going to cry going through our suffering. Though we have to deny ourselves and take up our crosses according as destiny and particular life calling asked of us; nonetheless God has not called us all for martyrdom.  His only requisite is that our will be in accord with the will of the Father.  And as humans we already know what it is to suffer. But if Jesus, the God-man had to suffer, how much more appropriate it is for us human beings that we suffer. As God, Jesus is above suffering; whereas we as mere creatures are necessarily involved with suffering in so far as we are born lacking and insufficient. We are not to suffer all the time, and we shall have God's dispensation of relief over time.  But we have to suffer anyway. It is a fact of life. Whether we like it or not, in varying degrees we have to suffer in life! We have previously, in the earlier Chapter 4, done a basic description of inevitable hardships or suffering every human being is saddled with, and has to put up with in the worldly living.  Here we are going to elaborate further on these varied types of suffering which ones or others have burdened these or those individual human beings. 

Directly or indirectly these examples of suffering are results and manifestations of the sinful man. And when the suffering is indeed directly the result of a sinful act like aids, gonorrhea, incarceration or any trouble with the law, most abortions, criminal convictions due to falsification of documents, stealing and robbery, assault and abuse of someone, or any other criminal act, then the suffering is more painful. Such an individual is pained by both the punishment and the guilt of the act. And indeed, oftentimes, our suffering is the result of our own doing, whether individually or collectively. At other times, they are caused directly by our fellow human beings even if without any fault of ours. And then also at other times it is caused simply by our being members of the imperfect creations: our predicament of human shortcoming. I.e. we are imperfect beings; and our world is an imperfect world. Nothing will seem to be right ever; and nothing will seem to be enough ever. We just have to suffer having to put up with our imperfections.

Let us imagine the following scenarios of concrete human suffering. You have grown cozy to your home of many years. You have made your home your kind of 'palace'; all over the house are marks of your personal touches, and all involving no insignificant money outlay. Into this home you have put precious hard earned out-of-pocket money as your sole investment. You have loved your house; and you do not imagine your family except in the unique environment of your house. Then all of sudden, because of some financial disaster, you are very close to losing your home. You want to tell your family they are not going to lose their home. You want to tell yourself you have a way of saving your home. Yet the facts keep glaring before your eyes how seemingly insurmountable the conditions in order to hurdle through your financial disaster. It is seriously threatening your home ownership. Imagine the days and nights they preoccupied your heart and mind with only the thoughts that your home was likely gone, and that you are at the end of the rope trying hard yet to be on top of the financial fiasco you're in. Ultimately, imagine the moral effect of the problem on your thinking, spiritual and prayer life, and on your personal faith! You feared you have offended God so badly it seems He is cutting you off His Providential care. You are now forsaken by God; and sooner afterwards you will find yourself abandoned also by your friends, and even maybe by your relations. You see them looking down on your misfortune. Now deprived of your home; now "an outcast" from their "select" company and "friendship"!

Consider another scenario. All your life you have been blessed with good jobs, and along with them good income. You always have been able to provide for your family; seemingly everything the family wanted. Nice house, nice cars, (and more than a couple of them; all in good shape, and running), all the appliances, all the latest fancy home equipment and entertainment gadgets, yearly vacation, parties with friends, etc.. Then, you lost your job; somehow you had become dispensable to your company. And whereas the limelight of your life has passed you now; deep-cut competition has put you out of the leverages; now you are a spent hard worker faced with the reality of being permanently out of a job. Now you are preoccupied losing the old fancy and happy go lucky lifestyle that you and your family had grown accustomed to. All of a sudden the goals of complete provision for the kids' college graduation are getting obscure. The forced predicament of belt tightening all the way across your buying and spending habits seemed a tough pill to swallow. Every single dollar seemed to have to be watched to make ends meet. And with the job gone, so did your company benefits of health insurance coverage, and pension entitlements. This time you are on your own having to shoulder expensive out of pocket costs of possible major sickness or hospitalization eventuality for the family.

The above two scenarios are an illustration of real life suffering. This is that human condition where we are confronted with the precariousness of human material living. Now you are in control; later you are not. This may not seem as dire as the problems of people living in the squatters; but when you have become acclimated to a lifestyle of abundance and are suddenly poor, the squatter people might be less troubled and unsettled as you are. (This is not to say that living in the squatter environment is a commendable state; and that the squatter residents do not deserve betterment in life. Some of them probably stepped up financially; and are already living under much more humane living conditions. But this is not the issue here.) Our issue is that suffering comes to any walk of life. The variety of suffering differs in different people or individuals. Another example of a painful suffering is the loss of your loved ones at their prime age. The loss of loved, cherished one at any age at any time is always painful. Especially if you have depended upon him/her emotionally or spiritually; not to include financially as this aspect of suffering has been alluded to already above. Then there is the suffering of and by the very sick people, especially by those without any means to pay for medical services they need, or to even just buy medicines to stop the pain. Then the terminally diagnosed sick patients: how could they accept the sure imminent end of their lives? Not to mention, how to cope with the usually accompanying great physical pain of their sickness?

At the beginning of these series in this site I enumerated a longer list of pains or heartaches that could befall different individuals. In whatever scenario we find ourselves relating to the constant thing about the differing scenarios is the reality of suffering? If it does not now seem to appear to you or to some people yet its face and reality will surely show up at some stage of your life. Some people, actually, try to camouflage or apply cosmetics to hide its presence. But that's an extra way they deal with its reality. A friend said, "No pain, no gain!" One inference from this is that one precedes the other. And it is a natural order that indeed after some pain, there is some gain. Even Saint Paul kind of prescribed: "No work, no eat!" He was chiding some individuals who professed to be Christians but who just depended upon their friends for their daily subsistence. And Saint Paul was so categorical at stating that if some of their fellow Christians did not want to work that they may not allow him to eat of their food. Sounded unchristian, but probably the context and intent of Saint Paul's statement was exactly just to reprimand the individuals concerned to get them to work and not be lazy. But in most cases, without necessarily invalidating the role and effectiveness of grace, unless a human act involves his free act of participation to pursue the good or to avoid the bad, the human act is in no way a productive act. In all likelihood, it is only a conformist activity and without any character behind it. It is a reflection of God's image that we have freedom that we act because we will it, we want it. And whether we are talking about the fundamental stewardship God placed man over all of creations, or about the more primary call of God to mankind to accept and perform works for salvation there is necessarily the aspect of man's making the response activity, which is oftentimes not easy and not cozy to man's nature and free faculties. Invariably it will involve a pain, a struggle, or direct suffering. Morally speaking, man is prone to sin because of his concupiscence. It is obviously a struggle each time to battle against the tendencies of human concupiscence, whether against physical desires or mental/emotional pleasures. Unless man freely through grace overcomes the illicit desires or pleasures, he/she will not attain the liberation of his spirit, he/she will remain under the dominance of his/her base elements. Hence, as we inescapably have to go through the ordeal anyway, let our pain get to yield some gain anyhow.

Now as we specifically talk about real pain or human suffering, even including self- caused suffering, like a sinful orientation, some sinful habits or practices, or an outright sinful lifestyle, we should aim and try to elevate our suffering as some participating or incorporating of it with Christ's suffering.  So that aside from the very essentially shared atoning sacrificing with Christ to the Father, we try every possibility to harness our suffering experience to produce for us and for others some gain or positive results. And more importantly, no matter how bad our situation or our actions had been, no matter what sins we had committed, for as long as we do not reject our faith in God, our situation, our actions, or our sins might yet bring us to the closest union with God; (and if it were our moment of death, by the work of grace,) the union with him in that special place: heaven. Remember the event of the "good thief"? Being condemned to a death of the cross indicated he was by law guilty of worst crimes. At that moment of his life he was completely lost. But it only took his most humble acknowledgement of his sinfulness, and his kindest compassion to the victimized Jesus, and that day God embraced him to the glory of the Heavens. In many cases, we got into suffering that is completely of our own making. And when we knew we did, shouldn't it be proper for us and for our own sake at least spiritually to be sorrowful about it, and leave our fate to the Almighty? Surely, we would be committing the act of double jeopardy to knowingly ruin our earthly 'righteousness', (i.e. man's sense of, and need for moral security), if we yet stubbornly knowingly blow our already imperiled chance in the hereafter! It has been said that many death row inmates that were executed died fully remorseful of the heinous crimes they had committed, and died showing some signs of peace with God. It has been by the grace of God that they did; yet from the logical perspective what else could be their choice?

However, there are suffering which some people claim to be not completely of their own making. Some suffering is a result of people, events, and factors beyond the control of certain individuals caught as they say between the devil and the deep blue sea. These individuals loudly complained they did not have the complete free choice why they did what evil they did! Criminality committed by individuals who, throughout most of their lives lived an abused life is supposedly one example of this. They never learned what was it to be innocent, to receive attention and affection without having to 'bribe about it', to understand legitimate praise and reward for honesty and effort. What they imbibed early on was the raw deal; and how they interact with others and the society basically is influenced by this. Thus when they got their chances at a higher stakes, they not only blew their chances, and the chances even got them into even bigger mess. They were just not prepared to handle themselves through their life's only opportunity break that was either very risk laden favors or very delicately dressed up temptations. And chances were, their break only turned south and sour. How so often did 'normal society' or 'normal people' screamed in chorus about these marginalized individuals with prior stereotyping statements like, "If I were you, I would not trust these type of people...", and later with condescending words like, "I told you so; nothing good was going to come out of these type of people... ". Up front, these individuals are demoralized from ever doing well. Then immediately after failure, they are summarily dismissed as hopelessly incapable of any good. Hence, the story of the lives of these socially marginalized individuals is a script of a series of mess ups and downfalls, including criminal entanglements down through the end of their lives. Yet the Lord said His Kingdom will be filled with whores and prostitutes, robbers and thieves, and all other dishonorable members of the society who have by the end of their lives found God; unlike those who are high minded, and very knowledgeable, but are lacking in humble acknowledgement of themselves before the eyes of God. The key here is the fact that people who suffered much knew nothing anymore except beg the Lord for help to acknowledge their misery and helplessness.

On the other hand, those who are given many customary accolades as self-made men/women are grown accustomed to self-righteousness. They have forgotten righteousness is a gift from God. In the process their good living and life of ease has blinded them of their acute need for God. Their art of covering up of suffering only got them so attached to the good stuff of the earth. The meaning of their life merely revolves around objectives and 'missions' of preserving these earthly goods and values. They have been deceived to believe in themselves as 'earth liberators' on their own. With them what has become more important is their agenda of how the world and the society can, at all cost as even to the necessary disregard for morals, be of utmost usefulness, or can be productive of the utmost freedom for world inhabitants, i.e., for them men, who claim to be specially favored animal species. If some moral commands are in the way, these are to be put aside if not completely discarded. Their precept of human and social equities is supreme. Moral laws, and therefore God's laws have become secondary particularly if God's laws are inconvenient for civic leaders staying in power. Under this social environment, suffering among its members is to be forcibly eliminated if it inconveniences some social objective or if it appears to obstruct so called progress or some social profit, albeit great business profitability.  Under this context, some would favor, rather, to sacrifice some individual sufferings for others' convenience or preferred choices.  A minority's suffering is expendable to save the majority's suffering.  Moreover, some aim and work to literally discard obvious suffering, and absolutely rid the suffering, particularly of the handicapped or the very aged supposedly as some compassionate ending of their misery. The culture of such a society is precisely that suffering is an absolute evil.  Human life essentially is to be freed from suffering at any cost. And whereas we stated above that suffering is a natural fate, one phase of human existence; these 'self-liberators' of the world want to redefine human nature and human existence by their desire and scheme to 'outlaw' suffering. This is arrogating to themselves a function that is supra-human. On two counts, this is an exercise of self-deception, and this is an exercise of futility as human suffering will never disappear till the transformation of the new earth and the new heaven during the end-times, and only by the execution of Divine Salvation and Providence.

(The following Is a Special Case Treatment of some Severe Occasions of Life Suffering:

In reference, thus, to the terminally ill, for instance, in contrast to whatsoever these 'self-liberators' attempt to do, their illness serves as a way of their finding God before the end of their life. It becomes an opportune venue for human spiritual cleansing and purification in anticipation of the union with the All Pure and Worthy God. For that is the way with incurable illness suffering. It is an ultimate opportunity to encounter God in preparation for union with Him in Heaven. Thus, for every human being, who is in a state of suffering in one form or another, the moment or the period of prolonged suffering is necessarily an opportunity to encounter God if before he/she had not by any means known God, or had in the past had eluded hearing or learning about his personal God.

This is particularly true for many old people in the convalescent homes. While the call of charity and compassion demand that they not be forgotten to their solitariness in those care homes, on the other hand by the set purposes and provisions of these convalescent homes they are supposed to be institutional help to families for the better monitored care of the aged in so far as their supposed caregiver adult children are mostly away most of the time into their jobs. Understandably, these aged people end up being so all alone, and lonesome in these care homes. Yet again, being alone most of the time is their opportunity to be alone with God for most of their time. And whereas Saint Paul says we are to pray without ceasing, this is a golden institutional period of time to be able to pray all day, and all night, to be alone with God all day and all night. Although loneliness is never easy; loneliness is these people's toughest suffering, especially during the Holidays when they remember their many years and moments of the togetherness with their families during the Holidays. Their loneliness when offered to God itself serves as their most effective prayer.

Moreover, consider also the suffering of the imprisoned. People in prison inescapably suffer the most. One or a couple of fatal mistakes and they have become cloistered nearly for good against their choices. Their future is practically finished. They are forever branded by their immediate past mistake. And by all count of conventional estimate or, rather by all measures of lack in social & personal civility & dignity their present life is a life in "hell". Emotionally, mentally, and spiritually the life of the prison inmate is a life the society might consider a life in the dumps. They are dishonorable; they are to be feared; and they are 'hopeless' people. Presumably, by no means might they have any meaning for daily existence. Inwardly, thus, they are likely always troubled; and outwardly in relation to fellow inmates, each one is under the menace of the other's violent disregard for other inmates. Since they might think they are all expendable, each one would not have second thought if he/she found it expedient to harm, even kill another fellow inmate. Very easily, their environment could succumb to the orientation of "survival of the fittest", where each one is pitted against each other if expediency becomes the motive yesterday, today, or tomorrow. And whereas it was a serious mistake that cost them their freedom, more likely fatal mistakes could cost them their physical lives inside. Thus, it would seem easy to think prisoners are obviously already condemned to forever meaninglessness, and despair. As it is, surely, some sheer and absolute suffering of the highest kind. Yet we began this site with the message of freedom to everyone in bondage. And to these very unfortunate people in gravest human bondage Christ's message of freedom is most true! But at the same time it is obviously from them that God gives the call for greatest suffering. They are to suffer their loss of social freedom; yet the truth, if they believe and embrace it, shall make them free! After they made their initial serious fatal mistake they had found out they no longer have anything to prove to others. Their attempt to do it cost them their freedom. They knew better now that getting physical with other inmates to the point of violence would not mean anything anymore; and so they have no more reason whatsoever to entertain any provocation of violence. It did not do them any good then; it will not do them any good now. And if by the will of God an inmate becomes victim of violence by other inmates, it will not be their gain, and it will not be his/her loss. It will only transport him/her to the freedom hereafter. Made aware of this wisdom and prudence an inmate, like the convalescent aged person has only the total opportunity to prolonged 24 hour of being prayerful to God, as well as the total opportunity to proclaim and witness to his/her newly found God. But this type of spiritual realization comes only through faith.  Man, especially under this darkest of circumstances, must be disposed to the innermost and most truthful prompting of the Divine Spirit by grace.  That split second abandonment in trust to the Lord might be God's last call upon the particular remorseful soul inside that cage run most afoul by the heinous of all devils.  For in a place that looks like hell but is not hell yet converted inmates are God's best messenger of salvation to other inmates, who will be willing to a change of their heart, and ways. What we call the toughest suffering might be the highest call of mission for some blessed individuals inside prison.  The reality is inside prison, or any places/institutions, which are run remorseless of protecting basic human rights, as like in some prisons, circumstances and situations will sadly easily lurk where hapless individuals find themselves easy "wolves' preys" .. Ready to be devoured” and where precisely without inside recourse, only find themselves cast out by or at the mercy of everyone also fighting it out to survive.  In such places, nowhere do they find any relief or mitigation of fear, pain or hurting of any type.  They shall be confronted by the reality akin to the experience of our Lord himself, who would look around people and could find no such nest -- safe from wolves -- and, free from shameless professed beggars of favors, finding nowhere for their moment of rest of body or of the soul.)  

And so we repeat one more time, how, ultimately, the real act of suffering is the act, or the many, and repeated acts of self-denial. The examples above are illustrations of this tough character of suffering.  The hardest thing for a man to do is to deny him, or to be denied of things he wants so bad, specifically things most basically needed in his existence or survival, and safe and no-uncomfortable existence and survival. And whereas this is the ultimate call of God to every human being; self-denial is the toughest suffering every human being is to bear. Christ spoke of self-denial along with man's carrying of his cross. Together, self-denial is initially where every man begins to carry his cross, and ultimately where he/she crucifies himself/herself. In actuality, self-denial will involve the act of self-denial in relation to other people that come along his/her way. But it is his decision to completely surrender of himself/herself to the will of God in relation to others that he gets to love God, and be in union with God. Only this discovery or encounter with God and his Divine pleasure that ultimately paralyzes the pain of human suffering, or that ultimately can terminate the most painful human ordeal and suffering.  As suffering is the effect of the supernatural ofense against God, it cannot but need or require some supernatural power in order to bear it or go through it with the least pain and hardship.In surface, though this may seem like some profoundest human and psychological experience, in reality it consists of the Divine call to the share of Christ's Passion and Death, which as vindicated by Christ's resurrection, can only, thus, be offset and be triumphed over by the graces from the Divine Paschal Mystery of Christ's over-all work of salvation, this negative moment of fate (and, of course, of faith), that is being made that ultimate act of grace whereby man finally begins that heavenly experience of being born into the new life empowered by Christ's resurrection.  And to such an individual through his full faith acceptance of his suffering as entrusted to God is given a new humanity which rises from his dying out of the old sinful self by the power of Christ's death and resurrection.  Notwithstanding the myriad of examples of seemingly prevalent and pervasive presence of suffering, in ultimate reality, this is the essence of suffering: to find and to arrive and to accept the final embracing of the will of God, man gets into seemingly endless initiation experiences, learning and testing life events of pain and anguish, deprivation and discomforts as ways of self denials or self abandonment to discover and acquiesce to the will of God.  It is, thus, this sense of suffering revealed by grace suffering which transformed many a believer.  It is all these, which enable some individuals the awaiting of the infusion of grace and final acceptance by faith, trust, and love all through living and dying of God's salvation mystery of spiritual rising from death to the new life of grace.  It is in this sense that the act of suffering is and will be a negative activity and experience for all human lives.  Most providentially expediently, suffering through life till death becomes for some the instrument of penance, cleansing, purification, and sanctification for human beings on their way to God and salvation.

Now, whatever kind of suffering we are saddled with, whether only internally or externally, panacea attempts by some people yet wanting, nonetheless, to escape it in order to try to neutralize it will not produce any real good, even if they be just some very short-lived and quickly fleeting moments of relief.  One thing, it will surely change your personality; it is going to show in your face, your all-time moods, and in your loathsome ways of dealing with people, or with your work.  In the long end, and even in the short end, you are ever without peace.

As a conclusion and recapitulation, the fact of the matter is that it is only proper that we suffer in imitation of both Jesus' obedience and acceptance of his Paschal Mystery's sacrificial and atonement suffering. Our suffering, then, ceases being mere human and worldly fate; it get's transformed as a suffering participation with the Lord's mission of Redemption/Ransoming of sinners.  And as a participatory ransoming act/atonement act to the Father with THE Savior Jesus our suffering becomes our faith-act of conversion or total following of Jesus, and it also becomes an incorporated co-redeeming act with Jesus in his total work of salvation of man. In so doing, our little act of faith and love becomes united with the magnanimous Divine act of faith and love of Jesus for the Father; and becomes part and parcel of the Divine and Immeasurable Deposit of graces Jesus has filled up with believers for the mysterious dispensation by the Church to all in need of being saved. (The Infinite graces of Jesus do not need to be increased by the human merits merited precisely through grace; yet the Infinite Deposit of Graces accepts the uniting of the individual merits of graces. After all, from the human perspective why shall we limit the immensity of the Infinite Graces if "it" has not, in eternity, already accepted as part and parcel of its "immensity" the divinely foreseen inclusion of our grace laden individual human merits?) 

Thus, it is in so far as our suffering is united with the suffering of our Lord that our suffering could ever make any sense whatsoever. Apart from the Most Meritorious Act of Sacrifice of the Lord, any appearance of heroism, bravery, or even martyrdom in our act of suffering is bound to be just a vain act. And especially if our suffering involves our evident sinfulness, both inwardly and outwardly, our suffering only convicts us of our condemnation. But together with Jesus, no matter how unworthy the looks of our pain and misery, through the grace of Christ, our unworthy acts of suffering are converted into opportune human offerings incorporated with His grace. Its blemished human characteristics are transformed by Jesus' Divine Human attributes, which make our personal offering worthy offering.

Continuing to recap this part one topic on suffering, this is what happened each time we suffer in union with the Lord.  Our suffering becomes meaningful, sublime, and meritoriously worthwhile for our soul, and for other souls, especially those in need. It is in this sense that we could say just as the Father loves us by giving us His Son, so we efficaciously love others by giving them something of ourselves: our suffering. But we make sure it is a suffering we offer with and in union with that of Christ. This way no suffering of ours will have been wasted; no suffering of ours would pass as mere human life torture or predicament, an alleged 'masochism' Christians are accused of regarding Christian suffering. Whereas, indeed, every each time we suffer is a golden opportunity of greater union with God. And so from being a human disgrace the suffering becomes a divine stuff.  And instead of a curse that pulls man down into despair, it has transformed into a power that elevates the believing man up into the holy, sublime and divine state of the welcoming peace of God.

Nevertheless, suffering will remain to look and appear as such: suffering, i.e. an unfortunate human condition of living; except it has a new, and a supernatural aspect about it, namely, as a supreme instrument and sacrament of God's holy grace. It will always make people look miserable especially in the eyes of the world.  But by it and through it, united with the sacrificial suffering of Christ, is transmitted divine fragrance by the sufferer to people around him/her; and bestows the sufferer spiritual splendor before the eyes of the Saints and Angels, and of God.  

One particular magnificent point was the fact of how suffering could be borne, or endured particularly with respect to the sufferings by the martyrs, number one of which was the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Imagine and fathom, if you may, how did Jesus endure His suffering from His passion and death, and inclusively, how did the martyrs put up, and even could happily, as it were, smilingly endure their martyrdom like St. Stephen did?  How did he, St. Stephen accept his torture by the persecutors with apparent full peace and tranquility?  The answers to these can be implied from the ensuing event that happened to St. Stephen: he saw Heaven opened, that is: he saw the full glory and splendor of Heaven, and particularly saw Jesus Christ Himself seated on His throne in Heaven.  And so these sorts of things must be what transpire during moments of martyrdom by martyrs, and during the moments of Jesus’ crucifixion: at that moment this inexplicable miraculous taking over of the glory of Heaven, of the glory of martyrdom, and of the sacrificial dying producing the energy and power by which the martyrs like Jesus, bear, carry on, and endure no matter what kind of pain and ache, or discomforts the suffering do to them martyrs all, or even to our Lord Jesus; hence, this is the wonder of the supernatural power that converts or changes, like we have surmised in some general fashion in our discussion of holy suffering, where what is very negatively apparent is being seen, but the underpinning and undercurrent through it all are the more pervading and overpowering, perhaps sweetening ardor of Divine energy, joy and peace!