We commemorate many of the happy events in our lives:
anniversaries of this or that. What we
often forget, however, is the time that went before the happy event – the pain
that often helped bring it about. The
recently celebrated Christmas birth of Jesus is an example. We recall the holy scene, the shepherds and
magi visits, but we forget the pains of birth that Mary suffered --- or at
least the guys do, but her pains were there.
Mary knew that accepting the angel’s challenge to bear the Son of God was
to expect pain. And through her pains, her
life would change, as would that of the world. A great blessing came to the world, but later
would come even more pain, a crucifixion and death, before yet more change.
Change is moving forward in life, from something familiar
and comfortable, to something … else.
Moving from the baby years to the toddler years is a radical change in
freedom and self-image, but it comes with the pains of limitation; we learn we
can’t do all we want, or we shouldn’t.
The teen years are even more growth, and worse pains --- for parents AND
teens. All growth, physically or
spiritually, comes with pain. But there
is a key point to note here: change and
pain DO go together, but if change is to be a good thing, the pain comes first.
Pain comes first, but so many of us seek only joyful
changes, whether spiritual growth --- even heaven, or physical growth, such as
a new life, a new spouse, or a new job.
Be aware and do not forget this important point about all life’s
growth: if it is REAL growth, you will
have pain first.
There are all sorts of pain.
There is the pain of “my relative doesn’t love me.” There is the pain of “my husband doesn’t
understand me.” There is the pain of
“why can’t I understand this; why is this happening?” There is the pain of “why doesn’t anyone love
me.” And there are the physical pains:
aches, bruises, broken bones, and cancer.
And there are the pains of loving someone: the baby who won’t stop
crying, the teenager who can’t speak without whining, the spouse who is
suffering and needs constant attention --- CONSTANT attention, and it seems you
have no time to yourself. (Today my pain
was a mother who wouldn’t go to bed before midnight, and then was hollering at
3AM “Where’s my coffee? I want some
coffee. Etc. etc. etc. etc.”)
Pains are a part of life, some deep physical, and some deep
emotional. “With pain comes growth,” but
maybe I should have qualified that: “perhaps” there comes growth. I am sure that a baby who cries when it is
hungry or needs attention does in fact grow --- it is learning how to get attention,
yes, but it is also learning what love does.
And learning to love is one of the most important growth changes we ever
make in our life. An adult, however, who
should act the same as that baby, crying when it needs attention, that adult does
not necessarily grow. Some adults have learned
about love in a distorted way: they
think love of themselves most important, and they never get beyond that
point. But if we’ve failed to learn how
to GIVE love, then we’ve failed to learn how to live life as it was meant to be.
When I described, above, the sorts of pain there are, the
examples had one thing common in their description: they were looking for someone else to do
something for US to end our pain. Like
the baby crying, the pain was all about us.
Even if we (or I) were caring for a loved one who was in pain, our
reaction might be what a “pain” this was for US to do this caring. We understand pain all too well; it is all
too focused in our mind, but only on what it does to us. This “Why me, God?” pain is one which does
not precede change, nor growth. And if
pain can ever be eternal, this is the one pain which can be, if we let it. The world and our life were created for us –
all of us together, not only for us individually.
We either need to accept the pain and look forward to the
changes which will be coming as a result of it, like the athlete who constantly
runs or lifts weights, even in pain, to change his body into a stronger one, or
we need to accept the pain as one dying: it is unavoidable and we have faith
that there is something better coming, even if we can’t understand it. Faith is an important part of bearing pain
--- and achieving the good results from the pain. Catholics accept that pain is a participation
in the cross of Christ; we suffer so that someone else, in God’s grace, might
not have to. Perhaps the person we
accept the pain for does not possess the strength of will we do --- they can’t
get beyond being adult babies, or perhaps the person we accept pain for is a
sinner who deserves hell. We may not be
able to keep him from hell, but our suffering for him is like Christ’s, in part
it is just to console our Father in heaven, and to show Him how much we love
Him.
One of the most important ways we grow spiritually because
of pain is when we learn to love our Father, despite the pain, because we know
He never fails to love us. Even if He
permits pains to happen to us, it must be for a good reason, we believe, that somehow
we might grow. When we come to the point
that we can accept pain, even if we don’t know why it is happening, we have
grown mightily in faith, and learned the lesson of Christ. He is The Way, The Truth, and The Life. He showed us how pain was part of His way,
pain revealed His truth, and pain was part of all life, His and ours.
I’ve read many conversion stories of great spiritual
leaders, men and women, who found the Truth of the Catholic Church. Often they describe their conversion as
“coming home.” For them, the Church gave
a great comfort, but in all of their stories there was pain first. Sometimes it involved a confused or angry
family which couldn’t accept their conversion; the family could not see what
they saw. For some converts, the pain
was in the change from the familiar: at
first it seemed like they were leaving something very comfortable, unsure they
were going to a better place. And for
very many there was the challenge of faith:
can I accept some things about this new Church that I don’t understand
--- yet. Whether it was Catholic beliefs
about Mary or the pope or confession or even some trivial way something is
done, almost all converts at some time reached a sticking point that hurt to
accept: “I accept that this new faith is
good --- except that thing. I can’t
accept the teaching about ‘that thing.’”
The ones who converted did so with pain:
“I don’t believe that thing is true, but for now, I will ignore my
unbelief, accepting what I do not understand in faith.” (Surprised By The Truth, by Patrick Madrid,
has some wonderful conversion stories.)
Some people never do become converts because they can’t
accept pain in faith: “No, I can never
believe that point.” They must know and
understand every doctrine of the faith before they would convert. They won’t accept the pain of not knowing
everything. They won’t accept that faith
IS a mystery. Not accepting the pain,
they don’t accept the spiritual growth that comes with it.
Some Catholics grow away from their faith in the same
way. A point arises that they feel
uncomfortable with, and they leave. The
point they don’t agree with causes them pain, in one way or another. Often the pain is, at its heart, their
ego: I want to understand; I NEED to
understand. “The culture and my friends
disagree with my Church’s teachings and I can’t answer their questions to their
satisfaction, or mine.”
They forget that they did not design the Catholic Church, God
did. That’s a key point of faith. Any understanding of why things are as they
are must come from God’s viewpoint, not theirs.
He revealed, through Jesus and the prophets and saints much about why He
did things, but we’ll never fully understand the mind of God in this life. But what we can do --- but so often don’t ---
is try to see things through His eyes.
“I don’t understand why this doctrine exists, or why that
action is called a sin.” It is proper
for us to ask ourselves questions about our faith, for faith and reason do go
together, but then we must also ask: “I wonder why God thinks this is so.” Very often we can find answers (if we search)
of why He set things as He did; the catechism explains things well. Often, however, it is a bigger picture thing
than just “what we want.” Some things
are set in all of creation; they were made that way so the beautiful painting
of creation blends together, from God’s view.
If we wish to change the pattern or color of just our little corner of
creation, to suit what we want or what we understand, the whole picture may
suffer. Some things, especially those
which occur over long periods of time, were designed by God in ways we will
never understand in this life. We need
to accept them though, as taught by the Church, in faith.
Sometimes we can look back and see where God let painful
things happen, like the Jews in slavery for 400 years, so that a great good
might come forth. After the pain, the
change was a blessing, but without the pain the Jews might never have accepted
the blessing, and surely along the way they could never have imagined the great
plans God had for them. More recently, I
think the Church’s teaching on the value of life and contraception may be an
example of how we sought change and good things for ourselves, without pain.
Long taught as a sin against God, many men became confused
(from their viewpoint) about the prohibition against contraception, and so in
the 1930’s change came to many churches, the churches in effect saying: “We
were wrong; it really isn’t a sin. We
don’t understand why ‘the Catholic Church’ said it was.” Many churches changed (but the Catholic
Church didn’t). They thought life (and
perhaps their relationship with God?) would be better “if there weren’t so many
rules,” if there weren’t so many pains to go through before heaven. “God loves us and doesn’t want us to have
pain.”
Doesn’t want? Yes,
but permits? Yes, also.
Popes have explained more vehemently since then that
contraception does not fit with God’s plan of creation, and to embrace it would
distort His picture, His plan of creation --- and we might expect to see
evidence of this over time. Now, many
years later, we can see much of what the popes had predicted: from contraception (for man’s convenience and
pleasure, not God’s) came a decline in the value of children (and women), from
which came abortion, from which came tests in order to abort man’s definition
of “less than perfect” children, from which came euthanasia for less than
perfect adults, all of which are flowing into a greater stream of thinking:
“what I want matters foremost, not God.
My will be done, not His.”
With life no longer sacred, then the fall of the sanctity
and purpose of marriage (focused on life) almost seems natural, from marriage being
of a man and a woman, to ANY person I want, and then in the future likely to
any PEOPLE I want, and then perhaps even to animals. “I define the value and use of life, MY LIFE,
not God,” seems to be the growing claim of many people.
I want pleasure and happiness now --- without any pain.
But this is not the picture of creation God made. Avoiding pain, seeking pleasure without it,
is a major rejection of God’s plan. He
could have just PUT us in heaven if we were not meant to have any pain. Athletes summarize how much they value pain:
“No pain; no gain.”
So many people have forgotten we are all in a race, like
athletes, to heaven. They think heaven
can either be had now, here on earth, or be literally handed to us later
“because we want it.” And should God
tell them at the end of their lives that they were mistaken in their choices
for happiness on earth above all else, I don’t believe that their response to
God of “Gee, I didn’t know that” will be an acceptable answer. God Himself became man and chose pain, at all
costs. I don’t think He will be happy
with our avoiding it at all costs.
These eight days after Christmas, in the Church we celebrate
what is called the Octave of Christmas, and the feast days of many of the first
martyrs, starting with St. Stephen’s feast day on December 26. Some say St. Stephen got his revenge on Saul,
who helped stone him, because as he lay dying Stephen prayed to God for Saul’s forgiveness. Eventually, after he was thrown off a horse
and blinded (pain), Saul did change.
Jesus came to bring life, eternal life, through His chosen
pains. These days of The Octave of
Christmas serve to remind us: before
eternal happiness, there will be pain.
And this is a part of the life He created, and it was good.
- -
- - - - - -
“One of the most important things in the spiritual life is
to understand well the close relationship between love and sacrifice. … Frequently one has an inexact concept of
love. It (the soul) does not understand
that in this life, to love is to suffer, that on this earth, the eternal symbol
of love is the cross of Christ…. When we come to understand that perfection
consists in love, and that this love is attained, conserved, and consummated
only by sacrifice, then we have found the path of sanctity.
There is one difference between the heaven of time and the
heaven of eternity. No one will suffer
in the latter. Here, suffering
abounds. Is the value of suffering
understood? Is its excellence
esteemed? Is its beauty known? The only thing that the angels would envy us,
if they were capable of envy, would be suffering. God fell in love with this precious pearl
hidden among life’s miseries. He loved
it, came and died from it. The angels
cannot say to God: ‘I love you even to sacrifice, even to death.’ Only human beings can taste the delicacy of
that phrase.”
--- Secrets of the Spirit, by Luis Martinez pp 19-22
--- Secrets of the Spirit, by Luis Martinez pp 19-22
