Live 4 The LORD

“To you have I committed my cause.” It is this attitude of trust in God which must sustain us in our own hour of sorrow and persecution. “A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you” (Jn 15: 20). Anyone who resolves to live according to the gospel, to defend truth, and to do good, will not be able to escape the contradiction of the same world that is opposed to Christ. And if God allows it, further sufferings and misunderstandings may be added from other sources, perhaps from good people or friends or even from family or those who are brothers in ideals. A true Christian is not scandalized; we know that the cross is an essential part of the heritage and of the following of Christ; we know that just as Christ saved us by his cross, so we enter upon the way of salvation and cooperate in the salvation of the world, by carrying our own cross. 2. “Cast all your anxieties upon him for he cares about you” (1 Pet 5-7). If we are turned back by suffering, we end up being irritated by it and being submerged in it, for we cut ourselves off from every generous impulse. But if, instead, we abandon ourselves to God, we keep our balance, and are able to think more of others than of self, and are always ready to give of self. “Resist [the devil] firm in your faith”—writes St. Peter to the persecuted Christians—“ knowing that the same experience of suffering is required of your brotherhood throughout the world” (ib. 9). The thought of the sufferings of others, perhaps greater than our own, helps us to forget ourselves, and to go beyond our personal sufferings in order to dedicate ourselves to alleviating those of others, bearing our own cross in solidarity with our suffering brothers, and especially, in conformity with Christ crucified. Yet sometimes anguish can be so deep that we are left as it overwhelmed by it. Then it helps to remember that Jesus too, in Gethsemane, was so weighed down by suffering that he sweated blood and moaned: “My heart is very sorrowful, even to death” (Mt 26: 38). Even though he was the Son of God, and was himself God, he willed to experience within himself all the fright and terror and repugnance of human nature in the face of suffering. In the mortal sadness of Christ each of us finds his own anguish and anxieties sanctified and, at the same time, finds the strength not to succumb. Taking refuge with Jesus in his prayer to the Father: “Not as I will, but as you will” (ib. 39), we resist the assaults of grief, and are not shaken or exasperated by them; filial and trusting abandonment to the will of God makes us capable of facing the most tragic situations with simplicity and even serenity, because we know that those who trust in God cannot be put to shame (cf Dan 3: 28). “After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish, and strengthen you” (1 Pet 5: 10). The tribulations of this life are always “a brief suffering” in comparison with the blessed eternity toward which the cross leads.