The self-gift of suffering

The topic of suffering has been coming up in the past couple of days in various conversations and experiences, so I figure it's a timely one to mention here. Back in the day we used to hear, "Offer it up!" to the point that I felt it nauseating. But in the last year I came to see suffering as something beautiful.

Our suffering, whether physical, emotional, mental or spiritual, can be offered to God as a gift. John Paul II wrote in On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering that suffering opens us to God and to others. We can have two responses to suffering -- either withdrawing more deeply into ourselves in self-centeredness, or allowing the suffering to draw us closer to God and others.

When we visualize our suffering as a gift, which we offer to God, then we can surrender it to Him to become the fertilizer for the seeds God has already planted. Perhaps the fruit will be born in our own lives, or that of friends. Perhaps the fruit will be unseen. Perhaps someone across the globe will benefit from the gift of suffering that we have offered to the Lord.

The world sees suffering as an evil to be avoided at all costs. With Christ, we can see suffering as an opportunity for God to transform the world by leading us all closer to Him. When we give Him our disappointments, discouragement, doubt, loneliness, physical pain, and broken hearts, He can receive our self-gift to serve others in ways we could never imagine.

One inspiring story of this love-transformed suffering is found in Fr. Patrick Rager, a priest of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, who offered the suffering of his Lou Gehrig's Disease to the Lord to bear fruit in the ministry of priests throughout the world. His obituary in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette is well worth reading.