Saving Souls through Suffering

In every approved apparition from the Miraculous Medal to the reported apparitions of Medjugorje, Jesus and Mary have called us to help them save souls and to change world events by our prayer and suffering. Yesterday, the mission to pray; today, suffering.  The Mission of Jesus was to save souls by suffering. We are invited to share in the same mission, to take up our cross daily and follow him.  Recently a wise friend of mine reminded me that my mission was to teach and to suffer. That caught me off-guard, but it is true. I should not forget or reject this aspect of my mission. An essential part of our mission as a Christian is to save other souls and alter world events by our suffering. The greatest good we can do is through our suffering united to Christ and that is what gives meaning and purpose to suffering!

I believe Jesus wants us to help him save souls by our suffering. But I don’t like it. And I am tempted to doubt this truth and fall into the temptation that my suffering is random and senseless. There is no reason for my suffering – it just is. Since there is no reason for my suffering then there is no meaning or purpose to my suffering. If the origin of my suffering is random and senseless then there is no meaning or purpose to it. Oh sure, it can make me stronger if I respond in the right way, but the suffering can be so great and last so long that if there is no meaning or purpose to it, eventually it overcomes a person. You can overcome anything if there is a strong enough reason to endure; but if there is no reason, no meaning or purpose, then we cannot endure. This is one of the most important questions that must be answered by every human – what is the meaning and purpose of my suffering?

Jesus Christ is the only one who gives meaning and purpose to suffering and the Catholic Church hands down this meaning. No other philosophy or religion answers the question adequately – and that is why so many people are lost, atheist, depressed, commit suicide or mass murders…they do not have a way to make sense out of suffering. We do. Christ has given us the answer.

Jesus brought into His suffering all the suffering that would every be in the world, from the beginning to the end of time. He transformed it and gave it meaning and purpose – to save souls. This gives our suffering a meaning - to save souls.

Jesus gave a creative character, a creative meaning to our suffering. If we accept and unite our suffering to His, then He uses it to recreate souls, that is, to save souls from sin and hell and to save the world from self-destruction. Jesus is counting on us not to waste our suffering. Don’t waste it – leverage it. What you did not choose, do not like and cannot change, accept with trust and offer with love to save souls.

The sufferings of Christ created the good of the world's redemption. This good in itself is inexhaustible and infinite. No man can add anything to it. But at the same time, in the mystery of the Church as his Body, Christ has in a sense opened his own redemptive suffering to all human suffering. In so far as man becomes a sharer in Christ's sufferings—in any part of the world and at any time in history—to that extent he in his own way completes the suffering through which Christ accomplished the Redemption of the world.

A young blind woman name Tina was recently hit by a truck walking through an intersection. Miraculously she survived. She has endured multiple reconstructive surgeries. Yesterday she awoke and said three words: Suffering for souls.

We offer this Rosary for the recovery of Tina!

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