The Mystery of Suffering

In today's first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we are reminded of a

difficult but essential truth of our faith.

That is, it is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.

And these words don't come to us to discourage us, but rather to prepare us.

Because hidden within suffering is a path that leads not to despair,

but to grace that is the kingdom of God.

And we know that suffering is one of the most profound and difficult mysteries we face as Christians.

Few things test our faith more deeply. Suffering raises complex questions that

don't always have easy answers.

And while we try to understand it by looking at Christ and his passion,

suffering is not just a theological concept, it's a daily reality.

Because suffering touches every part of our lives, We all experience physical

suffering through illness, through injury or disability.

We endure emotional suffering like anxiety, fear, grief, loneliness.

And we face spiritual suffering as we struggle with temptations,

discouragement and the weight of sin, the battle for holiness.

Yet what often wounds us even more than our pain is witnessing the suffering

of others, especially those we love.

One of my classmates, before his diaconate ordination, he lost his father,

and it was devastating for him.

He had longed for this moment for his father to witness this very important day of his life.

The beginning of new life, the realization and fruition of his vocation,

and his father wanted the same.

So this loss hit him hard.

And for a long time he prayed and he reflected, trying to understand God's will.

And there are many people who approach him trying to comfort him,

saying things like, Your father is surely in heaven, or He was a saintly man.

And he told me that he appreciated the kindness of people because they meant well.

It was coming from a good place of their hearts.

But it didn't help him.

But he admitted that he didn't want to know the answers of why that happened.

Rather, he really wanted to enter the mystery, to remain in that emptiness,

in that loneliness. and dare to find God.

And the why question does the

question we often ask when we suffer or when we witness others in pain.

Why? Why this happened?

Why would God allow this? But I think this why question can actually take away

the sacred mystery of suffering.

Because imagine if you actually received the perfect answer that the one that

made complete sense to you, it's rational and then you close the mystery.

The mystery is solved. So you will never be able to go back there to draw even

more from that experience.

And I think the why question might come naturally to us But I think it's an

assassination attempt on the mystery of suffering.

So instead of asking why, we should ask, how is God present in this?

Or where is he leading me?

What is he trying to tell me through this specific experience?

That's where we find grace.

That's when our hearts open to receive what God wants to give of course if we

are not afraid to walk with God through the suffering,

then there's where he will meet us.

I remember my personal experience when my mother fell ill two years ago,

and she's still suffering. She has serious problems with her spine and leg. She can't walk.

I remember praying, begging God to take away that suffering from her.

I told him I didn't want to watch her suffer. I asked, why?

Why she can't come to my ordination? like what's the purpose of that why would

you allow to this and however I didn't receive any answers which only brought even more frustration.

But eventually I tried to trust God in prayer I made this effort to enter into

that suffering with my mother or of my mother not to fix it or understand it,

but simply to be present with her And every time I call her,

I see her, I just try to be with her,

to accompany her in her suffering.

Not to solve it, but to see it as a moment of grace, a chance to draw closer to God.

And I think the worst thing I could possibly do for her would be to make her

feel ashamed of her own suffering.

Because if she feels ashamed,

she will never be able to connect her pain to the suffering of Christ because

shame builds a wall that blocks God's love from entering.

And we start to believe that God doesn't love us.

And then we start maybe thinking that our suffering is a form of a punishment,

that if we suffer, we must have done something wrong.

And this is the worldly philosophy. We call it in theological studies,

we call it the law of retribution, the law of retribution.

And we see this law in the book of Job.

If you're familiar with the story, Job suffers the loss of everything.

And people around him tell him that he must have sinned, that his suffering

is a punishment from God.

They say, if you were a good man, you would be happy.

But we know in the world there are so many bad people that live comfortable

lives. So that's not true.

God doesn't work the way that we think that he gives blessings to those who

are good and punishes those who are bad.

And so Job doesn't listen in the story to them, to his friends,

and eventually he is restored.

He's renewed at the end of the story. Not because he receives answers,

but because he remains in a relationship with God till the end.

And this is what God calls us to do when we suffer. To surrender to him.

To come to him ever closer.

To entrust all the pains to him.

And if we want to be like him, if we want to be like God, he calls us to do the same.

To be in the suffering of others and with others. And a good example might be funerals.

Many people dislike attending funerals because they are often filled with sadness.

They cannot confront that experience.

At the funerals, we don't know what to say.

We want to comfort people and lift their spirits.

But in reality the most important thing is just to be with them.

My friend Chris, who some of you might have met, he came for my ordination last year.

He has four daughters. And a few days ago, he took one of them,

Hannah, nine-year-old, to the funeral of her friend's grandmother.

And the way he explained it to her was so beautiful. I want to share it.

He told her that her presence at the funeral would mean a great deal for her friend.

That her friend will remember it for the rest of her life,

that you came to be with her in this most difficult and perhaps the most confusing

moment and time of her life, and your presence will be healing for her.

And that simple loving gesture from father to his daughter reminded me of how

God, who is always present in our suffering, teaches us to do the same,

just to be with the person.

We don't have to say anything. Of course, we are called to offer condolences,

but when we look into the etymology of the word condolences,

it's condolor, which is with pain.

So when we offer condolences, we don't try to explain it or to fix it.

We acknowledge the pain and we choose not to run away from it,

but to enter into it with someone.

We don't need special words or psychological training. Our presence is enough.

And so in today's gospel, Christ says, I give you a new commandment, love one another.

And we know that love hurts and to love is to suffer. So let me paraphrase that.

Love one another, suffer with one another.

As I have loved you, Christ says, as I have suffered for you,

so you should too love one another, so you should too suffer with one another.

That's the beauty of it, and that's why it is necessary for us to undergo many

hardships to enter the kingdom of God, to learn how to love.

St. Gemma Galgani once said, If you really want to love Jesus,

first learn to suffer, because suffering teaches you to love.

That's such an important truth.

In suffering, when we go through it with God, we discover the deepest wells of love.

God gives us the grace to walk through it and how not to be ashamed of it,

but to be present as a blessing for others.

Today, it happened that it's St. John Paul II's birthday, 18th of May,

and in one of his encyclical letters on suffering, Salvefici Dolores, he wrote,

Suffering is present in the world in order to release love.

When we unite our suffering with Christ's suffering, when we accompany others

in theirs, God releases His love into the world.

Suffering becomes not a dead end, but a channel of grace.

Therefore, it is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.

And now, as we come to this altar, where Christ's love and suffering become

truly present in the Eucharist, we are invited to bring our pain with us.

Whatever we carry in the body, in heart, in soul, we laid it on the altar with His.

Here suffering finds its meaning. It's not wasted.

In Christ it becomes redemptive.

It becomes a fountain of grace for us and for the others.

May this Eucharist teach us how to suffer with one another, how to love one

another, as Christ has loved us, and how to trust that through every cross that we carry,

He is already leading us into the kingdom of God.