The apostleship of suffering

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CHAPTER I. Suffering the inevitable condition of man upon earth

A holy writer has left us these words in a book which can never be too deeply studied !'* Go where you will, seek what you will, dispose and order all things according to your will, and you must ever find something to suffer — you must always find the Cross. Suffering, the inseparable companion of your mortal life, follows you with unwearying assiduity. Do not try to escape from it by hasty and sudden flight ; you will find no place of refuge where you will not carry your Cross with you. It is a part of your very existence. You carry the Cross in your members, the seat of all your pains ; you carry it in your soul, the doors of which stand open to all kinds of sorrow. Suffering is your guest every hour, every moment of the day : the Cross is to you another self.

If this description seems to you to be exaggerated, look into your own heart, and look around

* Imitation of Jesus Christ.

you. Recall to remembrance your own past ; listen to your own sighs ; question the history of your former life, and complete the picture from the life of others ; for as regards sorrow your history is more or less the history of all other men. Let me suppose that you are a simple Christian living in the world. Is it not the case that there are very few pages in the journal of your life in which there does not appear some one of those expressions which, with countless shades of diversity, all signify one single thing — Suffering? Let us take a rapid glance back at some of those pages which have been too soon forgotten. To pass over the tears shed over your cradle, and during your childhood, let us, if you will, hurry on at once to the days of your youth and riper age. As to old age, the period of infirmity and decline, we know already that it is nought but labor and sorrow. The Holy Spirit has Himself declared this truth, and the daily experience of our lives confirms it : Labor et dolor. Take and read, then, that book of past experience, which contains so many salutary lessons. Tolle, lege.

Here, then, is the page belonging to the time of your earliest education ; a time passed in alternate joy and sorrow : boisterous amusement, perhaps, but severe privations. We all acquire the first elements of science at the cost of painful and daily recurring sacrifices. The premature death possibly of a tender mother leaves us half- orphaned, and we shed bitter tears over her untimely grave. People say: "Poor child, still so young, and to have already suffered so much!" Let us proceed. The page which follows will, we trust, be less mournful. The sweet day of our First Communion. The joy of Heaven came down on our soul on that day together with our God. Why, alas ! must joy such as this be still mingled with bitterness ? The absence of a beloved mother from the holy Table has perhaps filled our souls with •grief; or our father is totally indifferent to religion, and refuses to accompany us. What, even so bright a day as this may not pass without a cloud ? And yet in all our life we may never again enjoy a day of such pure and unclouded happiness. We now approach the stormy period of youth : we unfortunately fix our affections on some dangerous friends. They lead us away with them into a course of dissipation and extravagance. Henceforth our life resembles that of the Prodigal Son. We pass through the various phases of his sad and unprofitable existence. The same giddy thoughtlessness, the same thirst for pleasure, the same forgetfulness of duty, the same delusive dreams, the same deceptions, the same distress, and, above all, the same remorse. In moments of silence and solitude, how does the remembrance of our mother, and of all her wise and pious advice, wring our inmost souls with unspeakable anguish ! At length, however, this tender remembrance, assisted by the grace of God, avails to bring us back to the paths of peace and holiness. We lay down at the feet of the minister of God the heavy burthen of our sins, and with the words of holy absolution the peace of Heaven re-enters our soul. But in order to preserve it, we must do violence to our own inclinations, and wage courageously a daily warfare against the enemies of our soul. Thus, then, our youth is passed amidst tempests, combats, frequent falls, and some victories dearly bought.

I see how it is. You have suffered. Still, how many others have been far more severely tried ! You have never wanted bread, or shelter, or clothing ; and how many poor orphans have been deprived of all these things? You have always enjoyed good health ; and how many of the companions of your childhood, tender plants which withered before their bloom, languish under the weight of premature infirmities ? When you fell into sin, you rose again ; thanks to the infinite mercy of God, and to the prayers of your good Mother who is in Heaven. How many others have gone further than you have done in the paths of iniquity? how many have fallen from one depth of wickedness to another, and are still dragging about with them the heavy chain of sin and remorse ? Bless then the Lord. And now, having begun the history of your lives, let us follow it to the end.

No sooner are we settled in the world than family cares and worldly business absorb our time and our thoughts. Fortune favors us for a period, but ere long her fickle breezes fail us, and soon among our numerous friends, and even relatives, enmity and ingratitude are found. However, the state of our affairs improves by degrees. The friends who had fled from us in the time of adversity now return. We watch the rapid growth of our beloved children, and rejoice when we think that they will one day be the support of our old age. Like wearied travellers, we pause awhile to take breath in the mid^t of our long and painful journey. But this repose is of short duration. Death comes a second time to turn into anguish our innocent happiness. In the course of a few years our aged father, or beloved spouse, or one of our children, is carried to the tomb ; and as if the cup of grief were not yet full, one of our two remaining sons destroys our peace, and wrings our heart by his licentious conduct, and the disrespect he shows to his parent. Amidst this succession of misfortunes, we begin to feel and understand that true repose is to be found in God alone, and in the accomplishment of His holy will.

So then it was only after you had learned to accept the Cross with resignation that you succeeded in feeling any happiness in this world, where happiness is so rare. Yes, after so much sorrow, God was pleased to grant you that favor. Blessed for ever be His Holy Name ! Such, then, has been your life.

It has been very stormy. Yes ! but I attribute these storms to my numerous sins. Had I been more faithful, I should assuredly have been more happy. You are quite right. You would at least have avoided the sharp trial of remorse. Still you must not imagine that any insurmountable barrier would in that case have been raised between you and sorrow ; only you would then have suffered with more courage. You would have found greater consolation, and have derived more fruit and gained more merits from your troubles. But suffering would still have been your portion. The necessity under which we labor of doing violence to ourselves in the steadfast pursuit of holiness, is in itself a sacrifice. The most sacred professions, the most retired cloister, are no protection against the Cross. And souls of the highest courage and virtue seek these abodes only to meet their Cross the more certainly. They find it there, indeed, with all its charms, but also with all the rigors of its holy severity; in the practice of their rule, in the observance of their vows — more especially of the vow of obedience, which crushes their own will twenty times a day ; so that there is no condition in which we can possibly place ourselves to which we may not with good reason apply those words of St. Augustine : " Our present life is a weary pilgrimage — fugitive, uncertain, wearisome ; it exposes us to the contagion of every vice and of every crime, and entails upon us every kind of misery and misfortune.

It ought not to be called Life, but Death." And, in fact, man dies every instant. What is a life distracted by passions, exhausted by griefs? — a life which a breath can poison, which pleasures destroy, which sorrow consumes, and misfortunes abridge? Riches puff up and intoxicate, while poverty degrades us ; youth fills us with pride and self-sufficiency, while old age bows us under the weight of countless infirmities; sickness breaks us down, and sadness utterly overwhelms us. And all these miseries are succeeded by the implacable and inevitable enemy, Death !

It will be fitting here, in order to complete this sad picture of human grief, that we should speak of the trials through which it is the pleasure of our Lord to cause His most faithful servants to pass. We reserve the' discussion of this interesting subject to one of the following Chapters. For the present, we shall only sum up by saying that if you have already suffered much, you have in this respect only shared the common destiny of man. Some may have encountered fewer thorns, fewer trials on their path to Heaven ; but it is also true that many have met with far more than you have met with. All must drink their share of the cup of sorrow, either willingly or unwillingly. Every one of us must put his lips to it, and take long draughts of the bitter but salutary waters of the Cross. To be children of Adam, and to suffer, are things inseparable here below. And let us not fail to add, for our common consolation, that if this inevitable suffering be borne in a truly resigned and Christian spirit, it will become to us a fertile source of the highest spiritual benefit.

CHAPTER II. Suffering a very efficacious means by which man is enabled

to attain the chief end of his being : that is

to say, to save his soul.

In reading the preceding Chapter, the reader will not have misunderstood our intention. He must not suppose that because we have made choice of a simple Christian living in the world as our example of suffering, we on that account meant to address one class only of persons. If it were so, our meaning has been misapprehended, and we are to blame ,for having caused the error. In putting forward the instance of any particular individual as an instance of sorrow or suffering, our wish was to illustrate it from your own case, except the wanderings of the Prodigal Son, from which, by God's mercy, our readers have been withheld.

Even if we were Angels upon earth — "an Angel clothed with mortal flesh" — as was said of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, we should still be subject to suffering and pain, due to us as to all other children of Adam. Yes, whoever you are, to what condition soever you belong, whether you dwell in a palace or in the cloister's humblest cell, you must apply to yourself, with some few personal modifications, the whole of the preceding description : for suffering is the inevitable lot of every man; it mingles with his existence like the very air he breathes. But let me now point out to you another consideration which will give you great encouragement amidst the evils which are inseparable from our mortal state : this suffering which is so bitter to your taste, so agonizing to your heart, so humiliating to your feelings, is, nevertheless, one of the most efficacious means of enabling you to attain, with the help of God, to the great aim and object of your life — your last end ; that is to say, your eternal salvation.

By suffering we understand whatever sad and painful events are appointed unto man to endure in the course of his mortal life. Thus illness, reverse of fortune, loss of property and of relations, the unfaithfulness of friends, domestic griefs, public calamities and national visitations, persecutions, the difficulties inseparable from the pursuit of virtue, the practice of Christian mortification, desolation, sadness, our last agony, our death : in a word, all those troubles which wring so many deep sighs from the heart of man, and such bitter tears from his eyes, — this is what we call suffering.

It is of these many trials and sufferings that we say: They are the most efficacious means by which, in the present order of God's providence, in and through the merits of Jesus Christ, fallen man can be raised from his degraded state, and restored to the path of eternal salvation.

For the full comprehension of this consoling truth it will be sufficient to observe that suffering is the great and chosen means of expiation, and it is through expiation alone that fallen man can be restored to a state of favor with his God.

Ever since the fall of Adam, our first Father, a new and mysterious necessity has disclosed itself in the human race — the necessity of expiation. From that first and fatal sin, which was the origin of all our misfortunes, the whole of mankind have ever looked upon themselves as being in the position of a great criminal, and have instinctively felt the necessity of appeasing the wrath of God by means of sacrifice. From this cause has arisen the universal custom, found even amongst barbarous nations, of immolating victims, and placing sacrifice in the first rank amongst their religious rites. Doubtless, in the application of this craving, which naturally springs up in the heart of fallen man, many fearful errors have arisen. Savage nations, giving the most sanguinary interpretation to the principle, have immolated human victims, and sought to appease the anger of the Supreme Being by the most revolting cruelties. But in spite of the bloody character of these barbarous ceremonies, they plainly and evidently attest the firm faith of all nations in the expiatory virtue of the shedding of blood. They all render in this respect unconscious testimony to the words of St. Paul, who in due time was to declare to all the people of the earth, while pointing to the God-Man crucified upon Mount Calvary, "There is no remission of sin for you if no blood be shed for you" Sine sanguinis effusione, non fit remissio (Heb., ix. 22).

But let us penetrate to the depths of this great mystery ; let us ask ourselves what can have been the reason of this instinct of all nations, and of these words of the great Apostle. Let us inquire into the foundation of that universal conviction which attributes a power of perfect expiation of sins to the act of blood-shedding, and we shall find the explanation to be as follows : That as blood is the material source and principle of life in man, to shed our blood is to give our life. To give our life is to make the greatest sacrifice of which a man is capable. Our Lord Himself declared : "Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Major em hac dilectionem nemo habet, ut animam suam ponat quis pro amicis suis (John, xv. 13).

But the outrage which man has committed against the Divine Majesty is so great, that to expiate it worthily he must have recourse to the greatest of all sacrifices, to the sacrifice of his own blood, and, consequently, to that of life itself. But after the fall of man his blood became worthless. It was now corrupted in its very origin, like a river springing from a poisoned source. Such a sacrifice cannot be acceptable to the God of infinite purity. Before such an offering could be acceptable to God, it was necessary that by a previous operation, the secret of which was held by Him alone, this blood should be purified from its ancient stain, and restored to its pristine purity. This marvellous operation, this mystery of Divine Grace, into the depths of which men and Angels in vain desire to look, has been accomplished for us by the Word of God, the Only Begotten of the Father, Who united Himself hypostatically to our nature, by taking upon Him our flesh and our blood in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, assuming a body without spot or stain, a blood purer and more limpid than the morning dew, rosy and bright as the rays of the noonday sun. Such is the Blood which God accepts in sacrifice as the price of our Redemption. And on the condition of the expiatory sacrifice of this precious Blood of Christ, God pardoned the guilt of man ; and man, through the infinite virtue of that precious Blood-shedding, was in turn enabled to present himself to God, and to offer Him his own blood, in the certainty of a gracious reception. Hence from this time forward the blood of the man-sinner being purified by the blood of the Man-God, is capable ot being offered to the Almighty as a sacrifice of expiation ; and God, Who loves His Son with an infinite love, in beholding the Divine Blood of that dear Son mingled with the blood of fallen man, forgives the sinner in virtue of the merits of the Blood of His own Son, shed for us upon the Cross.

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Let us now make a particular application of this consolatory doctrine to our present subject. Since it is certain that the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, shed upon the Cross of Calvary, is the sole expiatory sacrifice which can be pleasing to the Father, it follows that the personal expiations of fallen man can be agreeable to God only in so far as they are united to the expiation made by the Son of God, and thus are raised, in virtue of that union, to a divine dignity and value.

It is undoubtedly true that by the shedding of His own Blood our Lord Jesus Christ made full and sufficient expiation for the sins of all men ; but it is His will that the particular expiation of each one of us should be united to His own, in order thus to make application of its virtue. If then you desire to participate in the divine efficacy and merits of the great Sacrifice consummated upon the Cross of Calvary, unite your expiation with that made by Jesus ; that is to say, mingle your own blood with the expiatory Blood of Jesus ; for without shedding of blood there is no remission, either for our own sins, or for those of others.

Is it necessary, then, you will ask, in order to participate in the virtue of the Blood of the Son of God, that fallen man should also shed his own blood ? Assuredly, I answer, if the Divine Mediator had seen fit to render this condition obligatory upon us, no one could have questioned its propriety. He had a right to impose it ; but commonly He is willing to accept a less terrible sacrifice. However, we do not hesitate to affirm that in a certain manner He does demand, and does require of us, an offering of blood. But again you ask, "What blood does God require? Is it the blood which flows in our veins?" In reply, I would say that every Christian must be prepared to shed his blood in defence of his faith, and would be guilty of the crime of apostasy if, when the occasion arose, he should refuse to pay the tribute of his heart's blood to his Master and his King. Nevertheless, we repeat that God does not ordinarily exact this greatest of all sacrifices. Listen to the words of St. Bernard ; he will supply you with the key to this enigma : Est martyrii genus, est qutzdam effusio sanguinis in quotidiana corpoi'is afflictione. The practice of penance, from which no man can be entirely dispensed, the daily pains and afflictions which we suffer in our bodies, and we may add also in our souls ; all these are a species of martyrdom, a kind of shedding of blood. This is the martyrdom that God requires of you ; this is the effusion of blood that He demands of your soul. Do penance, bear with patience and fortitude the labor and fatigue to which your body is exposed, as well as the trials and afflictions which may come upon your soul, and then you are truly shedding your blood, you are making expiation for your own sins, and you may even make expiation for the sins of others also.

And, surely, not in outward bodily suffering alone, but far more in the interior trials and pangs of the heart, is the true blood-shedding. You are sorrowful ; death, cruel death, comes to make a gulf between you and all around. Well, this is a bleeding wound cut in your heart ; through this wound the blood of your soul pours forth in copious streams. We speak thus in common conversation, and our usual forms of speech bear testimony to a great truth. We say of a poor mother who has lost her only and beloved son by the remorseless hand of death, " How her heart must bleed !" Let us then repeat with St. Bernard, giving to his thought all the amplification of which it is susceptible: "Yes, bodily and spiritual afflictions are a kind of martyrdom, a form of shedding of blood." Est martyr ii genus, est qucedam effusio sanguinis in quotidiana corporis afflictione. In union with the Blood of expiation shed by Jesus Christ Himself, that mysterious blood which flows from every wound made by grief in the Christian heart, partakes largely of the expiatory virtue of the Victim of Calvary ; and therefore the tears of penance, so well called by a holy person the blood of the soul, can efficaciously expiate and repair the worst sins and prodigalities of a guilty life.

David was guilty of a great crime. God in His anger required him to make a solemn reparation. He commanded the Prophet Nathan to seek out the King, and to say to him in His Name, with holy daring: " Prince, thou art the guilty man (Tu es Me vir), and therefore the wrath of God is about to fall upon thee." David bowed his crowned head in lowly submission to the sentence pronounced by the messenger of God. Contrite and humble, he repented in dust and ashes, and when the wrath of God fell upon him, when the Prophet's words were fulfilled by the entrance of death into his house, and by the loss of his most cherished earthly treasure, then the holy King, with tears of bitter sorrow streaming from his eyes, smote his breast, and cried in true repentance, " Lord, I have sinned !" Peccavi. You know the end of this severe trial. The Lord, infinitely merciful, forgave the sinner, and continued to load the repentant King with fresh marks of His mercy and favor.

You see, then, that there is in affliction, even in that which is the just punishment of sin, provided it be endured with patience and resignation, a salutary virtue of expiation ; and that it is, in consequence, a most efficacious instrument for enabling man to attain his last end, which is eternal salvation.

And here, reader, let us unite in admiring the wondrous mercy and loving-kindness of Almighty God as it is shown to man in the chastisements inflicted upon him. "It is the will of God," says St. Augustine, "that we should be overwhelmed with afflictions, that we should become a mark for every kind of insult, humiliation, and contempt which the world can lay upon us, in order that we may wean ourselves entirely from all worldly affections, and withdraw our hearts from the love of all created things, and thus raise them by holy desires to the search after that heavenly rest which can never be found in this mortal life."

Since, then, the providence of God has sent you sorrows and tribulations, it is now that He is busying Himself specially about your happiness ; now is His chosen time for teaching you by the eloquent voice of suffering, and saying to you, Sursum corda. " Lift up your hearts. And since earth can henceforth be nothing to you but a path of trial and sorrow, raise your thoughts and affections above earthly things. Contemplate that heavenly region in which is My abode. There alone can your desires be satisfied."

This is the only way of regarding suffering which is worthy of a Christian and of a disciple of Jesus Crucified. " The peculiar characteristic of the Gospel dispensation," observes Bossuet, "is the necessity of bearing the Cross. The Cross is the true trial of faith, the only sure foundation of our hope, the perfection of charity ; in a word, it is the path to Heaven. Jesus Christ died upon the Cross ; He bore His Cross all His life long; it is by the way of the Cross He bids us follow Him, and He offers us eternal life on this condition alone. The first person to whom He gave a particular promise of the rest of the future life was His companion on the Cross ; He said to him : ' This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.' When Jesus Christ was nailed to the Cross, the veil of the Sanctuary was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, and Heaven was opened to holy souls. When He had endured the Cross, and all the terrors of His sufferings and execution, He appeared to His Apostles, all glorious and triumphant over death, to teach them that it was by the Cross alone that He was to enter into glory, and that no other path to Heaven but this is open to His children. There is then great truth in the words of St. Cyprian, ' Sufferings are the wings with which I take my flight to Heaven."'

We will close this Chapter with the following encouraging words of St. John Chrysostom : "To comfort those unhappy souls who complain of the trials which afflict them, and who have neither the courage nor the sense to endure them well, the Apostle St. Paul says, ' This light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. ' And the meaning of this," adds the eloquent interpreter, "is as follows : 'Affliction is a fountain of blessing to us in our mortal state. It strengthens our souls, and causes them to increase in wisdom ; and it procures for us advantages in the future which are far above any reward justly due to our labors ; — it will recompense us a hundredfold for all our combats and fatigues. ;

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30 THE APOSTLESKIP OF SUFFERING.

CHAPTER III. How a Christian is raised by Jesus Christ to a Participation

in the Divine Nature, or Deification of the

Christian by Jesus Christ.

As it is needful, in order to attain the Apostolic end which we propose to ourselves in this work, to display in their strongest colors the value and reward of suffering, we consider it advisable to look still deeper into fundamental principles, and to demonstrate by solid proofs the divine character, and consequently the divine fecundity, of Christian suffering, in the order of saving souls.

For this purpose it is indispensable that we should establish, in the first place, the divine character of the Christian who is the subject of the suffering of which we speak. And, indeed, it is more than ever necessary in the days in which we live (when the most sacred truths of religion are denied with daring impiety by modern incredulity), that we should insist strongly upon the glorious doctrine of our incorporation into Jesus Christ, — that is to say, the doctrine of the Deification of our nature by Jesus Christ. For these two reasons we devote the present Chapter to the subject.

It is of faith that the Word of God, in uniting Himself hypostatically to our human nature, has elevated that nature to a divine condition ; thus we can say with perfect truth both of the soul and the body to which the Son of God is personally united ; the body is the body of a God, the soul is the soul of a God.

We may say, speaking of the sacred functions performed by the body of Christ, and of the holy operations of this soul of Christ, that they are the actions, the operations of a God. Finally, if we are speaking of the pains of this body, of the tribulations of this soul, we may add, without the slightest fear of falling into error, "These are the sufferings of a God."

Now faith assures us, also, that by the Sacrament of Baptism the Christian contracts with the sacred humanity of Jesus Christ, and consequently .with His Godhead, a real and most intimate union, in virtue of which he is admitted to participate, in a certain measure, in the divine qualities of that august Humanity. We cannot do better, when writing upon so sublime and difficult a subject, than borrow from a recent publication of the learned and illustrious Bishop of Poitiers* certain passages which set forth this glorious truth in all its lustre. In maintaining against modern naturalism the dogma of the Incarnation of God the Son, and of its extension to our human nature, wherever it is found, the eloquent