Living Christ’s Redemptive life

St. Paul said, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church…”[1] This is a mysterious saying. How can anything be lacking in Christ’s sufferings for His church? His sufferings were complete for all men for all time.

    This mysterious passage, among many others, brings out the great necessity we have to read and ponder very deeply what we are reading in scripture. While thinking about this passage I thought of at least three ways in which we can make up for what is lacking in Christ’s redemptive acts. Of course, we have to keep in mind the basic fact that actually there is nothing lacking. Christ’s redemptive action was all-inclusive; 100% absolute in its comprehensive satisfaction for all sins. Acknowledging that, how can we presume to think we can make up for anything needed to complete what was already complete?

    The answer is we can, because we are now alive in Christ, on earth in Christ. Christ, long ago, ascended into heaven and people can’t see him or hear him any more; but, they can see and hear us. We can carry on His work. There is a way in which we can continue His work:        

         In our suffering.

         In loving areas of poverty.

         In our loving service to our fellowman.

   And, there are probably other ways.

   In view of the fact that we have just passed through the liturgical season of the Passion tide, let us consider suffering — our own suffering related to Christ’s sufferings.

    In the natural course of living we are all afflicted from time to time with a variety of sufferings. These sufferings are not sent to us by God — they come about naturally because of our human existence. There is mental suffering, grieving, disappointments, frustrations, put-downs, ridicule, etc. There is physical suffering; diseases, debilitation, and accidents; countless aches and pains from broken bones, bruises, cuts, concussions — ad infinitum.

   Our first instinct, and rightly so, is to run pell-mell to our Almighty Father, His Son or to our Blessed Mother for help. We have no doubt whatsoever as to God’s power to help us. He loves us and He is our merciful Father, isn’t He? But, He doesn’t always take away our problems; simply, because to heal us in most cases would not fit into His overall redemptive plan. He can see the whole picture, inside and out, up and down and all around. We can see only a tiny spot.

    Let us suppose that when Jesus asked His Father at Gethsemane, “Take this cup away from me,”[2] His Father had said, “I will take it away from you.” What would have been the result? A lot of things would not have taken place as they did. There would have been no carrying of His cross to Calvary and any Crucifixion, Resurrection, or Ascension. There would have been no sending down of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and no fearless proclamation of the “Good News” by the apostles. Nor would there have been any fired-up believers, whose ranks swelled with astonishing rapidity as the new Church of Christ grew; but because the church would not have existed. Not that the church would have died, but that it would never have been born.

    There are two books, “The Way of Divine Love,” and “The Message of the Sacred Heart to the World,” which is about a Spanish nun, Sister Josefa Menendez, to whom Christ appeared many times. Time after time He asked her if she would volunteer to suffer for certain people — His beloved sinners.  She never turned Him down. Quite often the sinner was a priest who was straying and more than once Christ came back to her, after she had suffered terribly, and told her that because she had done this suffering for His wandering sheep they were now safely back in the true fold.

    Jesus does not ask most of us to suffer; but, suffer we do and quite often. We, then, can please Christ by offering our suffering to Him, in union with His sufferings, to help recover some wandering soul who has lost his or her way. And, thus, by offering our suffering, we may be able to turn His stray sheep back in the direction of the one true fold.

    In this way we can help complete Christ’s redemptive suffering because here and now we are acting for Christ by helping our brothers and sisters who are in need.