Monday, April 28, 2014
Deacon Robert Banet
I see you’re reading the Lives of the Saints, Charlie.
Yes, I always have my Butler around.
Ah Butler, the one who wrote about the saints. I remember the saying of St. Teresa. You remember, she said, “To suffer or to die.”
Yes, and that reminds me of St. Lydwina of Shiedham.
Never heard of her. Tell me about her.
She was injured in an ice-skating accident. She contracted a whole army of diseases, and suffered greatly. They had to tie her arms when they moved her for fear they would drop off.
Sounds pretty unbearable.
Yes. But someone asked her why she did not ask Jesus to heal her. You know what she said?
Tell me.
She said if by saying one Hail Mary she would be healed, she would not give up her suffering.
Charlie, that sounds pretty sick if you ask me. Don’t psychologists have a name for that?
Yes. Love of suffering for its own sake can be a disorder of the mind.
So? How do you figure Lydwina is a saint? Wasn’t her mind disordered?
You can view your suffering and want it for its own sake, or you can want to enter into the suffering of Jesus and His passion.
I don’t get that.
Imagine a mother, looking at her four year old. He’s suffering terribly from cancer. It’s easy to imagine she would want to do anything to take the pain away.
Go on.
She knows she can’t but she loves the little boy so much she sort of enters into his suffering. It’s that way with the saints. They see the terrible suffering of Jesus and feel it so intensely that they want to somehow share in it. It’s suffering out of love, not out of the love of suffering itself. And you’re right: that would be a kind of disorder.
Well, that makes some sense. But I’m not ready for that. If I get a headache, I head for the aspirin bottle.
Yes, that’s all too human. But your love of Jesus is measured by your love of suffering. You need to want to grow in love.
Charlie, you could have gone all week without saying that.