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Why must we accept suffering?

Mon., April 7, 2014
Deacon Robert Banet

I really like St. Catherine.

Oh?  I’m glad to hear it, Charlie.

That’s St. Catherine of Siena, I mean.  I like her except when she talks about suffering and pains of all kinds.

What does she have to say about that?

She says, if you choose to love God, you have to choose to endure pain.

Choose?  I can take suffering when it comes my way but choose?  No way.  But what kind of pain is she talking about?

Pain of whatever kind God sends to you.  Mental, physical, sickness, pain from other people. You have to want it if you love God.

I can love that Babe of Bethlehem.  Babies are so easy to love.  You just melt when you see them.  But I can’t find it easy to want to suffer.

But you know as well as I do that the Child Jesus grew up to be the Man on the Cross.  And what I think Catherine is saying is that if you say that you love God, you have to want to accept Calvary.

I get what you’re saying.  With Easter Sunday you have to have Good Friday.  But how do we know that St. Catherine is on target here?

You know, God the Father spoke to her.  He told her this truth and she had it written down.  You could read about it in her Dialog.  The Church believes she was a true mystic, that she had direct knowledge, direct contact with God Himself.  The Church backs her up.

Yes, I had forgotten that she was declared a doctor of the Church.  I just wish she hadn’t written that.

I guess I do too.  But if we love God we have to listen to her.

Maybe what she is saying is just another way of saying what Jesus said.

What’ that?

If you want to follow me, take up your cross.

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