LEARN FROM JESUS THE ATTITUDE IN THE FACE OF SUFFERING
Few aspects of the Gospel message have been as distorted as the call of Jesus to «take up the cross». It’s from there that many Christians have pretty confused ideas about the Christian attitude in the face of suffering. Let’s remember some facts that we mustn’t ignore, if we want to follow the Crucified One more faithfully.
In Jesus we don’t find that suffering that we find so often in ourselves, generated by our own sin and our incorrect way of living. Jesus hasn’t known the sufferings that are born of envy, resentment, inner emptiness or selfish attachment to things and persons. As it happens, there’s suffering in our life (according to experts it can affect some people to as much as 90% of what they suffer) that must be eliminated precisely if we want to follow Jesus.
On the other hand, Jesus doesn’t love or arbitrarily seek suffering either for himself or for others, as if suffering enclosed something especially pleasing to God. It’s a mistake to believe that one is following Christ more closely because that person seeks suffering arbitrarily and without any necessity. What is pleasing to God isn’t suffering, but the attitude with which a person assumes it in faithfully following Christ.
Jesus in addition is committed with all his forces to make suffering disappear in the world. His whole life has been a constant struggle to pull the human being from that suffering which is hidden in sickness, hunger, injustice, abuses, sin or death.
Whoever wants to follow him can’t ignore those who suffer. On the contrary, their first task would be to take suffering away from the life of people. As a theologian has said, «there’s no right to be happy without the rest, or against the rest» (Ignacio Larraneta).
Lastly, when Jesus meets up with suffering provoked by those who oppose his mission, he doesn’t shy away from it, but takes it on in an attitude of total faithfulness to the Father and of unconditional service to people.
Before anything else, «to take up the cross» is to faithfully follow Jesus and to accept the sorrowful consequences that undoubtedly result from this following of Jesus. There are rejections, pains and damages that the Christian must always take on. It’s the suffering that we would only be able to make disappear from our life by no longer following Christ. For each one of us there is the cross that we must carry as we walk in his footsteps.
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf
