Saint Peter speaks of joy: the joy that comes from sharing in the sufferings of Christ.
Such suffering is pure joy because it is but the door to eternal happiness with Christ in heaven, because the end of the road of suffering we walk with Christ in this life is not Calvary, but the place to which the Lord has ascended to prepare a place for us…a place of refreshment, light and peace.
Saint Therese of Lisieux was a master of this mystery, reminding us that on the path of suffering that “only the first step is hard.” As she wrote to her beloved sister Pauline, “for each little pain cheerfully borne we shall love the good God more for all eternity.”
She was echoing Saint Paul, who wrote from prison:
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us. We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now;…we groan within ourselves as we wait. For in hope we were saved…we wait with endurance.
The Civil Rights movement in our own country was, at it’s heart, a religious movement. And the songs they sang were Gospel spirituals sung for generations in the cotton fields where enslaved people were unjustly imprisoned and abused.
One such song sang eloquently of a Christian’s view of suffering, and came to be know as “keep your hands on the plow and your eyes on the prize” Folks would sing it when beaten or attacked by dogs, imprisoned or afraid:
When my way gets dark as night,
I know the Lord will be my light,
Keep your hand on the plow,
and your eyes on the prize.
You can talk about me much as you please
The more you talk, gonna stay on my knees.
Keep your hand on the plow,
and your eyes on the prize.
When I get to heaven, gonna sing and shout
Be nobody there to put me out.
Keep your hand on the plow,
and your eyes on the prize.
I know my robe's gonna fit me well,
I tried it on at the gates of Hell.
Keep your hand on the plow,
and your eyes on the prize.
It sounds just like the poem Saint Therese wrote in far away France 75 years before:
My joy I find in pain and loss,
I love the thorns that guard the rose;
With joy I kiss each heavy cross,
And smile with every tear that flows."
For God does great things through our little Crosses. Just think of Saint André Bessette. Orphaned as a child, he tried working on a farm, as a shoemaker, baker, blacksmith and in a factory and failed at each. When the Holy Cross fathers in Montreal reluctantly made him a brother, they gave him the job of answering the door He used to say, “When I joined this community, the superiors showed me the door, and I remained 40 years.”
All throughout his life, his superiors marginalized him, once telling him he had to meet with people at the train station rather than in the parlor. But he died the only member of that community to be named a saint. Literally hundreds of thousands people came to his funeral, attesting to the numberless healings God had worked through him and today the largest Church in Canada, stands in honor of Saint Joseph. His secret? As he once wrote:
“People who suffer have something to offer to God,” he used to say. “I thank God for giving me the grace to suffer; I need it so much!”
