Lost

I suffer so little for love of Him in this life…

The other day I was talking with a very dear friend of mine who had endured very great and terribly tragic loss in her life. I asked her how she was feeling, and she told me that she had good days and bad ones.

It is heartbreaking to stand beside someone who suffers. It is literally heartbreaking. Watching her suffer, I wonder how it would have felt to watch my Beloved on the Road to Calvary. Would I have tried to turn my face away from such a depth of suffering, or would His infinite DIGNITY have affected me so greatly that I would have been COMPELLED to follow behind that Cross? After all, Christ’s PERFECT acceptance of His suffering, His PERFECT surrender to the Will of God would surely have been confronting. I imagine how many souls watched Him passing them by with as much interest as they would watch a donkey being flogged in the street and I suffer to think that I would have been one of them…

This suffering of Christ served such purpose – INFINITE and DIVINE purpose. And this causes me to reflect on the suffering of my friend. Because suffering serves such a purpose in this life!

After all, we – unlike Christ – must atone for our sins, every single one of them…

I read the other day that Saint Simon Peter’s greatest grief in this earthly life – the grief that caused him to cry in grief during his execution, was that he could see the state of his soul through the eyes of Christ – God Himself. Saint Simon Peter could see his flaws and offences to God through God’s own eyes. And the sight filled him with grief… Perhaps Judas Iscariot also saw his faults and the state of his soul through the eyes of God?

But the difference between the SAINT and the SINNER, is that when Simon Peter saw his soul through God’s own eyes, he grieved and repented – Judas merely DESPAIRED…

Saint Faustina expressed a similar grief to Saint Simon Peter’s in her “Diary” when she wrote that Christ allowed her to see her soul from God’s own perspective, and from this she realised that God in His infinite and perfect justice required atonement for all sins on the soul. She saw the truth of the merciful offering of the sacrament of Reconciliation, which allows souls to atone for their sins. And this Saint spent her short life repenting for the thoughtless offences that she caused to her Beloved…

When my beautiful friend told me she suffered, she described her suffering as feeling directionless and lost. It is a common description provided by a suffering soul. I, myself, remember feeling lost and directionless after I lost my little baby before he was even born so many years ago. I spent literal years feeling directionless and lost.

Perhaps this is why I cling so firmly to my Beloved now… How I missed Him in my grief…

And yet, I wonder now – was I ever truly alone?

After all, Saint Padre Pio, Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and many other saints, have told us that the people who suffer most are those who are closest to God. And upon reflection on the revelations of God to Saint Faustina as communicated in her Diary, we can see that if each sin must be atoned for, then surely most of us are at least guaranteed some time in Purgatory as a best-case scenario.

One thing that I can see is that to atone for those sins we must suffer – either in this life or the next one… When I look at it like this, I can see the benefit of suffering in this life – I can see the love in getting that suffering done with in this temporary life and not having to worry about it in the next permanent one.

And so, upon reflection, it occurs to me that when we suffer most and feel most lost – we have that feeling, not because we are directionless – but because – being carried by God, as His chosen one – we do not need to be concerned with our direction. Instead, while we cry and grieve and mourn, we are curled up in a foetal position, like a newborn babe, safe in the arms of Our Holy Lord. It is He who is walking. It is He who is taking us to where we need to go.

The greater the feeling of loss that we experience in this life, the greater the love and joy in the next one… For surely, God reserves a special place for the infant souls that He carries through their life on this Earth… For surely they are closest to Him…

How I pray for them now – with all the strength of my mediocre little soul – so that when they are seated below His Holy Throne, they will pray for me, whose suffering will be reserved for Purgatory, for I suffer so little for love of Him in this life…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.