“Jesus turned death inside out and upside down.” (Scott Hahn, “The Fourth Cup”).
This world seems so difficult sometimes.
I have spent literal years of my life reflecting on the difficulties that I have seen and observed. I have seen wonderful, lovely people become very sick in the prime of their life. I have seen beautiful souls who were always kind become bullied to the point where their physical and mental health has suffered. I have seen dear friends, who would never harm another living soul suffer terrible heartache and tragedy in their personal lives.
And I have been reflecting on that today. Why do good people seem to suffer so much?
And it occurs to me that the reason is fairly simple… Good people suffer greatly because everything in this world is reversed. Things that we see as good and blessed are actually nothing – they are the dust to which we shall return…
And I have been thinking about that today as I have been thinking about that reversal. The one thing that is for sure is that no soul in the entire history of the world – not even the soul of God the Son or His most Blessed Mother – has ever reached Heaven without suffering first. Every soul that was born suffered before they achieved heaven. Some of their suffering may have been clearly visible… Perhaps they were sickly or lost a child or experienced poverty. But some of it may have been hidden deeply in the depths of their soul and they may never have ever shown anyone the true extent of their suffering. And in this I can think about Christ Himself and the Blessed Virgin as two souls who suffered more than any human soul could ever fathom and more than all of the martyrs and all of the Saints who had ever and would ever live could ever have suffered before…
And I have been reflecting on that. Because in this secular world, it is easy to think that suffering is an added element of life and not the central component of it.
You see, “Jesus turned death inside out and upside down. Death is the moment we usually associate with the loss of life. But Jesus made it the occasion of giving life! He didn’t lose anything at all; He gave His life freely and fully. He transformed it into a gift, a prayer, a sacrifice.” (Scott Hahn, “The Fourth Cup”).
And just as Christ reversed death into life, He also reversed suffering into Paradise. For we are doomed – through Original Sin – to suffer to atone for our sins. We can either suffer for a short time on Earth (for even the entire course of our earthly life is a short time in the face of eternity), or we could suffer for eternity in the next life.
And when I think about that today, it occurs to me to be eternally grateful that my Lord and God condescended to come to earth to reverse death. For in doing so, He gave my temporal, limited suffering on Earth a TRUE eternal reward…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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