I’ve been thinking about suffering lately. Through mere human eyes it seems counter-intuitive to embrace suffering, whether that is physical, mental, or spiritual pain. Our impulse is to strive to be happy in this life, for its own sake. To carve out a state of life dominated by prosperity in all its forms and minimizing pain in all its forms.
Nonetheless, I’m reminded that Our Lord taught that the road to heaven is straight and narrow. That is a hard image to contemplate. The world sets out in front of us a wide road of ease and comfort. It is then a renunciation of living for this life, a kind of death to self.
Christ did not live for this world. The apostles didn’t either, going through all sorts of trials to spread the Gospel until most of them died as martyrs. Imagine for a minute being crucified upside down.
The more suffering God gives me the more I am acutely and forcefully reminded that it is better to suffer during this life than in the next.
After we die, and are judged, we either go straight to heaven, which few do directly, to purgatory to suffer more than you will ever suffer in this life, or to eternal torment.
Therefore from a purely mathematical point of view, it is better to suffer more in this life since it will still be less than purgatory or eternal damnation.
And by the way I am not saying all this like a homily, but as a meditation on embracing my own crosses knowing that life is short and our reward is in heaven.
Still this is a hard pill to swallow when you naturally want happiness in this life and when God isn’t giving you much natural happiness but great suffering. Here I’m thinking of people with serious illnesses, or extreme hardships throughout their life beyond their own choosing.
Think of a child born without arms or legs, mentally handicapped, born into a harsh environment. Yet their suffering accepted gives merit beyond this life. Or think of those innocent people who have been wrongly imprisoned for life, or worse put wrongly into long term solitary confinement. Think of that true story character in the movie Elephant Man what sufferings he patiently endured.
As mysterious and difficult a truth it is to fully accept, suffering now humbly, in penance, is infinitely better before we die, than to suffer after death, and to make you a living saint. Someone who when they do die one day stands a good chance of being ushered straight through the pearly gates into paradise after their souls leaves their body.
Up to that point it requires faith to persevere and see beyond the pain, looking forward and upward, but after death it will all be crystal clear, looking back on the trial of this life, that in fact all our sufferings in this life are insignificant in light of eternity.
What helped me understand this are all the private revelations supported by the Church of the Poor Souls in Purgatory. A common theme in their messages is to implore the living to embrace suffering now, even to gladly welcome it when given by God, even if it is a new terrible burden on your life, simply because it is better to suffer in this life than in the next.