4 Catholics Offering Their Sufferings As A Sacrifice

[Paddington]

"God I offer my sufferings for various special intentions."

Who can say that?

Here are four different situations of suffering:

Joe: Is Catholic. He sticks his tongue to a frozen pole in winter. It causes him 1 year of horrible pain as his tongue heals.

Bob: Is Catholic. He commits a crime. He goes to jail for 1 year. He suffers from being in jail.

George: He wasn't even Catholic. He committed a crime. He converts on/before his first day of jail. He spends one year as a Catholic in jail suffering from being in jail.

Skippy: Is Catholic. He has a terrible infection. It lasts one year. He suffers. He knows well that God is sovereign and that he is sinful. He will never bring himself to say that the infection is not his fault. "What if God made my infection due to my past sins?" he says. He got the infection from the cooler door handle at 7-11. He bought a Yoohoo.

3 certain causes of suffering. 1 uncertain cause of suffering.

Also, would the value of their sufferings depend on their daily cross-picking-upping apart from how the sufferings originated?

EDIT:

I guess somebody in jail could offer up something other than the fact he is in jail. That would be tricky, but what the hey?

You can always come up with sufferings. Like not eating.

Maybe if the sin was forgiven, then sufferings from that sin become valuable.

Edited October 26, 2007 by Paddington

[GodChild]

I'm no expert - but I think your question is drawing an artificial distinction between sufferings and is missing the entire point of offering sufferings to God.

Firstly, on who and what sufferings are offered - I think sufferings deserved and undeserved are worth offering because firstly; it is hard to draw a distinction between the two. You can only speculate. The only thing you know for sure is that your suffering. Secondly; suffering being offered to God is not a currency. Offering suffering to God is not 'precious' as God owns everything anyway. The value of offering sufferings is the trust, abandonment and love with which they are endured - this is what your offering to God. Not the actual suffering per se - but the endurance, patience and trust in God's will.

Secondly, I don't think the merit of enduring suffering and offering it to God is less because we are the cause of the suffering to begin with - we usually are the cause for our sufferings in some way or another (not always, but usually) - either way its the way we respond that counts. For eg: I go to jail because I did something wrong. I repent and accept my punishment with patience, endurance, turn towards loving God, and offer Him my sufferings with trust. This has merit and God is pleased with it because of the intentions of the soul/heart. Likewise, I suffer anxiety, post-traumatic stress because I was attacked by someone, or I develop cancer and get told I have 6 months to live. I abandon myself to God, seek to forgive, try to imitate Christ as best as possible, and do this with trust and love in God. Again, this is highly pleasing to God and has merit because of the intent/state of the soul/heart.

I don't know if this right or not - this is my opinion/understanding. However I think all sufferings have the potential to prove your love for God.

[farglefeezlebut]

I agree - you offer everything up andtrust God

Is it right to als offer up the "god" stuff? I wrote this a while back:

"I have spent a large part of my day tidying and helping to assemble new bookshelves, so I’m surprised by how happy I am. But there are so many reasons to be happy!

I can’t always see that. Earlier today I had to e-mail someone at University with some quite mundane practical questions and my head ended up spinning off into my stupid worst-case scenario daydreams again. It took me a while to calm down, but God has given me back my perspective now.

Afterwards, went for a walk in the park and prayed. I was thinking about how much Christ loves us, how much He suffered for us. The sun was shining through the grass and it was all unspeakably beautiful. I offered up my happiness and sense of peace back to Him. I knew that all the beauty was already His, and that He has much more lovely things than grass, but that didn’t seem to matter. It didn’t matter. “We love Him because He first loved us” - 1 John 4.19"

It feels right to offer up happiness, but I don't know about it.

[farglefeezlebut]

Sorry - double post.

Edited October 27, 2007 by farglefeezlebut

[Romans1513]

[quote name='farglefeezlebut' post='1410052' date='Oct 27 2007, 08:18 AM']Afterwards, went for a walk in the park and prayed. I was thinking about how much Christ loves us, how much He suffered for us. The sun was shining through the grass and it was all unspeakably beautiful. I offered up my happiness and sense of peace back to Him. I knew that all the beauty was already His, and that He has much more lovely things than grass, but that didn’t seem to matter. It didn’t matter. “We love Him because He first loved us” - 1 John 4.19"

It feels right to offer up happiness, but I don't know about it.[/quote]

Yeah, I think you were offering up your happiness as praise. In a sense, I think, any sort of prayer is us offering ourselves to God...


And, I also agree with Godchild. Offering up our sufferings is not really a currency, its a way of reacting to our suffering. So maybe the distinction in your situations would be that those responsible for their suffering would need to acknowledge that as part of their reaction to it.

[CatherineM]

We are all given crosses, some are just heavier than others, and we each have a different level of ability to handle pain, disappointment, fear, etc. Anything can be offered up as a gift. My mother never turned down the weeds I picked as flowers to give her.

[Dismas]

Suffering is the consequence of sin, specifically or generally. As we are one body in Christ, if one of us sins, all of us suffer. If I smash my thumb with a hammer, I feel pain, not just my thumb. Since I happen to be a particularly sore thumb in the mystical Body, it was more likely my sin that eventuated in poor Skippy's condition.

I chose the name Dismas, as that is the name traditionally associated with the "Good Thief" at our Lord's crucification. Dismas was suffering for a sin he knew well that he was responsible for, and yet he sanctified his suffering in his testimony to Gestas (the bad thief) of Christ's innocence and his trust in Christ.

I hope this helps.