Deal with difficult people. Augustine would not have been surprised at their response. It brings us closer to God, and, if done well, it can bring us to the place where there will never be any more suffering. The traditional answer is no, because God is immutable and impassible, and to suffer is to change or to be changed. They want to suffer more and more because they love Jesus and crave to love him. Wouldn’t something less frightful have been better? So Christ shares his reward with us as justifying grace and the glory of blessedness in heaven. Christ’s suffering doesn’t just move us to respond in love. We might still be tempted to ask: If God wanted Christ, as a representative of mankind, to defeat Satan, and Christ had available to him all the power of God, why couldn’t Christ simply crush the devil in combat? God had chosen the way—he had revealed it to the prophets—so this was how it had to be. . Does God really want us to suffer unrelenting pain? . Was it not. God does not want His children to suffer in the first sense of the word, but He does in the second sense. At the Web page below there are selected biblical quotations about suffering. Christ suffered and died on the cross in order that we can be saved and His suffering is redemptive In Luke 14:27 Jesus said, "Unless you carry your cross and follow me you cannot be my disciple. Many of the great Saints suffered horribly and were joyful because of it. The concept of the victim soul derives from the Roman Catholic teaching on redemptive suffering.Such a person is said to be one chosen by God to suffer more than most people during life, and who generously accepts the suffering, based on the example of Christ's own Passion.The Catholic Church does not officially designate anyone as a victim soul. Stay in difficult marriages. What was good and fitting about Christ’s Passion? Because of the incarnation, the Son of God suffered on the cross, though in his human nature, not God’s divine nature. Because Christ is the head of the Church, his merit overflows to the members of his body. It shows us, Aquinas quoted Augustine’s comment on these words of the apostle, adding his own remarks: “Augustine says, ‘The humility of the Passion merited glory, and glory was the reward of humility’ (. We are called to die to ourselves, and to unite our sufferings to the sufferings of Christ. But Christ’s making satisfaction for the penalty of our sins through suffering was in fact the way God chose to make possible our salvation. . After the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ we are redeemed. And also could not suffering itself be a passion? . Given this reality, we should examine it more closely to discern some reasons that it would be in accordance with the Father’s perfect wisdom and love. Aquinas admits that some scriptural texts seem to say God had no choice in the matter (cf. 8:31–32). It is part of the world, of course, and cannot be taken away. The psalmist tells us, “As for God, His way is perfect” (Psalm 18:30). As our Lord put it at the Last Supper, “The hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table. When we recognize the debt, we see ourselves obligated to pay it by avoiding evil—and that avoidance contributes to our salvation. But he was glorified, not merely in himself, but also in his faithful ones, as he himself says: ‘I am glorified in them’ (John 17:10)” (ST 3:48:1). Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:25–26, emphasis added). To some observers, there are only two possibilities here: If the Crucifixion was the only means God could find to redeem us, then he must be limited in his power and wisdom. On several occasions in the Gospel accounts, Jesus himself spoke this way. The everlasting glory of the way of salvation the Father chose far outweighs the horrors his Son had to endure—and the resulting grace overflows in abundance to us all. . . The Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. Christ “set us an example of obedience, humility, constancy, justice, and the other virtues displayed in his Passion, which are also necessary for man’s salvation. Long before its scheduled release on Ash Wednesday of this year, Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ stirred sharp controversy. Turn it to good. https://www.defendingthebride.com/misc.html#suf. There neither was nor need have been any other means more suitable for healing our misery” (, First, he observed, Christ’s Passion moves us not only to have faith and hope in God, as Augustine had pointed out; it also motivates us to a grateful, for God. The same word is being used, but the connotation is radically different. St. Teresa of Calcutta said, “Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart.” I pray we each will quiet our minds and open our hearts to hear God’s voice speaking to us. If we lay first, for a sure ground, a very fast faith, whereby we believe to be true all that the scripture saith (understood truly, as the old holy doctors declare it and as the spirit of God instructeth his Catholic Church), then shall we consider tribulation as a gracious gift of God, a gift that he specially gave his special friends; a thing that in scripture is highly commended and praised; a thing of which the contrary, long continued, is perilous; a thing which, if God send it not, men have need to put upon themselves and seek by penance; a thing that helpeth to purge our past sins; a thing that preserveth us from sins that otherwise would come; a thing that causeth us to set less by the world; a thing that much diminisheth our pains in purgatory; a thing that much increaseth our final reward in heaven; the thing with which all his apostles followed him thither; the thing to which our Saviour exhorteth all men; the thing without which he saith we be not his disciples; the thing without which no man can get to heaven. . Nevertheless, as Aquinas pointed out, there’s a difference between being absolutely necessary and being necessary given certain conditions. God is not the cause of our suffering and does not delight in our pain. In addition to the reasons we’ve already noted, Augustine offered this one: “The devil was to be conquered not by the power of God but by his righteousness. that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:25–26, emphasis added). Nevertheless, as Aquinas pointed out, there’s a difference between being. Thus, they believe that God causes us to suffer. For in this death, nothing was lost of Christ’s divine nature, and from the human nature he took for himself, how great a benefit was bestowed on us men!”. In all these ways Augustine and Aquinas concluded that God’s decision to have Christ suffer to save us was good and wise. civ). There neither was nor need have been any other means more suitable for healing our misery” (On the Trinity 8:10). . Augustine summed it up this way: “Other possible means were not lacking on God’s part, because all things are equally subject to his power” (On the Trinity 8:10). Satan, who had fallen away from God through pride, was humiliated. On several occasions in the Gospel accounts, Jesus himself spoke this way. For example, after declaring Peter to be the “rock,” our Lord said to the disciples: “The Son of Man must suffer many things . . (See also his words on the day of his ascension, Luke 24:44–46.) The tables were turned; the roles were reversed; the victor was vanquished. He noted that our reconciliation with God and becoming like him requires more than simple forgiveness. For the devil, through the fault of his own perversity, had become a lover of power and a forsaker and assailant of righteousness. 2:21).”. It shows us how to love in a world that is broken. That is why it is written: ‘Thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ’ (1 Cor. For both opponents and supporters, the film has served as a reminder that Jesus’ Passion was a horrifying affair. But the truth is that, from before all time, God the Son had lived in perfect union with God the Father: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). That is not always true. We are given a convincing reason to devote our whole hearts to God. In the same way men, imitating Christ, should seek to conquer the devil by righteousness, not by power” (. . If you are one of our rare donors, you have our gratitude and we warmly thank you. “By this, man knows how much God loves him, and is thus stirred to love him in return. Because of the Passion, then, “man is all the more bound to refrain from sin, according to 1 Corinthians 6:20: ‘You were bought with a price. Why shouldn’t an all-powerful God have decided against innumerable other ways to free us in order to choose this death? Thus it is written: ‘Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps’ (1 Pet. Why God call people at certain times? How could he have done such a thing when he had other options? Why submit himself to such torment? . God is present. It cleans our souls and can clean the souls of others. God wants us to hear Him. He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?” (Rom. A third reason God ordained that the Passion would take place is that, through it, Christ merited a great reward. God wants to see us at our best. Suffering is partly a mystery. We were not created in a state of suffering. Most people donate because Catholic Online is useful. Critics complained that the scenes of Christ’s torture and death were too grisly. If so, are we also expected to die to our suffering? Sinful passions. We can see then that rather than implying some limit to God’s power (as if he couldn’t have chosen otherwise), these scriptural passages actually, Against such objections, Augustine wrote, “We assert that the way in which God deigned to deliver us by the man Jesus Christ, who is mediator between God and man, is both good and befitting the divine dignity. So even though the person of God suffered in a way, that suffering was kept separate from God’s divine nature. God did not design us for death but for life, and he did not design us for suffering but for joy: the joy of sanctity, the bliss of self-forgetful love. (RNS) It is the common impulse of people of goodwill everywhere to prevent or at least mitigate all forms of gratuitous suffering. humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil. How could that be? The proper way to battle Satan is with the sword of the Spirit, which … We are to become holy in order for us to become instruments of God’s grace for others. Our lives can be filled with many distractions that take away our time from God and suffering and hardships in this world remind us that we cannot do it alone ‘ we need the love and grace of God which we seek and he freely gives. Naturally, the devil wants humans to suffer as much as possible. . God’s own Son suffered so why should we not carry ou r crosses as well. For example, after declaring Peter to be the “rock,” our Lord said to the disciples: “The Son of Man. Sixteen centuries ago, when Augustine addressed the matter, he noted that he was not the first person even back then to discuss it. And what could be more clear and evident proof of God’s great love than that the Son of God . Of course not! 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