It’s almost universally accepted that if we want to grow and mature in a certain way, we need to be challenged. In sports, if we never face an opponent who might be bigger, stronger, or faster than us, we might not be competitive. In academics, if we don’t stretch our knowledge to learn, it will be more difficult for us to move on to the next level. And of course, in the work force, if we want to move up the corporate ladder or just be able to earn a little more money, we need to apply ourselves to what we are doing and even look for new ways, challenging ourselves, to do our jobs better, and more efficiently.
The same is true when it comes to our spiritual life. And one of the biggest challenges any one of us will face in our lives is the mystery of suffering. It is something that each of us will encounter at some time or another. And as much as we might fear or dread our own suffering, to see someone we love suffer hurts us to the core, and is almost unbearable. We see this played out in today’s Gospel passage.
Peter has just proclaimed that Jesus is “the Christ” when Jesus asks the disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” Immediately after this, Jesus tells them, “The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed.” None of what would happen is a mistake or accident. It is exactly what was intended from the beginning.
Of course, Peter is horrified by this and becomes an obstacle to Jesus fulfilling his mission, and actually rebukes the one he just proclaimed was the Messiah. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine telling God that he’s got it all wrong, that what he has planned should not happen? Of course, we would never do that. We would never tell God in prayer what we think he should do. Ah, but we do that all the time, don’t we? We tell ourselves and others: “Certainly God would never do things this way, or expect us to do that.” That’s why Jesus tells Peter, “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” This echoes what God says through the prophet Isaiah:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)
We are called to undergo a conversion—a completely new way of thinking—where we try to see and think as God does, and not as the world does. And this is not a one-time conversion of the mind. It’s ongoing; it’s a continuous process.
This brings us to the most challenging part of this Gospel passage. What does this mean for us? Jesus calls the crowd together and explains: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” What he is saying, in effect, is, “Don’t think that following me is simply being a spectator to healings and miracles, and agreeing with what I say and teach.” To follow Jesus means to go where he goes. And he made it very clear that his destination is the cross. In the parallel verse in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus says “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” This, too, is not a one-time event. It’s a continuous process of conversion.
Jesus is referring to a total change—not just in how we think, but in how we live, and how we love. We must let go of all of our attachments and agendas, and have Jesus and his will for us as our central focus, even if that means letting go of a hold on our own life. Jesus wants us to think in terms of eternity. He warns us that the temptation to deny him in order to save our earthly life will lead only to sin and corruption, and ultimately, eternal death. But when we deny ourselves, as Jesus says, then we prepare ourselves to reach the ultimate fulfillment for which we were created—eternal life in communion with Jesus, his Blessed Mother, and all the saints who have gone before us.
This, of course, means that we will have to undergo suffering. “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” Suffering can come in many different forms: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Our Biblical and Church Tradition teach us that undergoing pain and suffering are not an option. The mystery of God’s grace is always at work in the life of every Christian and in the life of the Church, and it always involves suffering, and it always involves the process of dying and rising.
Suffering is not something that Jesus desires for us. He himself said at Gethsemane: “My Father, if it be possible, remove this chalice from me” (Mt 26:39a). But it is necessary: “nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Mt 26:39b). In his encyclical “On Christian Hope” Pope Benedict XVI says, “We must do all we can to overcome suffering, but to banish it from the world altogether is not in our power. This is simply because we are unable to shake off our finitude and because none of us is capable of eliminating the power of evil. … Only God is able to do this: only a God who personally enters history by making himself man and suffering within history.”
He goes on to say: “It is when we attempt to avoid suffering by withdrawing from anything that might involve hurt, when we try to spare ourselves the effort and pain of pursuing truth, love, and goodness, that we drift into a life of emptiness. … It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love.” (Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, #36-37)
The key is to embrace the suffering that comes to us (and it will come) and unite it to the suffering and death of Jesus. Pain and suffering in and of itself does not lead to life. But when we embrace our suffering and unite it with Christ’s Passion and death, we allow him to suffer with us. That doesn’t necessarily take the suffering away, but rather it gives us the grace to endure what we are going through with Jesus, and our suffering can become redemptive, and not just for us, but also for the world when we offer it up for others.
Pope Saint John Paul II reflects on this in his beautiful encyclical “On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering.” This is what he writes to the faithful: “the salvific meaning of suffering descends to man’s level and becomes, in a sense, the individual’s personal response. It is then that man finds in his suffering interior peace and even spiritual joy.”
He refers to Saint Paul’s letter to the Colossians where Paul writes, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church” (Col 1:24). John Paul II goes on to say, “A source of joy is found in the overcoming of the sense of the uselessness of suffering, a feeling that is sometimes very strongly rooted in human suffering. … Faith in sharing in the suffering of Christ begins with the interior certainty that the suffering person ‘completes what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.’ … It is suffering, more than anything else, which clears the way for the grace which transforms human souls. Suffering, more than anything else, makes present in the history of humanity, the powers of redemption” (Pope John Paul II, Salvifici Doloris, #26-27).
The beauty in all this is that we are not alone in our pain and suffering. Jesus doesn’t call us to pick up our cross alone. He calls us to follow him, which means that he walks with us on our way. Discipleship is a continuous contact with Jesus who doesn’t just lead the way for us to follow, but walks with us helping us with our cross at every step.