The aspect of our Catholic faith that most amazes me is redemptive suffering — the Christian belief that human suffering, accepted and offered up in union with the Passion of Jesus, can release someone from just punishment for sins or help other physical or spiritual needs of the one who is offering their suffering up or another person(s).

 

In his apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris (1984), Pope John Paul II said, “In bringing about the Redemption through suffering, Christ has also raised human suffering to the level of the Redemption. Thus each man, in his suffering, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ.”

 

One of the most inspiring talks I’ve heard in my years at The Observer came from a woman who was deep in the throes of cancer and its treatment. She told her story, which included the sorrow she had felt for many years for people in Africa who were burdened with starvation and disease.

 

At some point after she developed cancer, this woman embraced redemptive suffering. She glowed with joy as she explained to us that she was, in fact, helping those people in Africa from here in Illinois, half a world away. Her confidence in that redemptive suffering seemed to permeate every inch of her — a deep conviction that her offering was more effective than any other gift she might give, including monetary donations or the act of volunteering.

 

To be clear, Catholics are not supposed to seek out suffering. If we try to make ourselves suffer, our motive is likely to be wrongheaded. Perhaps we would be on a quest for attention, or our efforts may be rooted in pride, or we may simply want to feel like a victim. That is being masochistic.

 

But in truth, we need not worry that we are passing up some kind of holy opportunity if we go along in life in good stead. Most everyone, sooner or later, ends up with greater or lesser amounts of some kind of suffering somewhere along the way. It might be physical pain, or emotional and mental anguish. We may lose something important like our job — or someone we love may die. Spiritual trials along the lines of the dark nights of St. Therese or of St. Teresa of Calcutta can be offered up as well.

 

Most certainly, redemptive suffering does not mean that the gift of our suffering offered up for others meets some sort of cosmic quota. That is the stuff of fiction and mythology, where gods and aliens tamper with balanced scales and make humans miserable for their entertainment. God (the Almighty One in charge of the real universe) does not resemble those fantasies. Self-sacrificing love is the driving force behind all that He gives or allows. And how kind it is that we can participate in that love.

 

At this point, it might be good to briefly mention people called “victim souls.”

 

A victim soul is an individual who has been chosen by God to undergo physical, and sometimes spiritual, suffering beyond that of normal human experience. The victim soul willingly accepts this unique and difficult mission of offering up his or her pains for the salvation of others. In the victim soul, such redemptive suffering takes on an intense, personal form, a gift of grace that is often accompanied by mystical phenomena.

 

Victim souls do not choose to be such. One was Sister Josefa Menendez (1890-1923) of the Order of the Sacred Heart of Jesus who experienced a number of visions and locutions along with seasons of excruciating physical and spiritual pain. In her words, “Although strictly speaking one can offer oneself as a victim to give God joy and glory by voluntary sacrifice, yet for the most part God leads souls by that path only when He intends them to act as mediators: they have to suffer and expiate for those for whom their immolation will be profitable ...

 

“It stands to reason that no one will on his own initiative take such a role on himself. Divine consent is required before a soul dares to intervene between God and His creature. There would be no value in such an offering if God refused to hear the prayer.”

 

So let’s not go looking for suffering. But if tribulations come to us, may we make good use of them by offering them up for the good of others!