What if your problems are too severe? It’s true almost everyone has problems- many of them, though, are solvable. It’s just a normal part of living. Several people even measure their own problems more than they actually are. These troubles are not life-changing or threatening, urgent, and big enough to stop the person’s life. They just need attitude-changes, be more humble, forgive more, do more work, or just wait for more time since your trouble would fix itself.
But what if your problems are what you can already call “oppression” with no solution, lifelong, or even can ruin your life?
On the other hand, I hear some people even claim they rarely have problems and have never encountered any tragedy. And there’s also the culture of this generation that is very self-centered or narcissistic. It’s focused on hedonism (This term originated in ancient Philosophy, wherein a group of people who believed “Let’s eat and drink, and be merry for tomorrow we shall die!”) that means all about pleasure-seeking, self-indulgence, and personal gratification. Such a worldly lifestyle we have in these times. Everybody seems to be enjoying and having fun…
But here you are, oppressed with so many impossible life problems- poor health and sicknesses, unemployment, severely tight financial situations and low-paying jobs to even have a decent living, family or marital problems, depression and loneliness, or being abandoned.
In the other parts of the world, there are far worse situations than yours – poverty, diseases, persecutions and social injustice, martyrdom, human trafficking, and the ones especially affected are the women and children, who are most vulnerable.
You don’t even have to look elsewhere, because sometimes your sufferings alone are just a disaster. These problems can get the better of you, that you can’t help but question this worst thing that enters your mind, ‘Is there a God?’ Other religions or unbelievers of God argue that God does not exist because there are worldwide sufferings that happen even to the innocent and kindest people.
Another thing that could happen to you when you have terrible sufferings is that you still have managed to believe in God, but your faith is just shattered – you don’t pray much anymore, or infrequently receive the Sacraments and attend the Mass only during the occasions or never.
Our Holy Father Pope Francis at World Youth Day 2016 held in Krakow, Poland (July 29) has a message regarding the question “Where is God?”
The message of Pope Francis is clear: we need to embrace our Cross in order to follow Jesus.
Then he said to all, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)
It’s not easy, because it’s too heavy for a simple, helpless person like you and me. While it’s more than we can bear, be assured that Jesus suffers with you, and carries the Cross with you.
It is only the Roman Catholic Church that gives emphasis and values to sufferings, unlike other religions and the secular world that are disgusted with sufferings, and try to cure them like a plague. Catholicism gives meaning and sense to sufferings. Without this faith, all the evils and sufferings in the world become meaningless and just random misfortunes.
But God does not let anything to be useless or without meaning. God loves the poor so much that He makes sense of the sufferings the oppressed has. The evils and injustice caused unto you is turned around by God to be your means of becoming closer to Him. We give Jesus Christ our share in His Passion, suffering, and death on the Cross. By sharing your sufferings with Jesus, you get to know Him more. This hard means make you more cherished in Jesus’ Most Sacred Heart. He could have just said in one sentence, “Be saved, all of you!” But no, He freely chose suffering and death on the Cross; sacrificed Himself in the most painful way as the Lamb of God to open the gates of Heaven for you, for us once more. This is because He wants you to see how important suffering is for your salvation. Without sufferings, you have nothing to offer God.
When we die, He’s going to ask what we did that makes us deserving of salvation. Usually, when you follow Jesus, become religious, and practice strict morals that our Church doctrines teach, the world – your friends and relatives can be against you, and you suddenly become the people’s enemy. You become separated from the society or “ostracism” that Pope Francis mentioned. But should we stop following Jesus and be immoral just for their sake? Jesus was naked and humiliated, Pope Francis explains further. That’s no wonder following the ways Jesus and not of the world’s might cause you to be ridiculed or labeled as ‘stupid’. The satisfaction that the world offers is temporary. Only when we die and see the face of God to judge us whether we’re for Hell, Purgatory, or Heaven in the eternal life that we’d realize we should have done everything that could help us earn our salvation.
Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:11-12)
“These questions,” Pope Francis says, “in humanly speaking, have no answer.” He tells us that only Jesus has the answer. Contrary to human reason that sufferings make us “losers,” the truth is sufferings sanctify us and make us holy. When we have the hardest sufferings, you realize you only have God and nothing else to help you. You begin to see your sins against Him and how it really hurt God and other people. And your life becomes all about offering to God.
You may even say, “Why me?” Be thankful, for God has chosen you. If you accept God’s calling through your sufferings, you are sanctified while living and in the next life, it’s either you would spend less time to be spent in Purgatory, or go straight to Heaven. Pope Francis reminds us though that this desire of suffering is not “sadomasochism.” We don’t take pleasure with having to suffer. Instead, we just accept what God has given us, because that is His will, which lets us feel the joy of having something to offer Jesus by having to suffer for and with Him.
When a person has no sufferings, the irony is that, it is actually them who need to question why they have none. Like Pope Francis says, those who call themselves a “Christian” must do something to reach out to the suffering poor and marginalized. That means, if they are not given any sufferings, they should leave their comfort zone, voluntarily take up the Cross, and follow Jesus by helping the others in need. Remember, those who are rich and suffering-free individuals, “Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.” (Luke 12:48)
You have all the reason to be at peace with your sufferings. We must keep in mind that “The Way of the Cross is the way of fidelity in following Jesus to the end, in the often dramatic situations of everyday life,” as Pope Francis explains. He doesn’t say ‘normal situations.’ Rather, he says it’s “dramatic situations of everyday life.”
Let us pray that, under the protection of Our Blessed Mother, God will sow faith, hope, and love into our hearts, to be able to carry the Cross and follow Him, as Catholics!
She graduated cum laude from the University of Santo Tomas, the country's Pontifical and Catholic university, with an AB in Legal Management and minor units in Theology.
As an unmarried woman, prayer holds a central place in her daily life, with a focus on the Rosary and the Divine Office. Embodying her faith, she emphasizes the growth of her inner spiritual life, guided by the wisdom of Carmelite spirituality.
God manifested to her in a unique and radical manner, which made her know Who He truly is and led her to total surrender of her life to Him.
She has studied the Bible with her family, developing a particular fondness for the Old Testament.
Her adorable and intelligent toy poodle is a delightful companion in her daily life, bringing warmth and joy to her home.
Her hobbies include reading about everything, learning Japanese and German, listening to music and playing the flute.
In her leisure time, she enjoys gaming on PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch OLED, Nintendo 3DS, iOS and OS, and collecting things related to PlayStation and Nintendo.
Email: [email protected]
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