The Divine Surgeon

BY

Rev. Denis Mooney, O.F.M.

Surgeon, cut deep into my mind!—
With the lance of contradiction

Purge out the selfish, pagan part

In my mentality,

That I may see all things

With the Mind of Christ.

Surgeon, cut deep into my heart!—
With instruments of Thine own choosing

Sever all attachments

To the things of earth,

That I may love all creatures

With the Heart of Christ.

Surgeon, cut deep into my will!—
With the scalpel of authority

Cut out my pride

Till self is dead,

And I obey in everything

With the Will of Christ.



SO YOU THINK

YOU’RE

SUFFERING
By

Rev. Bruno M. Hagspiel, S.V.D.

it

“Carry me, Christ, on the cross, which

is salvation to the wanderers, sole rest

for the wearied, wherein alone is life

for those who die!”

ST. AMBROSE

tV

I



Nihil Ostat May 30, 1953.

Rt. Rev. Msgr. A. H. Wiersbinski, V.G.

Imprimatur June 1, 1953.

Most Rev. John M. Gannon, D.D. Bishop of

Erie, Pa.

II



“If anyone wishes to come after me,

let him deny himself, and take up his

cross, and follow me.” (Matt. 16:24)

III



;

%

THE MISSION OF PAIN

pain? What is pain?

It is the impress of the loving hand

Of the Great Artist on his formless clay;

The grinding of the Immortal Potter’s wheel;

The chisel on the diamond, whereby it

Comes forth a gem of radiant loveliness.

Why be afraid? The Artist is expert.

He understands each move. The Potter’s

hand

Is sure. It will not slip and mar the work.

And no more shaping shall the vessel have,

And not a single turn upon the wheel

More than is needed to insure the grace,

The beauty and the strength, the Master

Workman

Gives to all He makes.

Why be afraid?

IV



FOREWORD

In this vale of tears, it is easy enough for each one of

us to classify his own trials or sufferings as extreme exam-

ples of the privations or sorrows that beset all men ever

since Adam and Eve were driven from Eden.

Individuals ^vith true perspective of the role which the

Divine Sufferer enacted on earth on our behalf are of

course quick to remind us that, compared to His Agony

and Passion, our own woes are puny ones, indeed.

But, without question, there are countless human

beings whose vision does not lift to those heights, or

cannot comprehend the depth and the breadth of the

Saviour’s suffering on account of mere mankind.

If, instead, actual examples were offered to us of

other flesh-and-blood persons, perhaps even of our own

nationality or our present generation, our human under-

standing can better compare how insignificant our personal

troubles or griefs appear, and how little we are entitled to

the luxury of personal moaning and groaning over our

current plight, whatever it may be.

With this thought, the author has gone gleaning among

ancient tomes and yesterday’s newspapers, has jotted down

narratives of sufferings undergone by saints and sinners,

religious and laypeople,—all with the purpose of showing
the reader that if he believes his suffering is terrible, here

are without doubt cases which make his pain seem

child’s play.

Nor is it intended that this be done in a negative

spirit, of belittling and minimizing the tribulations of

V



any fellow-man,—rather does the author want first to
point the way, without undue preachment, to the

proper

attitude towards suffering, which can yield richer
rewards

than any mortal king ever bestowed.

Gold is tried by fire. The leaping flames burn
the

dross off, the impurities collect in
the slag-heap, the

final residue of metal gleams with brightest
lustre only

after the purification by the intensest heat.

Thus with human souls. God’s magic wand of suf-

fering, by merest touch, can refine our
crude spiritual

substance to an essence that will brighten
even eternity.

May this collection of the sufferings of others
help

you bear your trials, may it point the way to
higher

awareness of the sanctity God offers you through
Christ-

like endurance of the sufferings He sends you.

Bruno Hagspiel, S.V.D.

Sacred Heart Mission Seminary

Girard, Pa.

VI



SO YOU THINK YOU’RE

SUFFERING!

VII



“is your cross so big?”

God in His divine wisdom has

from all eternity beheld the cross

He bestows upon you —
His precious gift

from His Heart.

He contemplated this cross

with His all-knowing eye

before bestowing it upon you.

He pondered over it with His divine mind;

He examined it with His all-wise justice;

With His loving mercy

He warmed it thru and thru;

And with both His hands

He weighed it

to determine if it be

one ounce too heavy for you.

He blessed it with His all-holy Name;

With His grace He anointed it;

And with His consolation

He perfumed it thru and thru;

And then once more

He considered you and your courage.

Finally it comes from heaven

as a special message of God

to you,

an alms

of the all-merciful love

of God

for you.

St. Francis de Sales

VIII



It’s a common mistake for anyone to think that God

afflicts only evildoers with suffering and the travail of

pain.

On the contrary, it is more often His own friends

of the Cross whom He takes by the hand and leads into

the School of Suffering, which is the School of Perfection.

Just reflect for a moment, while turning the pages

of the Old Testament with St. Louis Marie Grignon de

Montfort, and listen to his inspired comment:

“Look at these just men

—

“Abel, who was slain by his brother;

Abraham, who was a wanderer in a strange land;

Lot, who was driven from his native country;

Jacob, who was persecuted by his brother;

Job, who was reduced to poverty, humiliated, 3

and covered with sores from head to foot;

Tobias, who was struck with blindness. . .
.”

We could add others: for instance; Joseph, who

was sold into slavery by his own kinsmen . . . and when

we come to the New Testament, what a roll-call of

Apostles and Martyrs we can recall!

“We are never without wounds on this earth that

is covered with thorns,” declares St. Louis de Montfort.

You can carry your Cross unwillingly,—but if you will
only glance around you and see how little is your portion

of suffering, you will be led to say to yourself, “And I

thought I had it bad! I thought I was really suffering!”

It is easy to be full of spiritual pride, too, and to consider

your scratches to be gaping wounds, your little rebuffs

to be dreadful injuries, your crosses to be massive
3 beams

1



instead of the splinters they truly are. That crushing blow

—

is it not in fact just a fly alighting on you? That fearful

stab at your sensibilities—is it not rather the mere
prick of a pin?

How much wiser shall we be if we can cry with St.

Augustine, “Burn, cut, O Lord, in this world; only spare

me in eternity!”

But before we measure our spiritual stature against

that of sufferers who have gone before us, let us first

see what suffering means.

During World War II, a common practice in every

army unit of the U.S. forces was to have “orientation”

talks. It was found very necessary first to instruct the

soldiers just what they were fighting for, just what the

enemy stood for, just what the whole struggle was about.

These orientation meetings were followed by “briefings,”

in which a senior officer usually explained with maps or

sketches just what fortress of the enemy was to be as-

sailed, how they were to go about it, what to do if they

were victorious, what to do if they failed. . . .

Let us first “orientate” ourselves on what suffering

means in the scheme of life, and then “brief” ourselves

on what to do when we come to actual grips with the

enemy,—which, in too many cases, is nobody but our
own weak human soul.

DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU ARE SUFFERING?

There are so many ways of suffering: just which one

do you mean?

Mental, spiritual, physical,—and a multitude of vari-
2



ations of each of these. Which kind of suffering is your

lot, and just what little variation of it is yours?

Picture the Man of Sorrows, as He proceeds from

the Mount of Olives to the death-rattle on Calvary.

Are you lonely? Here is Jesus, bereft of all human

consolation, and of Divine solace too. The might of His

Father is displayed not in allowing some soft
waft of

assuagement to touch Jesus’ brow. No. God the Father

sends an angel who proffers instead the chalice of bitter-

ness.

Do you feel frustration sharply? A few feet away

from the agonizing Jesus slumber the chosen
few, the

Apostles, on whom He plans to build His church. What

of His glorious visions of their success in
following His

instructions, His long hours of teaching, praying,
yes,

—even of miracle-working?
Does the double-dealing of loved ones hurt you?

Judas steps forward to offer the historic monstrous kiss

of betrayal. Peter, later on, denies in his coarse fisher-

man’s voice, snarling with curses, “I know not the man.”

And not one follower or disciple lifts a finger to rescue

Him, except the headstrong Peter who proves his man-

hood to himself with a brief sword-swinging episode.

Do you suffer because lies have been told about

you? Dragged before the Roman governor, Jesus hears

fantastic charges screamed against Himself. With His

infinite knowledge, Jesus knows better than any man

just how false and twisted those trumped-up fabrications

are.

Are you a victim of occasional twinges of pain,

—

3



seasonal attacks of rheumatism, muscular aches, onsets

of arthritis? Here is Jesus, scourged at the pillar. Every

pore filled with blood from the Roman whips; every sinew

ripped and torn; every inch of flesh gaping and raw.

Or perhaps today or yesterday it was a headache

which wracked your body. . . r How we rush to abate

the momentary flash of pain with aspirin or a cold pack

or other quick remedy! But here is the God-man, wearing

the supreme farce of a crown: sharp penetrating thorns.

Is it a neuralgic pain which twitches your cheek

or face—or a toothache which afflicts your jaw? Jesus
has His bloodied bruised face beaten by the calloused

hands of soldiers, by the mock scepter, and feels the

spittle of their contempt on His sacred face.

Are you being treated unjustly? Do you feel that if

the truth were known, those who laugh at you would

instead hold you in deep respect? Pilate washes his hands

of Jesus; and the Jewish crowd roars that they think

more of Barabbas, the robber, the murderer, than of

Jesus, Who raised Lazarus from the dead.

Have you ever had a sore back or aching shoulder

or an attack of lumbago? Here is the Son of God, walking

the Way of the Cross, muscles fairly cracking under the

strain of the massive cross.

Remember when you fell down and scraped your

knee? or stumbled and hurt yourself? The weight of

the cross crushes Jesus into the stifling dust of the road;

the sharp rocks bruise Him Who is already one living

bruise.

That time you had a skin rash or some mosquito

4



bites or poison ivy. . . how you complained about it!

Watch how the barbaric hands of the Romans tear the

garment of Jesus off His body, so that gobbets of bloody

flesh are torn off. . . .

That time you cut your right hand slightly. . . or

sprained your left wrist. . . everybody knew about it.

The bandage stayed on for days. But see how the massive

spike is driven into the very hands of Jesus, Whose

hands had only been used to work wonders and do good.

Maybe you had a broken leg or a maimed foot. . .

perhaps, if you were a soldier, you stepped on a land-

mine and had the foot blown off. . . . observe the slow

agony of the nail driven into the feet of Jesus, the crushing

of the many tiny bones which go to make up a human foot.

Or you were in an auto accident—but you escaped
serious injury,—only, for one jolting instant, your
whole body was hurled about suddenly. Lo! the Cross

is raised on high and with a final lurch thuds into the

hole prepared for it, exquisite fingers of pain tearing at

every tortured nerve and sinew and bloody fragment of

flesh.

It hurts you to see your loved ones suffer. Lo! here

is Mary, His mother, at the foot of the Cross, numb

with grief and the stabbing pain of the swords of her

great sorrow.

The piercing of His side with the lance. . . the sponge

saturated with bitterness. . . the absence of the ministering

angels that would seem to be the very least His Father

could have done for His Son. . . .

Men who have survived the horrors of shipwreck,

5



adrift on the merciless expanse of the ocean, relate with

shudders how their thirst drove some co-sufferers to in-

sanity. Yet here is God the Son, with His thirst an

infinite one. . . .

And, final stroke of shame, after Jesus has died, He

is laid to rest, not in a tomb of His own, but in the final

sepulcher that belongs to another man, who is not even

one of His outstanding followers!

Yes, He was infinite God. . . . and His sufferings

were infinite.

DO YOU STILL THINK YOU KNOW
WHAT SUFFERING IS?

Can your trials and pains be even compared to the

Crucified One?

Now, before you can even start to estimate your

own sufferings with proper perspective, you must under-

stand just what is the meaning of suffering, the “WHY”

of it.

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?

Once, when I was in a well-known Chicago hospital, I

heard the moaning and wailing of a sufferer which was

so loud it rang through the entire wing of the building.

I asked the Brother attendant who it was.

He shook his head sadly. “A hopeless case,” he

replied. “The boy is only nine years old; we have been

giving injections trying to fight the infection but it is

too far gone, I fear. Now, each time the nurse approaches

to give the injection, the poor lad screams and screams

6



. . . even though he knows we are trying to help him.”

Doesn’t it seem hard for a poor innocent child to

be compelled to suffer such physical and mental
agony?

Why does God permit it, if He is all-merciful and all-

good? How often have we heard friends or neighbors

say: “Why did I have to lose the best wife a man ever

had in that frightful accident?” or “Why was my baby

stricken with polio?” or “Why does God allow the ig-

norance and savagery and rank immorality that
makes

our world of today such an appalling mess?”
Even good

people, feeling deeply about these problems, are
some-

times tempted to doubt that God is powerful or good.

Certainly, neither we as Catholics nor our faith of

Catholicism are callously insensible to the evil and
pain

all around us. What other religion or philosophy does as

much to alleviate the sorrows of humanity? But the

Catholic outlook enables us to see suffering in proper
per-

spective and to harness it for spiritual growth.
Many

people faced with tragedy are swayed more by their

hearts than by their heads. And it is next to impossible

to provide an answer that is emotionally satisfying,
when

some heavy blow has fallen.

Emotionally, it is hard to see why the same savage

sweep of Death’s scythe should mow down an ancient

of the people, hoary with 90 years, and a tiny tot who has

just barely been severed from his mother’s umbilical cord.

And if it is something that happened to you, the heart

that is surcharged with grief gives vent only too often

to outcries of rebellion and outrage against the Divine

Creator Who has inflicted this pain.

7



WHY MUST WE SUFFER?

In a prayer approved by PIUS X, June 2, 1914, which

was a favorite utterance of a modern Victim Soul, Martha

M. St. Jean of Grand Isle, Maine, we have the whole

“clue” to the so-called mystery of suffering given to us.

This heroic sufferer for 20 years on a sickbed (she died

on Easter Sunday April 17, 1949 in Fitchburg, Mass.)

underlined these phrases in her copy of the prayer:

“This is why, O Lord, even when I do not see
,
when

I do not understand
,
when I do not feel, I believe that

the situation in which I find myself and all that happens

to me is the work of Thy love; and with all my heart

I prefer it to any other situation which would be more

agreeable to me but which would come less from Thee.

I place myself in Thy hands: do with me as Thou wilt,

leaving me but the consolation of obeying Thee.”

What a different viewpoint from those who cry out

against God, as we have just described it! It is nothing

but an echo of the immortal words of Jesus in His agony

on the Mount of Olives: “Father, if Thou wilt, remove

this chalice from me: but yet not my will, but Thine be

done.” (LUKE XXII, 42).

What else did Jesus say when He declared “If any

man will follow Me, let him deny himself, and take up

his cross and follow me” (MARK VIII, 34) ?

Take the example of a modern saint such as the

Little Flower, St. Therese, whose whole story of sanctity

can be traced in a simple line, from the time when she

suffered from the loss of her mother in her early years,

8



until her desire for suffering was actually consumed by

the union of her will with the will of God, to the shutting

out of all other desires. Sanctity in a nutshell: SUFFER

ACCORDING TO THE WILL OF GOD.

In the scheme of Redemption, God allows crosses and

pains to afflict us. With worries or anxieties, if we love

God, we are aware that He has indicated His absence.

Like the human soul in Francis Thompson’s immortal

HOUND OF HEAVEN, we can flee Him across the

illimitable expanse of heaven and of earth, only to find

peace when we allow the chase to end as His captive.

Again, with actual physical sufferings God may force

us to realize His presence, — shutting out the world
behind a hospital door, stopping our frivolous or sinful

gadding to and fro with crippled limbs, removing the

mere thought of worldly pleasures with the daily constant

pain of a hideous disease.

On Gethsemane, on Golgotho, God spelled out for

all men, as you or I would make it clear to a child, the

meaning of religion in our lives. He used blood, sweat,

tears to make the letters stand out clear: GIVING, NOT

GETTING is the meaning of it all. SUFFERING, —
if so it be God’s will, —not REFUSING TO SUFFER.
Not our will, but God’s will.

Many of us want consolation from Jesus; few of us

ask for tribulation. We all love to celebrate Easter Sunday,

— Lent is a time of sour faces too often. Many, in the
words of Thomas a Kempis, “follow Jesus to the breaking

of bread, but few to the drinking of the chalice of His

passion.” Many of us are glad to do God’s will if it

9



happens to agree with our own plans and desires, —
but woe to God’s plans if they should contradict ours!

Read and re-read chapter 12 of Book II of THE IMI-

TATION OF CHRIST On the Royal Way of the Holy

Cross. It’s a classic!

We must seek God’s pleasure, not ours. In the light

of Faith, suffering becomes the highroad to heaven, not

an obstacle in our path. “Are you Christians?” asked

St. Augustine. “If you are, what name do you bear?

The name of reasonable beings or of the Faithful? Reason

is not the final appeal for you.” Mere reasoning, mere

working out of a mathematical formula will not explain

the meaning of suffering. It will not tell us the “WHY”

of it all.

As the centuries have unfolded, here and there sage

historians have been allowed to study certain events

from the vantage point of knowledge that was hidden

from the people who actually lived during the historic

times. Not always, but sometimes these historians are

able to show how God’s Divine Providence operated so

marvellously that certainly the people living in those

far-off days could have never had an inkling of what

He planned for future generations.

Yet think of the myriad other events which are still

not understood by scholars who have pored over docu-

ments, dug in strange places, mastered forgotten lan-

guages, all to become “experts” on certain historic periods!

Yet God still quietly keeps His “blueprints” to Himself.

One sure clue to the mystery of suffering we hold

in our mortal hands. God’s love for His children is the

10



reason for suffering. “For whom the Lord loveth, He

chastiseth” (PROVERBS III, 12). Scattered throughout

the Old Testament we can find one inspiring passage

after another all pointing to the same exhortation that

Judith gave to the ancients: “Let us believe that these

scourges of the Lord with which like serpents we are

chastised have happened for our amendment and not

for our destruction.”

How often Jesus preached the doctrine of pain! “You

shall be made sorrowful but your sorrow shall be turned

into joy.” (JOHN XVI, 20). The whole public life of

Our Lord pictured, described, underlined this theme.

Jesus’ entire primary mission with respect to human

suffering and human sorrow was not to relieve them,

but to show us how to bear them, use them, value them

and so learn to thank God for them. The miraculous

cures, the wonder-working episodes proved His Divinity,

just so He could declare all the more strongly that not

through fleeing from suffering but by bearing it for His

sake, we could enter the kingdom of heaven.

We are all Simons of Cyrene at heart. We are reluctant

to shoulder that fearful burden of a cross. And then,

think what the people standing around will say! Won’t

many of them whisper, “Serves him right” ... or “We

know there is a good reason why God is punishing him

with this sickness.” It takes a struggle to face up to the

suffering laid on us and bear it. But, St. Jerome points

out quite bluntly that no saint ever was crowned without

the fight first over.

11



WAS SUFFERING NECESSARY?

Jesus could have set us free from sin without making

the royal road of the Cross as our pathway to heaven.

As God, He could have come among men for a brief

moment and offered just one brief prayer or sigh or

the tiniest drop of His Precious Blood. It would have

sufficed to make the plan of redemption operative. Why

did He suffer, and why did He insist on His most dear

ones, His Mother, the Apostles, and others, going through

suffering also?

Into the lives of the ones whom God has loved the

most, have the most grievous trials and afflictions been

poured. Down the centuries, call the roll-call of the

martyrs and saints who suffered poverty, hunger, starva-

tion, stripes, scourgings, mental anguish of disgrace and

shame and loneliness and abandonment, physical tor-

ments of disease and the rack, boiling in oil and beheading,

flaying alive, and burning at the stake . . . and even,

blessed privilege of imitating the Divine Master by

crucifixion. Why?

But God’s love was not content with mere redemption,

— love demands all, is not satisfied with the mere
shadow of giving, but must offer all, even the breath

of life. Love bears all things, endures all things for the

beloved. God, the greatest Lover, could show no greater

love than by laying down His life for His friends. A

mother risks death to rescue her child in a burning

house, or from a racing auto. “Suffering is the badge

of those who love,” wrote the ardent pen of St. John

12



of the Cross. How suffering purifies the soul, sharpens

its appetite for heaven, burns away the dross!

Then, too, Jesus suffered to teach us the awfulness of

sin. We are all children of Adam, we are all possessors

in our human frames of the weaknesses that find sin

something attractive. Jesus, by being the victim of sin,

from Olivet’s bloody grove to the darkened summit of

Golgotha, painted for us the fearful nature of sin, its

hideous and fiendish conquest of the All-good God in

human form. Himself sinless, He allowed the henchmen

of sin to wreak their worst devices upon His body. “There

is no soundness in Him, wounds and bruises and swelling

sores . . .” What must it have been to feel the weight

of sin on those divine shoulders?

I watched a master silversmith one day. An apprentice

brought a beautiful gold plaque to him, and pointed out

a most intricate piece of engraving which was incomplete.

The master artisan studied the plaque, then went over

to the wall where over fifty different instruments and

tools were fixed on holders, unerringly selected one tool,

and in a moment had made the one little gouge in the

plaque which finished it and made it a work of art. As

the apprentice walked off, he said to me, admiringly,

“He sure knows just which tool to pick for the job.”

In His omnipotence, God knew just which instrument

would be the one for the job of saving souls for heaven.

Shall we question His infinite knowledge? Of all the tools

lying to His hand, God selected the one of suffering and

pain. Shall we, who wish to follow Him, pit our imperfect

wits against His, and choose some other instrument? The

13



saints knew that this was the secret of sanctity, — an
open secret, for all to read, since Jesus walked the road

of agony to the hill called Golgotha.

How simple it all is! “If we suffer, we shall also

reign with Him,” says St. Paul (II TIM. 11, 12). No

Cross, no Crown!

Do you understand now why Jesus suffered, even

though it was not necessary, and why He sends the cross

to His friends? Ah, but now you say: “But I know of

cases of truly hardened criminals, and actual atheists,

who have suffered greatly. Were these then Jesus’ friends

also? Do you put them in the same group with the

heroic saints who gave up all, even life, for His sake?”

You will not deny that even the greatest criminal

or most depraved sinner can regain the friendship of

God. Who are you to know the innermost secrets of

their hearts, their possibly secret yearning for the light

that streams from Golgotha? Did not Jesus pronounce

these mighty words: “I came not to call the just but

sinners to penance” (LUKE V, 32)?

Brought into the world though we are all, with the

brand of original sin upon our souls, yet we have the

promise of redemption if we shall seek for it: “If your

sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow”

(IS. XXXXIII, 25) . And how Our Lord rejoiced over the

joy there would be in heaven over the one sinner that

did penance, more than over the 99 who did not need

penance. Truly, in His Father’s heaven there are many

mansions. . . .

To all of us, would-be saint or obvious sinner, the

14



straight way to heaven is revealed. Suffering is like a

hedge of thorns bordering the path on both sides ... the

stings of the sharp nettles force us to stay on the path,

even though beyond the hedges the mirage of sun-kissed

fields beckon us.

What wonderful magic there is in suffering! Watch

how Nabuchodonosor is changed from an arrogant, des-

potic tyrant to a humble, submissive creature through his

tribulations. See how the prodigal son, his pride abated,

turns from ways of sin to become a humble son once

more in his father’s house. Achab, the wicked, — how his
trials give him humility. Read the praises David sings

to God after his afflictions have showed him the true

attitude to have towards His Maker.

Not mere negative turning away from their sins was

the fruit of suffering in the saints. Vibrant, living joy

shone about them like a halo. “None can find more joy

than those who suffer for Christ,” said St. Francis Borgia.

And St. Paul cries out: “I exceedingly abound with joy

in all our tribulations” (II COR. VII,4). The great Apostle

to the Gentiles was no sit-by-the-fire; he travelled widely,

“in shipwrecks often.” ... Yet he exclaimed fervently,

“We glory also in tribulations, knowing that tribulation

worketh patience, and patience trial, and trial hope”

(ROM. V,3-4).

From the lips of the Little Flower has literally poured

forth one ecstasy of joy in suffering after another: “To

suffer and to love is purest of all joys.” And again, “My

God, what joy can be greater than to suffer for Thy

love!” And her wonderful statement, “Suffering itself be-

15



comes the greatest of all joys when we seek it as a

precious treasure.” Suffering, she sings in her poem MY

JOY AND MY PEACE, is “my gladsome choice.” Yes,

St. Therese knew that God loves a cheerful giver. . . .

An Air Corps chaplain told me this story, apropos of

this same cheerfulness. He paused by two privates digging

a ditch alongside a runway. They were literally up
to

their waists in muck and mud and he thought a cheerful

word might not be amiss. But one private was
quite

happy and contented, — in fact, he was as cheerful as
his buddy was sour-faced.

The chaplain was puzzled. “Oh,” laughed the first

soldier, “the sergeant just passed by and told me I

‘made’ PFC (Private First Class). I can afford to feel

good doing this job, when I know I’m getting a pro-

motion.”

Contrasted with this picayune reward, for so much

toil and drudgery, think of the eternal reward held before

a saint, — shouldn’t he be cheerful to an incalculable
degree? Aren’t trials and tribulations well worth the

while when he knows he is getting such a “promotion”?

HOW TO USE SUFFERING

A missionary in the wilds of Africa was one day intro-

duced to a pygmy chief, who barely came up to his chest,

so small of stature was he. Imagine the good
Father’s

astonishment when the native guide stated casually, “This

chief has eaten an elephant.” Incredible! The missionary

tried to correct this grievous tendency to tell a large
lie.

The native was nonplussed. “But it is true. Father,” he

16



explained,
“— although it is also true, he ate only one

piece at a time.”

Behold the sufferings visited upon yourself and you

may be lured to say the burden of them is too great.

But study them one by one, bear them as they come,

— and though you be small of soul when you start,
your final heroism can be giant-size.

Or study the requirements which a great ascetic

writer, Dom Marmion, requires of the soul in the face

of suffering: silent patience, generous love, and filial

abandonment. Apply these spiritual touchstones to your

suffering and see how quickly you will find yourself

embracing, not rejecting, your cross.

Even in our own day, Job is the supreme example

of a man who had misfortunes heaped on him, only

to bear them with a patience truly monumental. Read the

narrative of his woes, mounting in intensity, including

every type of distress: spiritual and mental and physical,

anguish of soul and mind and body, -— arid still Job
withstands every buffet from the hand of the Lord with

patience, — victorious patience. “The Lord hath given
and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of

the Lord.” These are the heroic words with which Job

meets misfortune.

Loss of his oxen and asses, the murder of his servants,

destruction of his sheep, stealing of his camels, ruin of

his house, death of his sons; his personal physical affliction

with boils from his head to his foot; — who can blame
him when he bemoaned his fate to his friends who came

to see him in his misery. Yet he renewed his patience

17



and once more put himself in God’s hands
with resignation

and the true spirit of abandonment,
— and God heaped

upon him riches and honors greater than he
ever enjoyed

before!

Now, it must not be with the thought that by
acting

a patient part God will be led to “reverse” his
treatment

and remove your sufferings and instead
shower you with

blessings. Your attitude must be one of genuine
readiness

and ability to maintain a firm unyielding
patience in

bearing your trials. Jesus is Our Divine Model.
See Him

as He endures the mockery of Herod, the spittle
and

scorn of the soldiers, the lack of
understanding of the

Roman governor, the scourges and crown of thorns, the

denial by His disciples, the abandonment by
His loved

ones, the terrible Death March to Golgotha,
the last

infinitely painful and drawn out horrors of the
actual

nailing to the Cross and dying upon it.

Train yourself to bear suffering, just as a
little child

learns to walk by stumbling, getting up,
trying again.

Start by bearing hunger with patience; do
without liquid

for a longer period than you are used to; endure
cold;

withstand uncomfortable heat; — little things will put
iron into the structure of your patience.

When small

inconveniences arise, or contradictions from friends
are

interposed, — accept them. Say NOTHING, be PA-
TIENT. “The patient man is better than the valiant;

and he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh
cities.

Patience is not the virtue of cowards, of lukewarm listless

souls: it is a heroic quality. From it the saints fashioned

their ladder to heaven.

18



How easy to tell the first comer our troubles! Surely

nobody ever had such a difficult time as we had. . . .

Keep them to yourself! Apart from the human reality

that nobody wants your headaches, the spiritual fact is

that such complaining works directly against your own

sanctity.

Instead, endure for Jesus’ sake and with Jesus what-

ever trial has plagued you. The very patience of your

endurance will inevitably lead you to meet your sufferings

in a spirit of love, GENEROUS LOVE, which if carried

to its extreme possibility will result in filial abandon-

ment, the yielding of yourself as a son or daughter to

the will of your eternal Father. Like a wise father such

as we know on earth, He uses this suffering to make our

love grow strong. If love can become so powerful that

it can surpass the natural human cravings, then truly

it is divine love. Suffering in itself, afflictions such as we

all endure, in themselves mean nothing unless they obtain

value through being united in faith and love with the

sufferings of Jesus. To suffer, — nothing! But to suffer
with Christ, — everything!

Consider this astonishing truth: God often treats His

friends with renewed trials: St. Teresa of Avila asserts

boldly “IT IS WITH SUFFERING THAT HE REPAYS
THEIR SERVICES.” Suffering is the rich coin with

which He bestows largesse on those who embrace the

Cross.

Surely Jesus wished to enrich His own Mother with

the very best gift of all. Did He erect a palace, massive

with gold and marble and jewels? No. Did He surround

19



her with throngs of obedient servants,
lavish luxuries,

finest garments, rarest perfumes? No. He plunged into

her tender heart the SEVEN SWORDS OF SUFFERING,

the Seven Dolors. The Lily of Israel’s fragrance was

to be crushed — this was the supreme gift that Jesus
could bestow on Mary.

If He saw fit to consider suffering as the finest reward

in His capacity, for His own Mother, shall we think we

are cherished by Him if He refuses us afflictions and

trials? What foolishness on our part! Be glad He is willing

to share His treasures of sorrow and grief with us
mere

humans.

THE TOOL OF SUFFERING

Before we begin to study the many ways that we can

use suffering to make easy our path to heaven, I want

you to read this authentic letter, which must remain

anonymous, from a devoted soul to a suffering person

who had asked for words of comfort:

“You ask me to write a few words on suffering,

and for weeks I have wished to do it for you. But
in

spite of the fact that grief and sorrow surround us
on

every side, and that our poor hearts have felt,
now and

again, the pressure of their weight, in
spite of this I

hesitate, for sorrow and grief and pain are so sacred

that next to the Sacraments I know of nothing more

set apart and consecrated.

“Suffering in itself is not beautiful. The tools of the

sculptor, the mallet of the stonecutter, the
brush of the

artist, — none of these is beautiful. Yet they produce
20



exquisite treasures of art. Without them, beauties the

rarest would lie buried, hidden away, undeveloped and

unformed. Without tools and brush and mallet, there

is no art. Tools in the hand of the artist who loves his

art bring life and beauty from the cold, hard marble.

Tools in the hand of the one who rebels against effort,

who begrudges the time spent at his work, do little more

than hack the block and fail to strike the hidden beauty

within. Suffering in the hand of a connoisseur, in the

hand of one who knows its value, who knows its power,

brings the living Christ from the fleshy tablets of the heart.

“A Cross is one thing.

“A Crucifix is another.

“Look at the procession of humanity. Look at Youth

and Old Age. Look at them marching on towards eternity.

Each with his cross, — there is no one without it, —
but on how many do we see the Crucified? Let us kneel

in adoration before the great and heroic, the magnani-

mous, the beautiful hearts that have so loved the Cross

that they have found therein the hidden Christ.

“Let us kiss their feet, let us kiss them reverently,

and with awe, — the feet of those who in their eagerness
to find Christ, have used the tools of sorrow, tools that

come in every shape, large and small, sharp and dull;

tools, of death, sickness, failure, misunderstanding, in-

fidelity of those we cherish, suspicion, mistrust, injustice,

and thousands of others, — yes, let us kiss their feet,
for they are holy.

“Suffering has made them so. Suffering has made them

strong, tender, loving, sympathetic, joyful.

21



“What is there greater, what is there more sublime

than the soul that has spent her life carving from her

cross the delicate figure of Christ? Surely this is success!

Is there any other? God grant that nothing along the

road of life may hinder your work on your masterpiece.

There is no injustice, no misunderstanding, when seen

in the light of the Crucifix. Truly this is the explanation

of every detail of our life.

“When we shall stand face to face with Jesus Christ,

when the veil is drawn aside, what joy it will be to our

Divine Saviour to find His image resplendent in our soul!

What a happiness to us to know that we have pleased

Him to whom our love was plighted years ago, and to

whom we promised fidelity, regardless of the cost. When

we shall truly see that beautiful Lord, when we shall

realize for what our life was given us,—when we shall
behold the mansion reserved for our life-work, do you

think we shall regret the tools? No, indeed. Let us kneel

to receive them now. Let us kiss them. Let us look up

to the Crucified and thank Him. With our heart bleeding

and our soul in anguish let us take the tool in our hand,

in our trembling hand and fashion—OUR BEAUTIFUL
LORD!!!”

Yes, the Cross is the tool to use to achieve the su-

preme masterpiece of our own salvation. St. Louis de

Montfort calls it a chisel, fashioning the living stones

of the heavenly Jerusalem; a winnowing fan to separate

the grain from the chaff; a fire-brand that removes the

rust from the iron; a crucible to purify and refine the

gold. Expect therefore to be hewn and cut and hacked

22



with the chisel of the Cross if you wish to be part of

the Divine Artisan’s heavenly plan.

A cynic once reproached a fervent Catholic with the

cutting remark, “But your Way of the Cross is such a

narrow way,—it restricts and hems you in, so that your
very soul is prevented from its full growth.”

But the devout believer quietly replied, “It is in the

narrowest part of the defile that the valley begins to

broaden and lead to the rich pastures beyond.”

Remember, too, that the suffering which you are

bearing does not necessarily have to be some traditional

form of pain or affliction. To each his own cross . . . God

knows best. Nor is His Omnipotence restricted from

permitting forms of suffering to appear which are new

to humanity.

Just the other day, a news story was filed by a war

correspondent in Korea, who described how a totally

new type of physical ailment was afflicting pilots in the

jet planes. The flight surgeon, Major Bernard Brungardt,

told how the greater altitudes at which the planes operated

sometimes caused snapping eardrums, sinus attacks and

excruciating bends, so that in an instant the pilot would

find himself with shoulders and head hunched over like

an old man, and a disabling pain commanding his entire

body. “Bends”—an attack in which the nitrogen in the
human body cannot be kept in place due to improper

pressure,—has been known to occur in deep-sea divers.
Now this sudden affliction hits men miles above the

earth. . . .

Nor must you think that your cross is too unusual

23



or too great for you to bear. Read this legend of how

one woman discovered this truth.

It seems she went to the place where crosses were

distributed. The kindly saint in charge pointed out a

cumbersome rough cross in the corner. “That’s yours,’

he smiled.

The woman picked it up and started down the road

home with it. She was soon back.

“This one is much too wide,” she complained. “And

it’s too heavy and rough and too long.”

The saint smiled. (Saints do, you know.) He remem-

bered that she was, after all, a woman, so he suggested

that she select the one she thought suited her best. So,

like any woman selecting a hat, the woman, first carefully

and slowly, then in desperation, tried on one cross after

the other. One was much too heavy; another too full of

splinters; a third was a monster of rough wood;—and
she was ready to give up in frustration when she spied

a cross leaning against the wall which she did not re-

member trying on. It was actually the heaviest one of

all,—but strangely enough, she found it just the thing.
And was she pleased!

“I’ll take this one,” she sighed with relief. “This one

fits me perfectly. It’s just my size and balances nice and I

think I can handle it nicely.”

The saint actually chuckled this time.

“I’m not surprised,” he said.

“You’re not?” The woman was astonished. “It’s the

heaviest cross here!”

“No,” smiled the saint, “I’m not surprised at all. You

24



see, that cross you are' carrying happens to be
the very

one that was chosen for you and which you turned
down

the first time.”

THE INFINITE VARIETY OF SUFFERING

In recent years we have read much about the
horrors

of the tortures which human beings have endured
in the

totalitarian and communistic countries. Fantastic
night-

marish devices used to break down the resistance of
those

who opposed those hellish tyrants of our times, one
need

only recall the 82 hours of unbroken
interrogation

which Cardinal Mindszenty went through before
his in-

famous travesty of a trial, or listen to the
tales of how

a dental drill would be turned loose in a
man’s mouth

without any anaesthetic for minutes at a
time, or, a

terrible mental torture, how a man’s own children
would

be forced to stand in his presence and
accuse him of

treason and of how the very people they had befriended

and helped would be brought face to face
with priests

or nuns to relate how they had murdered orphaned
Chi-

nese infants in cold blood.

But, in St. Ignatius’ day, were there not the cruel

iron hooks of the rack, the wild animals, the gibbet and

the stake? Were not entire nations, families torn asunder,

and sold into brutal slavery by the conquering Romans?

We know that after one battle alone, Aemilius Paulus

sold 150,000 slaves . . . that the people of Delos, a

small island, disposed of 10,000 slaves a day. . . . what

mental and heart-sick misery for the rest of their lives

25



for the mothers and fathers who had their little ones

torn from their arms!

The amphitheatres of Rome under the Caesars ran

red with blood and perverted forms of sadism and carnage.

The trees along the emperial roads leading into Rome

were hung with the loathsome fruit of corpses of re-

captured slaves. Nero poured pitch over the Christians

and used them as human torches to illuminate his palace

gardens; scourging, branding, flaying, impaling, beheading,

grilling on ovens,—these were not confined to the Roman
age. True, Titus nailed 3,000 Jews to the trees along the

road to Jerusalem, but the savage tribes of his day con-

sidered that a form of Roman mercy. . . . And in calling

the roll, hideous as it is, of these sufferings, we have not

got beyond the first centuries of the Christian era.

Perhaps you are distressed because you are out of

work ... or without a home ... or without use of

your hand or your leg or your tongue or ears . . .

Or you have lost your parents ... or your wife or

husband or children ... or your friends ... or your

money . .
.
possessions . . . business . . .

Or sickness has laid you low. You are even paralyzed.

Leprosy is eating your very flesh away, bit by bit. Sudden

seizures, such as epilepsy, attack you. Food is doled out

to you in a distasteful diet, or denied almost altogether,

or a substitute is injected into your veins to keep your

life somehow still pulsing. . . . Dire remedies are invoked,

the surgeons come and cut deep and long, the tissues will

not heal. Pain seems to be your portion.

Your particular pain or suffering is your particular

26



tool put into your hand by God to help you make your

life perfect.

Let us see, close-up, just what your suffering actually

is.

PERHAPS YOU ARE A FAILURE?

Today, with even the daily newspapers printing full in-

structions on how to become a worldly success, it bothers

many people more than they “let on” that they just do

not seem able to “make the grade” and become socially

acceptable or well-dressed or have a new car,—all sure
indications of the current trend to make of success a

fetish, of failure a whisper of contempt.

Well, let us step over to this statue of St. Aloysius

and reflect on his life. (Actually his face seems too serene.

I am against the sweetening of sacred statuary; the saints

endured mortal combat and were battle-scarred on their

journey through life. I would have Aloysius rather display

features which depict some of the heartaches and mental

agonies he endured before he attained his crown).

Anyway, Aloysius was born of a noble family, but

turned away from the alluring court life awaiting him

and refused all pleas to add to the military glory of

his ancestors. Instead he buried himself in an Order of

Religious which already was either feared or jeered at

through all the aristocratic salons of Europe . . . and

even there he never rose to eminence, but remained a

humble member and after only six years of this menial

toil, died.

By worldly standards, a very complete failure.

27



Does your case compare with his at all???

Or let us discuss the great Saint of the Indies, St.

Francis Xavier (1506-1552) ... in his middle age when

he died. His whole life was a record of isolation and of

distress. His family was terribly disappointed in his choice

of a career. He started to convert the Holy Land,—that
resulted in nothing. He was assigned to work at a Uni-

versity. Nothing glorious happened. He was summoned

back to be secretary to the Superior General, then was

sent to the Indies, but his labors in Goa were deemed

just so much “wasted” effort, since he was continuously

fighting with the Portugese officials for the right to prevail.

His goals always receded before him. The college at Goa

... his attempts at leading souls to God . . . the mark

of achievement was never stamped on anything he under-

took. In the words of Archbishop Goodier, Xavier was

great “not so much because of what he did as because

of what he failed to do.” Even Robert de Nobili, nephew

of St. Robert Bellarmine, wrote Xavier to return to his

old ways . . . and Francis merely placed the letter at the

foot of his crucifix and said nothing. . . .

His incorrupt body is still venerated today . . . the

millions of Christians in India and Japan can thank him

for planting the seed of the faith . . . FAILURE?

Your suffering as a failure can make you the biggest

success in the Recording Angel’s ledgers.

St. Paul even goes so far as to assert that the things

that seem to make for worldly profit or advantage are

exactly those things which retard our spiritual progress.

“The things that were gain to me, the same I have counted

28



loss for Christ. Furthermore I count all things to be but

loss for the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord;

for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count

them but as dung, that I may gain Christ” (PHIL III, 7-8).

Surely the great Apostle to the Gentiles knew what

suffering meant, physical and mental. When he came to

Macedonia, he says he had no rest: “we had troubles on

every side and anxieties within” (II COR. VII,5).

Such little things can make us poor humans feel that

we have not made our mark in life! I know of an actual

case where the wife explained to the physician who had

been called to attend her husband, sick with ulcers, that

she felt sure it was all due to the fact his investments had

not turned out well and he could not buy a new car . . .

and his neighbor had recently started to “sport” the very

model the sick man wanted!

Yes, if you have given your heart to Jesus, don’t be

surprised if He breaks it into a million pieces, to see

what it is made of, to see if it has the imperishable

material from which He can fashion your sanctity.

Worldly failure is just one of these trials. Think of

the great founders of religious orders. How frustration

often dogged their every step, prevented them from ever

tasting the sweet flavor of success!

What a varied galaxy of sufferers, “star differing from

star” in its magnitude! For instance, study the experiences

of the founders of the Sisters of Mary Auxiliatrice, Blessed

Marie Therese de Soubiran.

Cured miraculously at the age of three of typhoid

fever which left her at death’s door, the future Beata was

29



vowed to the Blessed Mother by her own earthly mother.

An ardent-souled girl, she asked nothing but to remain

hidden in the family or in a convent. But God willed

otherwise and had destined her for the tempest and turmoil

of such a prolonged life of embattled contest that nobody

could have visioned it.

She was 30 years old when she was guided by divine

inspiration to begin her Foundation. Then the great trials

had their inception.

“God has made the world,” wrote Mother de Soubiran,

“and He will turn it upside down solely to make saints.”

Her life has been called a study in failure. Her earth-

ly span was a prolonged period of atonement and suffer-

ing, given freely to God. She was past the mortifying of

worldly desires. But there remained real sacrifice in going

counter to her dearest wish for a life of solitude which

she could devote unreservedly to loving familiarity with

God, and her craving for a hard life of the strictest poverty

so that God would be her only actual possession. The

work of being Superior with all the responsibility it en-

tailed was most repugnant to her.

Terrible temptations and interior trials assailed her.

Of the 20 years she spent as Superior, she herself wrote:

“My soul has found no resting place, compelled always

to remain, by a divine impulse, harassed and driven on

as if by violence. . . . All was immolation, the most

utter sacrifice.”

Her life, edited from her private notes, “tear-stained

pages,” recounts the long list of ignominies and afflictions:

it was all one long agony of mind.

30



She found herself actually dismissed from the Society

she had founded and another Sister whom she had nur-

tured as a protege elevated over her, with the Archbishop

accepting her resignation quite apparently without any

great concern. The Sister who actually became superior

and dismissed her was the same Sister she had helped

train and raise to a position of authority!

She was accepted back into the convent where her

religious started . . . but out of pity so that humiliation

crushed her. Suspicion surrounded her . . . and there were

those who wondered at the “secret” in her life that must

have caused her downfall from authority. Financial diffi-

culties arose between the new foundation and the convent

where the new order had originated: she was plagued

with the blame for these. She was cut off from her own

foundation, so that she only got news of it from other

sisters who had been dismissed like herself. Guess her

anguish over the misunderstanding caused by her im-

mediate superiors who watched lest she influence unduly

the young girls who actually sought her advice rather

than that of their Mistress. She was assigned duties which

were beyond her bodily strength and daily exhaustion was

her common lot. Her sister was dismissed like herself

from the Society . . . and she felt particular pain over

this. The last year of her life she had a superior who did

not understand her and caused her great suffering. These

were the wounds,—over and above her poor health and
her lung-trouble and a weakened stomach—which con-
tinued to inflict on her constant sorrow and pain that can

hardly be described.

31



To be driven out in disgrace from her own society

—

would this in itself not be sufficient to crush even a strong

spirit, used to the world’s buffets? And here was a tender

soul that yearned only for the peace and solitude of being

in the presence of Jesus, yet was rudely thrust into the

very heart of the strife. . . .

The life of St. Euphrasia Pelletier is another interest-

ing story. She belonged at first to the congregation of Our

Lady of Charity of the Refuge, founded by St. John

Eudes. While superior at Angers she conceived the idea

that a better form of management could be established

by gathering a number of houses into one group under

the provincial system, instead of keeping each founda-

tion separate as an independent unit. The project was

submitted to the various houses, but was attacked by

many of them and the matter came to the attention of the

bishops.

Mother Euphrasia, meantime, had to see her inten-

tions misinterpreted, her actions misconstrued and her

protestations of submission regarded as duplicity by her

bishop to whom she had always proved herself an

obedient daughter. She felt convinced, however, that a

greater good was at stake and persevered in her idea. She

succeeded at last and, as a result, became the foundress

of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd who have since spread

over the world.

When her cause was introduced, Pius IX asked the

Postulator of her cause of beatification, how she had re-

acted to the opposition of thirteen bishops. He was told

that she had accepted it in silence and prayer, that she



had even defended the bishops, saying: “They must in

conscience oppose me because they are convinced that I

am wrong.” At once the Holy Father replied: “Then she

must be beatified.”

HAVE YOU BEEN REPUDIATED BY THE VERY

ONES FROM WHOM YOU EXPECTED AID
AND UNDERSTANDING?

St. Madeleine Sophie, foundress of the Society of the

Sacred Heart, was one of the gentlest of women. Never-

theless, she was made to suffer severely by one whom

she loved. For eight years one of her local superiors and

an ambitious young priest made efforts to undermine her

authority.

HAVE YOU BEEN MADE TO FEEL A FAILURE
AND A FOOL FOR EIGHT FULL YEARS?

Physically more drastic was the treatment that St. Antide

Thouret received one day when she presented herself at

the mother-house in Besangon, and the door was closed

against her. “Then,” her biographer tells us, “her heart

bled, her tears flowed in abundance.” With a gesture of

tenderness, grief and resignation, she pressed a loving

kiss upon the closed door, then took refuge for the night

at the home of a friend. The next day she left the city,

never to return.

DO YOU THINK YOUR SUFFERING
HAS BEEN SO GREAT?

The Cross finds out each saint and tests the heroicity of

33



his sanctity. Father Paul of Graymoor was abundantly

blessed with the cross. His faith never faltered even when

he carried a heavy cross which was most of his life. For

when he was not carrying a cross he lived in the shadow

of one.

As a novice in the Episcopal order of Holy Cross his

life ambition to establish the Society of the Atonement

and all his ideas met with constant derision. His novice

master taunted him with the words, “You don’t even

have a religious vocation, not to speak of founding a

religious community.”

Once the three-quarters of an acre of ground on

which stood St. John’s Church and St. Francis’ Convent

was brought up in a lawsuit and the sisters very narrowly

escaped eviction. Father Paul bore the cross as a gentle-

man, bore the cross tactfully in order not to hurt the

work for the reunion. It was his former co-religionists

who had brought up the suit.

Father Paul’s crosses were heavy as he groped about

in the dark sincerely seeking the true Church. But his

crosses became heavier after he joined the Church.

He once wrote of the sufferings he knew must come:

“I believe God has accepted my freewill oblation. I be-

lieve I shall taste of His bitter cup; I believe I shall know

something of His baptism of blood; but there is one phase

of His passion I shrink back from with a nameless fear,

and that is the ‘treading of the winepress alone,’ the ex-

ceeding bitter cry
—

‘My God, My God, why hast Thou

forsaken Me?’ ” He then asked prayers to strengthen him,

and we know he must have gotten them, for he stood up

34



under the many trials and tribulations God sent him.

Proverty brings may crosses in its wake. Father Paul

like St. Francis, his cherished patron, was wedded to Lady

Poverty. In his first hermitage which he called the Palace

of Our Lady of Poverty, the roof leaked. When it rained

Father Paul cheerfully rose at midnight to say the office,

umbrella in one hand and breviary in the other.

Our crudest crosses often come from those near and

dear to us. Was it not one of the twelve, Judas, who

betrayed Christ with a kiss? The heaviest cross of Father

Paul’s life was brought on by the first priest of the order,

Father Francis. This was a deliberate plan to ruin the

Society of the Atonement. Imagine the sorrow of Father

Paul when he saw all but two of his students being hurried

off in taxi cabs, due to the jealousy of Father Francis.

All hope of the Society he was to found was seemingly

lost. These infamous things and this frightful opprobrium

was heaped upon Father Paul by a man he loved and

trusted. Years later, Father Francis wrote to Father Paul,

asking favors. And in granting them, Father Paul ended

his letter with the words: “With prayerful good will for

your future, I am—Sincerely yours in Christ—Paul James
Francis, S.A.”

Those who spoke of Father Paul, both in the Catholic

Church and outside of it, as “erratic,” “eccentric” and

“abnormal” were, as we have seen, persons who had never

met him. He once attended a Catholic function and seated

at the very same table was a priest who had attacked

him in his parish monthly. The priest’s name happened to

be mentioned at the table, and Father Paul, not realizing

35



that the priest was sitting there, said to the priests at his

table: “My, my, I hope Father soons turns

me and The Lamp over on his gridiron for we are quite

scorched on one side.” By the charm of his personality

and humor and the utter lack of any bitterness on his

part, Father Paul turned what might have been an un-

pleasant experience into a joke. It was not until after he

left the table that Father Paul learned that the priest who

had attacked his life’s work had broken bread with him.

The foundress of the Religious of the Cenacle, Blessed

Therese Couderc, accepted with absolute humility the

episcopal notification of her deposition. For the next 45

years her soul grew ever more great through the extreme

humility she underwent. The most menial tasks were hers:

sweeping corridors, washing pots and pans, weeding the

garden, mending clothes, catechizing children, caring for

the sick. The common life of the convent engulfed her.

Shadow covered her life. Years later in comforting a young

religious who was suffering from some humiliation, she

asked: “And do you not think that I too suffered from

being set aside?”

Indeed, in the memorable words of the Reverend

Edward L. Curran, “the Eucharist was the only light

that dissolved the blackness of her suffering.”

True, first there was the joy of her life in her home

at Le Mas in Sablieres, followed by the glory of the

founding of the Cenacle. But the years that then carried

her onward—more than 40 of them—were sorrowful
ones. Prelude to the period of suffering was the death of

her co-founder, Father John Terme. The new spiritual

36



guides assigned to the Cenacle were hasty in their deci-

sions, and the financial standing of the community was

actually reported falsely, so that in 1838, twelve years

after the humble beginnings of the Cenacle, Mother

Couderc found herself stripped of authority, deposed not

only as superior, but even refused the title of foundress,

and, as we have said just now, assigned to the lowliest

community tasks.

The two-score and more years of humiliation and

neglect mounted. She, the foundress, was kept always on

the “outside” of events. Nobody recognized her true

status; nobody consulted her; everyone ignored her. Only

on two occasions in those 45 years was she called on to

evidence her abilities as organizer and administrator.

She learned to hold fast to the hand of God in these

long-drawn out years of trial and test. She mastered the

simple lesson of the Cross, so difficult in its very simplicity:

“To surrender oneself” she wrote, “is something more than

to devote oneself, more than to give oneself; it is even

something more than to abandon oneself to God. To sur-

render oneself is to die to everything and to self, to be

no longer concerned with self except to keep it continually

turned toward God. Self surrender is no longer to seek

self satisfaction in anything but solely God’s good pleasure.

It should be added that self-surrender is to follow that

complete spirit of detachment which holds to nothing,

neither to persons nor to things, neither to time nor place.

It means to accept everything, to submit to everything.”

The trials of all great souls follow the same pattern

of dereliction, sadness, anguish. Shall they, shadows of

37



the Divine Master, be anything different in their lives?

An uncomplaining victim indeed was Mother Therese

Couderc. Trembling with fright, she yet offered the gift

of herself with out reserve to God. A few months later,

in 1875, the “Way of the Cross” began for her. It was

to end only with her death. She became completely deaf,

her members, especially her limbs, were in torture, and

finally refused to bear her, so that her priedieu was the

wheel-chair in which she moved about. Heroically, she

said, “We have only three things to do in this world: to

work, to pray, and to suffer. This third thing is never

lacking to us.”

Abnegation, joyful courage in daily difficulties, abase-

ment of self . . . upon such foundation stones is the

mansion of sanctity reared.

On the wall above the tomb in the little chapel at La

Louvese in which her body rests can be read these stirring

phrases: “Humble amongst the humble,

Her life was lived most humbly.”

As the curtain of life drew slowly together on the

drama of her life, the honor of being considered the

Foundress of the Cenacle was eventually restored to her.

What empty honor this was now, for her who had no

need of mere human soothments or flattery. God had

let her hold His hand during those tempestuous years of

anguish: what use were human sympathies to her now?

The deep mental and physical sufferings, prolonged over

the period of more than 40 years, had lifted her eyes be-

yond worldly horizons of prestige or vanity to the Eternal

Rewarder of all men.

38



Even had the Cenacle not continued to grow as a

flourishing living memorial in many lands to her memory,

her work as a sufferer for Jesus was done imperishably.

Can you even think to match her ordeal by moaning

about your insignificant trials,—big though they seem to
you in your present suffering?

CAN YOU COMPARE YOUR FAILURE

WITH HERS?

Or take a different style of cross,—a variation of humilia-
tion. Mother Caroline Friess, First Commissary General of

the School Sisters of Notre Dame in America, had made

a long and tedious journey to Germany in order to secure

a modification of the rule of enclosure. The Superior

General received her coldly. For several weeks she was

kept in a guest house apart from the community and

with no contact allowed with the other Sisters. She had

been sent to Europe without the approval of the Superior

General and hence was treated like a betrayer of the rule,

until God came to her rescue by manifesting His will and

bringing her request to a successful issue.

TO BE ELEVATED TO A POSITION OF

AUTHORITY AND THEN HAVE THE FINGER OF

MOCKERY POINTED BY OTHERS . . .

CAN YOU TRULY SAY YOU HAVE

HAD THIS HAPPEN TO YOU?

Other special afflictions have assailed the founders of

religious orders. Father Jean Gailhac, who established the

Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary, went through a

39



most harrowing ordeal. Not only did he suffer from evil

gossip and opposition of every kind but he was even

accused of poisoning two nuns who died from purely

natural causes. “Opposition does not matter,” he was wont

to say, “if the good be done the works of God are always

marked by opposition.”

Father Basil Anthony Moreau, the founder of the

Congregation of the Holy Cross, fared but little better.

He became a victim of the injustice of certain members

of his own community, who actually denounced him to

the Propaganda in Rome as an autocrat, a despot, and a

fool. Amidst the most trying circumstances, which finally

led to his resignation as Superior General, he imitated the

meekness and the silence of Christ. He showed himself a

true lover of the holy Cross by drinking deeply of the

chalice of his Master and bearing no resentment against

his enemies. From the depths of his sorrow he wrote:

“Impenetrable are the designs of Providence, and we

must bow our heads in resignation under the most painful

blows.”

Mother St. Joseph Chanay underwent a secret martyr-

dom because of the blinded attitude of her spiritual father

and that of some of the Sisters of her community. They

treated her as one bereft of her senses and even tried

to have her sent to an insane asylum. When she wrote to

the bishop of Belley for advice and encouragement, she

received a letter of severe reproach in return. The sequel

indicates how God sometimes makes use of imperfections

and misunderstandings in order to purify noble souls and

prepare them for some work that He has destined for

40



them. It was after this heavy trial that Mother St. Joseph

founded the community of St. Joseph of Bordeaux.

At times it becomes especially clear that God is help-

ing us on the way to detachment by permitting our friends

to misjudge us. This brings the grace to purify the affec-

tions of an all too natural attraction. Mother Theodore

Voiron, first Provincial of the Sisters of St. Joseph in

Brazil, knew well how to profit by an opportunity of this

kind. Her beloved Superior General had suspected her

of departing from the true religious spirit. Appearances

were against her and at so great a distance from France

adequate explanations were difficult. She received severe

letters from her Mother General, letters which she read

upon her knees before the tabernacle. Her superior was.

convinced of her guilt, her spiritual guides in Brazil

abandoned her and she tasted of the agony of Gethsemani.

Finally the superior summoned her to France and assem-

bled the council in chapter, where, on her knees, Mother

Theodore heard a long list of accusations against her.

She listened humbly and withdrew without attempt-

ing to justify herself and God repaid her by sending her

a profound interior peace. Throughout the trial she re-

mained a model of docility, humility and obedience. Her

admirable conduct finally opened the eyes of the superior

to the truth. The accused was restored to confidence and

her long way of the Cross ended.

“My dear child,” Mother General said, “I have been

very harsh toward you.”

“Have no regrets,” Mother Theodore replied, “the

good God has permitted all. I loved you too naturally.

41



Be assured that I shall always love you, but
henceforth it

will be in God and for God.”

Our consideration of these striking examples of
human

sorrow in its supernatural import lead
inevitably to the

conclusion that sufferings are the
instruments that can

shape our souls for eternity. The theologian
Tauler sub-

stantiates this idea in the following
admonition. Accept

every happening of your existence, whether
in the soul

or in the outer life, as coming directly from
God’s hand:

come from where it may, be it what it will, look
upon it

as given to you to help you make ready for
His great

gifts and for no other purpose whatsoever.
Know that

only by trial and hardship, whether coming from
the evil

one or from unruly men, can you attain the
supernatural

and marvelous perfection to which God has called you.

The contemplation of the human picture with all
its

complexities of human personality under the fire of suffer-

ing will, if we let it, broaden our vision, deepen
our

sympathies and help to give us the blessed gift
of under-

standing. It will enable us to see many things:
how

easily we may become entrapped into a wrong attitude

toward the conduct of others in its relations with
suffering

and, on the other hand, how rapidly we may advance

under the quickening experience of suffering. To insure

this advancement we must refrain especially from two

fatal activities: we must never cast the stone of an un-

charitable judgment against another; we must never

scourge anyone with the lash of an evil tongue.
Every

human being is a fellow sufferer and actions that we can-

not understand are often God’s way of accomplishing

42



some good that our myopic vision cannot see. A little

dash of humor, which is after all so close to human

kindness, will go far in preparing the way for the sublime

charity that thinks no evil. A further cultivation of that

which has rightfully been called the saving grace of humor

will help us to look upon ourselves with less partial eyes,

to see in ourselves a frequent strain upon the nerves of

our fellow human beings and to recognize that WE TOO
ARE AMONG THE CROSSES THAT OTHERS MUST
BEAR.

The trying of the metal in the crucible of suffering,

obviously, is not an easy process. Holiness means a whole-

ness of performance, a complete and an unconditional

surrender; and this, for nature, is a strenuous giving. In

homelier words, not one of us can conquer heaven in a

rocking-chair and no one with marrow in his bones would

want to have it so. Heaven is a citadel worth storming,

and a pearl is worth its price.

DOES SUFFERING STILL BAFFLE YOU?

You need not be the head of a great religious order to

find sorrow and suffering battering at your door. We often
see sadness shadowing the lives of those least deserving

of punishment; we are sometimes shocked to observe how

apparently obscure persons of blameless outward life

undergo cruel misunderstandings and terrible trials.

The Cure of Ars, the modern saint of the confessional,

shows us how to interpret the mystery of suffering. Listen

to his own words:

“We must ask to love crosses. That was my experience

43



£q2* four or five yours . X was slandered.,
contradicted,

criticized without mercy. Oh, I had crosses—almost more
than I could bear. Then I began to pray for the

love of

crosses and I was happy. I said to myself: there
is really

no happiness but in that. One must never consider
the

quarter from which crosses come to us. It is always
God

Who gives us this means of proving our love for Him.”

Yes, and the troubles may be of all varieties, physical,

mental, physical . . . and in all shades and
degrees of

magnitude or intensity. God’s tools are infinite.
Rodriguez,

with the optimism that is of the saints, would
lift us to the

point of regarding them as gifts:

“As health is a gift of God,” he says, “so also is sick-

ness; and God sends it to try and to correct us—to make
us sensible of our weakness, of our dependence

upon

Him; to detach us from the world and what perishes
with

it; to check the impetuosity and diminish the
strength of

our greatest enemy, the flesh; to remind us that we are

here in a place of exile, and that Heaven is our true home.”

From this it follows that suffering is the great oppor-

tunity of the human race, and a separate challenge of the

love of God to the soul of every individual. The complete

acceptance of the challenge, the unconditional
surrender to

the opportunity, has made the saint. “Mirabilis Deus
in

sanctis suis!” the Cure of Ars exclaims. “Wonderful
is

God in His saints!”

Yes, indeed, God is wonderful in His saints, and He

has shown us these wonders also within the closer
range

of our modern time. It would be difficult in any
age to

find a greater miracle of suffering than
was the short

44



life of St. Gemma Galgani. She endured not only the

anguish of both soul and body, attendant upon the stigmata

and the other phenomena by which she bore the impress

of the Passion of Christ, but every lesser human ill seems

to have been crowded into her brief span of 25
years.

She suffered bodily sickness and mental torture, the sever-

est temptations against faith and purity, and the humilia-

tion of being refused by not fewer than six
different

religious communities, all of whom feared the saint-to-be

would instead be a genuine heavy liability instead of a

definite asset!

Yes, like the inspired utterance in the Office of St.

Silverius, Pope and Martyr (June 20,) her cry to God

could well be: “I am living on the bread of tribulation

and the water of anguish, yet I have not nor shall I

relinquish my duty.”

Many are the saintly examples of those who patterned

their lives upon the Divine Model “Who, when He was

reviled, did not revile; when He suffered, He threatened

not; but delivered Himself to him that judged Him un-

justly.” (I PETER II, 23).

Saint Therese of Lisieux, in contrast, experienced no

extraordinary manifestations; but with equal generosity,

during her short span of twenty-four years, she profited

to the full by the opportunity of suffering. She may well be

called the patroness of the nerve-wracked, with special

appeal for our own age. Hers was the martyrdom of the

spirit, the long and lonely walk through the night of the

soul. Hers also was the genius of finding the minutiae of

the average day, the small and swarming annoyances that

45



come upon us all, charged with the possibilities of heroism.

Often she could get sleep only in snatches on the straw

mattress of the cloister, the cold, damp climate of Lisieux

and the physical cold of Carmel tortured her frail body,

the habits of others tore at her sensitive nerves. She bore

it all; on the negative side without complaint, but with

the unceasing affirmation of a fulness of love. For a year

and a half after her worst hemmorrhage, on the Good

Friday of 1896, she felt herself abandoned by God. On

August fifteenth, 1897, she received her last holy Com-

munion. For the forty-five days remaining until September

thirtieth, the day of her death, there was no Communion,

and yet, she died with the favorite ejaculation upon her

lips: “Oh, mon Dieu, je Vous aime!” “My God, I love

You!”

Well known as these instances are to us, it is profitable

to look upon them in both their ordinary and extraordinary

qualities, with an ever sharpening awareness. That which

is ordinary in them gives us a sense of intimacy. We feel

at home. That which is extraordinary will tell us that our

own burden, and sometimes our generosity, is small indeed

when compared with that of the saints.

Suppose, for instance, that something would happen

to you, as it did to St. Margaret Mary, and you were to be

treated as one bereft of her senses, or as a being possessed

by the devil, “What!” her companions exclaimed, “Sister

Margaret Mary has visions!” “Is she crazy?” Or how

would you like to walk into the chapel and have three

of your sisters in religion sprinkle you in turn with holy

water as you passed? How would you relish it if the first

46



one said: “Lord, have mercy on her and cure her of
her

insanity!” Or if the second one shuddered as she sprinkled

you and pleaded: “Oh! Lord, have mercy on her! Save her

from possession by the devil!” How would you feel if the

third one wailed: “Lord, pity me for having the disgrace

of living with such a person!”

But Margaret Mary had to pass through her ordeal,

crushed as He had been, like a worm, before she could

become the apostle of the Sacred Heart devotion.

In connection with St. Margaret Mary, it is interest-

ing to glance at an incident in the life of her Jesuit

director, Father Claude de la Colombiere. We shall find

in it something more akin to frequent occurrences in our

own lives. To be demoted, shelved as it were, is not an

unusual form of suffering, and that is exactly what hap-

pened to Father de la Colombiere, S.J. He was about to

enter upon a position of responsibility for which his

capabilities fitted him, when he made a blunder that

changed completely the course of his career. Instead of

being entrusted with the work in question, he was dele-

gated to serve as chaplain for a community of nuns. He

accepted the humiliation and as a result God entrusted

to his care the soul of St. Margaret Mary and with it

the devotion to the Sacred Heart. Thus God in His

masterly way brings good out of evil, especially if the

evil as in the case of Bl. Claude de la Colombiere, is

free from malice.

The story of St. Camillus of Lellis shows us a totally

different picture. After his conversion from a life full of

escapades and his unsuccessful attempts to enter several

47



religious communities, he resolved to found an order of

his own, devoted to the service of the sick and the dying.

Though himself a great sufferer from numerous physical

ailments, he did more work than two or three others to-

gether. Not only did he never complain, but he was con-

stantly cheerful and was sought after for his amusing

conversation. He called his afflictions the five great mercies

of God, and regarded them as nothing when compared

to the sacrifice of the will of God and to a religious

superior.

These are straightforward forms of suffering, com-

paratively easy to understand. More difficult to grasp

are the trials from misunderstandings and suspicions that

come from friends or from those who, one has reason to

believe, are living close to God. Upon this point St.

Clement Hofbauer gives enlightment when he says: “God

will sometimes strike with blindness a hundred saints so

that they may not be able to see the virtues of one saint,

in order not to spare that one saint misjudgment, opposi-

tion and persecution.”

This cross has frequently fallen especially to the lot

of the founders of religious orders. We must bear in mind,

however, that some of these saintly persons, carried away

by enthusiasm, have often failed to perceive the lines of

demarcation between the essential and the non-essential

when formulating their rules, and have therefore over-

emphasized details of secondary significance. This attitude

is striking in the case of a certain venerable founder who

regarded with undue concern the regulation of having the

religious habit of the Brothers of the order shorter than

48



that of the priests, of singing a hymn after the Communion

Mass, of keeping certain lesser feasts as half holy days.

Examples of this kind might be multiplied indefinitely.

Sometimes the saints, deliberately, coldbloodedly,

acted the part of fools,—all towards the saving of souls.
How even good Christians whose faith was, however, weak

must have muttered or carried the tale of St. Philip Neri

behaving like a court jester in the streets of Rome . . .

or Don Bosco actually acting in a way sure to make pious

souls with no sense of humor curl their lips ... or St.

Ignatius, an expert at “playing the fool” for even one

immortal soul, making learned onlookers wonder about

the divine inspiration that urged the saint on. . . .

Take the reverse of the picture. Contemplate a shy,

silent mystic such as St. John of the Cross. Action and

rebellious action was something entirely foreign to his

introspective soul. . . .Yet, enlisted by his friend, St.

Teresa of Avila in her work to reform the Carmelite

Order, he was kidnaped and imprisoned by monks who

militated against the crusading of St. Teresa and her

quiet-spoken advocate. Immured in the cell of the Carmel-

ite Priory in Toledo for eight months, he was brought

out once a day to eat crusts and drink water on the re-

fectory floor, kneeling in complete humiliation and pain

while the recalcitrant monks “tried to change his mind”

as one chronicler puts it, “walking in a circle around him,

lashing his bare back with leather whips.”

Part of the suffering endured at such times is without

any question the sensation of being alone. In the Garden

of Olives, the loneliness of Jesus surpassed understand-

49



ing. In lesser degree, His saints have experienced this

dreariness of the spirit, when it seems that all the world,

if not actively against them, is at least apart from them,

wants to have nothing to do with them, shuns them as

spiritual or moral lepers.

During the last World War, it was a common psycho-

logical procedure for soliders at remote weather stations

or desert outposts to be “rotated” or relieved by troops

replacing them within certain stated intervals. Not only

was the friction of personalities upon one another a severe

trial for most men, but the solitude and loneliness in which

the military work was carried on was discovered to be an

abrading process, reducing many men to mental desola-

tion.

In guardhouses and prisons and concentration camps

all over this world of ours, penologists know that the

crudest form of suffering can very often be just solitary

confinement. Often indeed men are driven over the

border of sanity through this punishment. . . .
0

ARE YOU LONELY?

Spiritually the religious expects to be a lonely soul. Still,

he has the Divine Presence in the Tabernacle to be his

companion in even the most isolated moments of the day.

However, often God withdraws His consoling presence

from the very ones He loves,—further to purify them and
prepare them for eternal happiness. But what an ordeal

this can be! St. John of the Cross wrote a masterpiece

describing the Dark Night of the Soul. In lesser degree,

many saints have undergone this trial.

50



And, saint or sinner, many of us have endured the

pain of loneliness in much lesser degree,—something to us
appearing unendurable. How else explain how so many

advertisements appear urging that lonely people join

a LONELY HEARTS CLUB? or enter into a makeshift

companionship by mail as PEN PALS? or join one group

or the other to help ease the empty hours of the day

along. . . . Even the people who consistently gather at

the corner grocery or drugstore are seeking for companion-

ship,—they feel the very human need for gregariousness,
for being a part “of the herd” and want to kill the silence

around them with idle chatter, trite jokes, gossip, any-

thing that will prevent their loneliness from becoming

acute.

Even devout souls feel the loneliness of the years on

their shoulders. The case comes to my mind of a certain

missionary who retired after many years’ work in Wiscon-

sin to an old peoples’ home, and bought a cemetery plot for

himself. He was actually so sure of his impending demise,

that he ordered a tombstone for his final resting place.

But the grave marker crumbled to dissolution before he

did. . . . When I saw him last he said to me, in a voice

that had almost lost the resonance of hope, “God has

forgotten me. . . .”

Of course, God had not—nobody could ever ex-
perience the pangs of complete loneliness in the degree

Jesus did. “Then the disciples all leaving Him, fled”

(MATT. XXVI, 56). And remember once more the awful

loneliness of the Cross. . . .

51



ARE YOU STILL LONELY?

No matter how isolated your tiny human personality may

seem, reflect on the absolute solitude of spirit which Jesus

endured . . . down to the last gasp on the Cross, and

egotistic indeed must you be to even attempt to weigh

your hours of separation from human contact with His.

DO YOU GRIEVE OVER THE DEATH

OF LOVED ONES?

We cannot even start to measure the sorrow of the Blessed

Mother over the loss of Her Divine Son . . . her heart

was literally pierced with swords of anguish. Just take

one little detail: she stood below the Cross and watched

the • centurion thrust a spear into her Boy’s body. What

mother does not feel simultaneous pain when her little

one runs into the house, crying “I’ve got a splinter.” . . .

How it tears her heart, how quickly she pours on the

mercurochrome, pulls out the sliver so tiny she often

cannot even see it plainly! Can you even dare to compare

human grief with Mary’s?

During the terrible days of the naval battles between

our fleets and enemy vessels, one of the harrowing epi-

sodes, shocking the maternal heart of women across the

length and breadth of our country, was the loss of all

five sons of the Sullivan family in the sinking of one ship.

In one brief naval action, all five heroic sons went down

with their ship. Imagine the grief of the devoted parents!

—

Have you lost just one member of your family? Contrast

your suffering with the Sullivans. . . .

Or take the case of Bishop Hugh Boyle of Pittsburgh.

52



Let James A. W. Reeves, writing an epic page in CATH-

OLIC PITTSBURGH’S 100 YEARS, tell the story:

“When fifteen years of age, and in the first year of

college, a crisis shattered the even course of his happy

boyhood. The Johnstown flood of May 31, 1889 nearly

wiped out the family. Nine •members of the family of

twelve were carried to their deaths in the waters of that

catastrophe, which took the lives of 2,800 people of

Johnstown and vicinity. Hugh was at college, the others

were at home when the flood broke upon the city. To a

genial and intimate household came a sudden loneliness

few are compelled to know at so early an age. Hugh, his

mother and a brother survived. The joy and the spring of

life were never quite the same. Such events sadden life.

They also make it appear grave and serious. However,

for persons with spiritual and mental resources, disaster

stimulates effort and heightens affections. For these no

distress warps natural development and enterprise. They

work out their histories. No sluggishness narrows their

thinking; no distressing state renders them inept. Hence

one can trace in retrospect the effort of a crisis in the

life of the Bishop. He had been steeled for an exacting

future. High qualities of mind and heart, moral and

religious excellences have enabled him to work with ease

amid the cares and distractions of a public life. . . .”

LET POVERTY PINCH YOUR BODY,

NOT YOUR SOUL

Again there are those who continuously whine because

whatever they touch turns, not to gold, but to bills and

53



more bills. Lack of money can be an actual blessing.

Jesus could have endowed His new church with wealth

beyond man’s dreams; He could have set up a “Founda-

tion” beside which modern philanthropic or religious

trust funds would appear picayune. The Church was not

to be founded on any such shifting base of sand. (Just

consider how the mere value of the dollar has dwindled

in recent years!)

Jesus blessed His church with poverty from the very

outset. True, many people are driven and tossed about

in the adverse conditions of poverty: living in slum areas,

overcrowding of families, physically unclean and unhealthy

environment often contributing to juvenile delinquency,

gang-rule, vice-ridden taverns. ... Yet even in the

mere human aspect of it, how many great leaders of

society have faced and mastered their early poverty-

stricken surroundings, and become standard-bearers for

their respective communities.

Just take one case: few children grew up in the

miserable sordid atmosphere of dirt and continual debt

such as beset Charles Dickens. Yet he did not allow

poverty to twist his view of life. From his childhood ex-

periences came unforgettable scenes, penned with a master

hand, which eventually abolished debtors’ prisons, and

helped reform the English schools from their barbarity

towards children of the Victorian age.

In a recent book from the pen of various authors,

collected by Maisie Ward, “BE NOT SOLICITOUS,” the

anthologist shows poignantly how money and the lack

of it is never in itself the evil we assume it to be. How

54



many of the characters depicted in this wholesome book

tell episodes which actually happened to them—not fiction
—which should make many of us turn our heads in shame
at the way we have been “carrying on” over the mere

fact that “the money isn’t there.”

Remember the stirring exhortation in the Bible (Matt.

VI, 28 etc.; Luke XII, 27 etc.): we are urged to observe

the lilies of the field and the sparrows . . . “they toil

not, neither do they spin, yet My Heavenly Father takes

care of them.” How weak and puny must our faith be if

we want daily assurance that everything is going to be

nicely prepared and ready for us to use, just like an

eternal never-failing faucet of good things. . . .

Poverty, or lack of material things in any degree, is

after all a comparative thing, as our GIs found out during

their invasion of “Fortress Europa.” Time and again our

news photographers showed our soldiers, astonished at

the stark poverty of the natives of Africa, Italy, and other

lands, offering their rations or sweets, knowing that they

would soon be issued a fresh ration, but that these poor

people literally went hungry day after day. . . .

FAMILY “TROUBLES”

Perhaps you are suffering from trials and grief arising

from the very nearest and dearest to you, your own family.

Sometimes this is a husband or a wife who drinks to ex-

cess, commits infidelities with others, disgraces the entire

family with criminal acts, such as stealing, sexual offenses,

even going so far as murder. ... Or it is a wayward

daughter who tears her parents’ hearts apart; or a mis-

55



guided son who splashes the family name in headlines

(of the wrong kind) in the newspapers. . . . And, tragedy

of tragedies, there are the frequent separations and di-

vorces that blacken the story of our day, with so many

children left to the care of utter strangers, tossed on door-

steps, or abandoned in pitiless fashion.

To those who feel that God has allowed them too

copious a draught from the chalice of suffering, we would

remind them that St. Monica prayed for the conversion

of her son, Augustine (later to be the great Saint)
for

thirty years—and apparently without God hearing her
prayer. Finally when he was in Milan, he listened to

her

plea and went to hear St. Ambrose preach, was led
to

speak with the famous prelate in private, and so,
at long

last, at the age of 33, to come to see the error of
his

ways and have his feet set “upon the path of
righteous-

ness.” ... But what a long, long, seemingly hopeless

road it was that St. Monica traversed before God let His

mercy be evident! Do you think your personal family

trouble outweighs her sorrow all those long
years?

PERHAPS YOU SUFFER FROM SICKNESS?

Just what is your disease? Tuberculosis, for instance?

The dreaded “white killer” has not prevented some

of the world’s greatest artists and writers from enduring

their illness and indeed converting it to a supreme monu-

ment to man’s courage and spiritual striving for perfection.

Run down the list of sufferers from this wasting

disease

:

Here is Fredric Chopin,—immortal wizard of music
56



that still haunts humanity’s ears. . . .

John Keats, magician with words woven in poetic

spells that still bewitch us. . . .

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, exquisite sonnet-writer of

sentiments all lovers cherish. . . .

Sidney Lanier, the melodious poet of our own South-

land. . . .

Feodor Dostoevski, somber creator of massive

novels. . . .

Henry David Thoreau, historian of the outdoor life

of sanity and naturalness. . . .

Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote to his friend,

George Meredith, that he had not enjoyed a day of real

health in 14 years, yet had produced what he deemed his

most outstanding works in those very years. Yes, he wrote

“I was made for a contest and the Powers have so willed

that my battlefield should be the dingy, inglorious one of

the bed and the physic bottle.”

Or perhaps you have suffered a stroke or are fastened

to your bed with the chains of paralysis.

Well, here is Louis Pasteur, world-famed scientist,

doing his greatest work after having suffered a thrombosis

of the brain. . . .

Take the epic case of Mary Fallon, known as the

most cheerful patient in City Hospital, Welfare Island,

New York, for 42 years. Immobile from her neck down,

“she never complained,” reported Father Francis X.

Curley, chaplain at the hospital, “she was completely help-

less but never asked for anything. She had to be fed,

dressed and clothed, but her complete resignation to her

57



lot and her constant cheerfulness endeared her to the

entire hospital.”

Suffering a spine injury as a girl, her illness, diagnosed

in 1929 as a form of arthritis, progressed from the day

she entered the hospital in 1909 to her death in January

1952 till she was paralyzed from the neck down. In spite

of this she began learning to paint colored designs on

scarves and handkerchiefs by holding the paint brush in

her teeth and using a special easel. She eventually managed

actually to write notes, using a special paint brush.

In 1930 she wrote these words: “The world is a stage

on which we play a part. Better times are coming even if

we don’t live to see them.”

DO YOU STILL FEEL YOU ARE SUFFERING?

Or consider the story of Mary Ellen Kelly, 31 years old,

crippled with arthritis since she was 7. By the time she

was 16 her entire body was rigid from head to foot. She

went through 10 operations and finally managed to reach

the status of using her arms to write.

Today with the help of special equipment she writes

15,000 words a week, edits and publishes a bi-monthly

magazine called SECONDS SANCTIFIED. She also con-

ducts a league for shut-ins, totaling some 1,500 members

in 43 states and 17 foreign countries,—including 24
lepers! She took extension courses in a correspondence

school of journalism. She does considerable reading,

turning the pages with a stick held between her teeth.

“Suffering brings out a great deal that is hidden in a

person,” she says. “And no matter how handicapped, you

58



can still be of service.”

We shall come back to this idea of using our pain for

ultimate good, later in these pages. But now, let us con-

tinue to call the roll-call of ailments which have afflicted

many of the world’s great.

Here is Thomas Carlyle, continuous sufferer from

dyspepsia,—and what a shelf of great books he wrote!
Alexander Pope, a hunchback,—and a master of

English style. . . .

Edgar Allen Poe, a neurotic,—and a master story
teller and weaver of haunting poems. . . .

Wasn’t Homer blind? And Milton, whose organ voice

still rolls out in PARADISE LOST? And Helen Keller?

She was born at Tuscumbia, Alabama, on June 27, 1880.

By severe illness at the age of 19 months, she was deprived

of sight and hearing and soon became dumb. When she

was about 6 years old, she was placed under the instruc-

tion of Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan. Under her constant

teaching and with instruction at the Horace Mann School

for the Deaf, and the Wright Humanson Oral School, Miss

Keller not only learned to read, write and talk, but be-

came exceptionally proficient in the ordinary educational

curriculum. In 1900 she entered Radcliffe College and

graduated “cum laude” in 1908. The case of Helen Keller

is the most extraordinary ever known in the education of

blind deaf-mutes, her acquirements including several

languages and her general culture being exceptionally

wide. She wrote THE STORY OF MY LIFE, OPTIMISM,
THE WORLD I LIVE IN, MY RELIGION, and MID-
STREAM.—Didn’t she use her tremendous obstacles to

59



become a shining example of fortitude and achievement?

Here too are three deaf giants,—Ampere, electrical
genius; Beethoven, master composer; and Edison, who

gave the world numberless inventions. . . .

Demosthenes suffered from chronic stuttering; Francis

Parkman, from nervous exhaustion and eye trouble so that

he managed with the aid of a special wire-device to write

only a few lines a day yet became an historian of note;

W. Wilberforce, racked with pain for 20 years, kept up

his unceasing work for the downtrodden and afflicted in

England and pushed important legislation through to

completion and enforcement, and helped abolish the slave

trade.

In the mental travail of imprisonment, Sir Walter

Raleigh wrote his monumental History of the World; John

Bunyan edited his peerless PILGRIM’S PROGRESS;

Lovelace, the Cavalier poet, penned his most inspiring

verse; while the library shelves again and again bear wit-

ness to immortal pages which men wrote behind bars. . . .

Exiled, Dante produced his greatest works ... St.

John, from Patmos, handed on to the world the inspired

flaming phrases of the APOCALYPSE.

Yes, turning back to the saints, we cannot help

pondering on the “sting of the flesh” to which St. Paul

alludes ... an interminable continuous suffering to

which he was subject. Whether it was some chronic

physical ailment, or epilepsy or migraine headache
or

some other persistent pain, we shall not perplex ourselves.

So great a warrior as St. Paul would not have even
men-

tioned it unless through his casual reference to it
he could

60



give strength to our own weak will when suffering is

inflicted on us.

PLAGUED WITH ILLNESS?

SAY, RATHER, BLESSED WITH IT ... .

If contrition means in the literal translation of the Latin

word, a “bruising or grinding to powder,” then shall
we

not view suffering as the Divine Pestle which crushes
and

brays our human selves to atone for sin, to help us attain

final perfection of spirit?

What did St. Peter say? “Christ -therefore having suf-

fered in the flesh, be you also armed with the same

thought; for he that hath suffered in the flesh, hath ceased

from sins” (I PETER IV, 1).

Yes, take courage and behave like men (I KINGS IV,

9) so that your contrition is evident
from your suffering

which you bear gladly for the sake of Jesus Crucified.

YOUR SUFFERING CAN BE A BLESSING

We know that whoever the Lord loves, He chastiseth, and

“He scourges every son whom He receives” (HEBR. XII,

1(5).

A man bowed down with grief went to his friend,

Solon, the great Greek philosopher, seeking consolation.

Taking him to the roof of his house, Solon pointed out

the palaces of Athens: “How much grief,” he asked, how

much sorrow do you think is hidden under the roofs of

those buildings? Look around, count the houses, and you

will find that there is not one which does not contain at

least one person who is more unhappy than you.”

61



Ascend a similar height, in imagination, and review for

yourself the lives of others whom you know; soon you will

conclude, shamefacedly, that others indeed bear a far

heavier burden than you. . . .

What causes such tribulation? Faith answers: Sin. By

sin Paradise was lost and through suffering only can it be

regained. Yes, only by means of the Cross can our evil

inclinations be subdued. It requires God’s scourge to raise

aloft our hearts, so attached to earth, thus saving our souls

from searing hellfire.

Consider, when dp the flames of passion mount high-

est? When does the lukewarm Christian hasten onwards

to perdition with the least twinge of compunction? Does

not experience teach us that it is when the sun of temporal

success shines brightest, when no cross reminds him of

the instability and vanity of all earthly things, when

pleasures and fat honors stifle the voice of conscience?

Enjoying perfect health, how many have lost all care

for salvation of their soul! Then the Lord sent them a

painful or dangerous sickness. Prostrated on a bed of pain

their eyes were opened. They saw the grave looming be-

fore them and their mind was focused on the vasty

reaches of the ocean of eternity. Then the voice of con-

science called loudly to them: “If at this moment you

are compelled to exchange the bed of pain for the silent

tomb, will your soul be prepared to stand before the

judgment seat of God?”

Then the soul, aroused to the eternal truth and to the

end of all things, is moved to contrition for its past

offenses; then, with deep sorrow it turns and looks up to

62



the Crucified One. Then hope is revived
and the con-

verted soul gives its heart to the
heavenly Father and

hopes to begin a new life in the service of
God.

How many others will you find, whose only god is the

world and its vanities! Their hearts are so
attached to the

world that they turn their thoughts
away deliberately

from death, judgment, heaven or hell.
Suffering? Who

wants to think about something that hurts
and causes

pain?

Their houses, their money, their property
are the

pillars on which they rely. For religion or
the eternal

treasures, they have scant notice and their
heart rejects

such ideas automatically. If, however,
their fortune is

swept away and their possessions are converted
overnight

into Dead Sea fruit, empty and without reality,
then they

see the foundations of their prosperity
dwindled into

nothing. Then, when the stars of honor or position
which

formerly shone so brightly over their paths
have vanished

from their sight, they find themselves standing
alone and

bereft of human solace in dark misfortune. Then,
when

all voices of joy are silenced and their knock on
the doors

of former companions brings no response,
and only

then, does their mind accept the glimmer of
enlightenment

and their thoughts find their true compass-point
in God,

who governs all things. Then, through suffering and
in

penance they once more can become good servants,

humble children of the Lord.

Truly, afflictions are the staff which God uses to break

the flinty hearts of men. They are the trumpet by
which

the souls who are dead in sin and buried in the grave of

63



negligence are recalled to life. Afflictions are the two-edged

sword with which the Lord cuts asunder the bonds of

sinful habits. They are the rungs of the ladder by which

we gain perfection and by which we ascend to heaven.

Hence St. Ephrem prayed: “Thy scourges, O Lord, aie

cut from the tree of mercy, and when they strike, it is for

our benefit.”

Nor does God send sufferings to the sinner only, to

convert him and to make him more perfect. The good,

like the gold placed in the crucible, must be purified from

all imperfections. The wheat must be sifted and cleansed

from all chaff before it is stored way. Only in the school

of the Cross can we learn this lesson. Here the earnest

Christian can practice faith, gain strength in hope, and be

inflamed with the fire of divine love. Here he should

suffer his purgatory in the exercise of patience. Here he

can learn to make his life conformable to that of his Lord

by the use of virtues.

We know how all God-fearing souls love the Cross.

Did not the Apostles suffer persecution gladly for the

name of Jesus? Listen to the chorus of praise rising from

the bonfires in which the early martyrs are being burned

to death! Hear St. Augustine’s voice: “Here, O Lord, here

on earth burn and cut, but spare me in eternity.” And

the strong voice of St. Teresa of Avila can be heard in

her daily prayer: “Lord, permit me to suffer or to die.”

And what did St. Francis Xavier, great apostle of the

Indies, say, when overwhelmed with trials,
—

“Lord, do

not take this cross away from me, except to send me

a heavier one.”

64



How the Saints loved sufferings and afflictions! How

wise they were! They echo the words of St. Paul: “In

all things we suffer tribulation, but are not distressed; we

are straitened, but are not destitute” (II COR. IV, 8).

And again and again comes the refrain of his teaching to

the young Church, insisting on the so-important message,

so hard for the pagan mind to grasp, that “we are re-

viled, and we bless; we are persecuted and we suffer it.

We are blasphemed, and we entreat; we are made as

the refuse of the world, the off-scouring of all
even until

now” (I COR. IV, 12).

A missionary tells the story how he asked the crew

of a Chinese river-boat to chant their famous river songs

as they were rowing along. The crewmen smiled. The

captain finally replied for them: “We are taking an empty

boat downstream. If we were to chant now, we would be

the laughing stock of the whole river.”

Only toiling upstream against the fury of the current,

passing the dangers of shoals and rocks,—only then could
their souls be expected to rouse to the supreme effort,

while singing their river chants.

So too with the human soul struggling with the river

of life—suffering and struggle with pain and distress
stimulate the soul to sing Alleluias to its Maker.

A newspaper recently carried the story of an alcoholic

who had found the road to recovery. This woman,—yes,
not men alone are victims of this fearful disease,—this
woman even feared life so much more than death that

twice she sought suicide. Her terror and agony were past

bearing. She felt walled in by her suffering. Forsaken!

65



Alone!

But she goes on to relate how that very suffering,

intense as it was, seemed in retrospect necessary to break

down her wall of self, to crush her arrogance, so that she

sought help . . . and from the depths of her suffering

she began to believe in God, and learn that there is no

personal abyss of misery or shame or suffering from which

His Almighty Hand cannot lift us.

She came to learn, too, that one does not have to be

beautiful or gifted or rich or powerful in order to offer

a helping hand to other fellow-sufferers.

SO MANY OTHERS SUFFER MORE THAN YOU!

When the Bishops’ Fund recently pleaded for help in

their international work of helping refugees, the poster

describing the need of people all over the world listed

statistics which could not be grasped by even intelligent

minds. What a nuisance when you must spend even one

night away from your own home! or when you must skip

a meal! or have some personal possession lost or taken

from you! Read these figures and be ashamed.

Out of every 60 people in the world today, ONE is
a refugee ... in Korea and in Indo-China, there are over

TEN MILLION outcasts of the “cold war” . . . escapees
from tyranny in West Germany and Trieste number TWO
MILLION, in Hong Kong and in Formosa THREE MIL-
LION ... in Germany and Austria there are EIGHT

MILLION expellees ... in Italy there are literally MIL-

LIONS of “surplus” population ... in the Near East,

almost ONE MILLION Arabs are homeless . . . and the

66



total of DPs has never yet been truly totaled in its entirety!

The astonishing thing is that to attain holiness through

suffering is such a simple thing. No magic Einsteinian

formula is needed; no trick devices, no scientific balder-

dash or elaborate hocus-pocus. ... To acquire holiness

. .
.
just continue to suffer as you are suffering. Only this

must be changed,—your heart—your will,—so that you
will lovingly accept at every moment the trials that Divine

Providence continues to put in your path. Holiness is a

simple matter of “FIAT” ... a plain determination to

conform to the expression of God’s holy will. Of course

at times, it may seem harsh and exacting. At such times,

we should just ask ourselves wherein we could do better

than to do the will of God? If our personal desires always

harmonized with what we conceive to be God’s will, we

should likely be deceiving ourselves in wanting to do only

our own will.

A Trappist, writing about the proto-abbey of Geth-

semani, describes how for 96 years God permitted it

to show nothing but sterility . . . and then in the next

four years astonishing fertility proved that the world is

saved by those who seemingly do nothing,—nothing but
endure and suffer for Jesus’ sake.

The band of 42 men sent from France in 1848 to

start the new Trappist foundation in the New World

passed through Paris on their way to their ship in an

atmosphere most hostile and cynical . . . then they en-

dured the heartache of leaving their native land for ever

. . . aboard ship, they were beset with storms of hurricane

velocity, culminating in the death of their oldest member,

67



Frater Renezet, 70 years old, whose funeral could not

even be in hallowed ground, but whose body was com-

mitted to the watery deep . . . and some of the members

wondered, uneasily, “Was God truly pleased with this

undertaking?”

The long weary journey overland, their arrival minus

three of their community (these had deserted!), lack of

heat in chapel, chapter, refectory, or dormitory, in spite of

the piercing cold of December, the death of their superior

two weeks later . . . can you blame some of the new

community that they began to suspect God wanted no

foundation of Trappists in America?

• Frost in late spring took their fruit; a long drought

killed the potato crop in the summer. The heat scorched

their bodies, robed in woolen garments which served as

work clothes, sleeping suits and choir costumes. Death

struck again, taking three members. Of 13 applicants in

the first year only three persevered.

Then the dolors continued.

The first abbot built on such generous lines, that the

capitular fathers and he had misunderstandings and he

was forced to resign.

The second abbot wanted to redeem promises made

when the foundation had first appealed for funds. Fie

began a boys’ school and a girls’ school. The girls’ school

led to such complications a local interdict was laid on

the abbey. The boys’ school was center of such a scandal

that the abbey was temporarily repudiated by her Order!

The second abbot resigned—ill health brought about by
misunderstandings from without was the chief reason.

68



The third abbot resigned because of misunderstanding

from within the community. ... In the first 50 years

NOT ONE NATIVE-BORN POSTULATE PERSE-

VERED!

In the first century of existence, Gethsemani saw 176

men die there. Unknown by the world, their song of

praise overcomes the harsh noises of the world. Trappist

silence has a voice indeed ... it speaks with the tongue

of suffering endured for God’s sake.

PATIENCE IN SUFFERING AN ACTIVE VIRTUE

To endure suffering patiently, quietly, does not mean

you are a do-nothing, a mollycoddle. . . . Take the story

of Blessed Henry Suso: he did not lead the life of a

quietist. He was accused of robbing a shrine and of faking

a miracle; twice he was nearly drowned; an evil woman,

whom he had helped, actually accused him of being the

father of her fatherless child; his sister fell into sin and

he rescued her; he met a murderer and he was accused

as a poisoner. What catastrophe befell him, so mystic a

poet of divine themes at heart! All his life he shrank

from suffering and loved the peace and serenity of union

with God. He learned to endure all patiently. In his in-

spired words, “Let him who desires peace, love with an

equal love both success and adversity.”

The entire scope of the lives of many of God’s elect

can be narrated and understood in very simple delineation.

Endure—with patience—and the crown will be yours.
Conformity to God’s will is a simple formula. But how

difficult to attain, you say?

69



God sent St. Alphonsus terrible temptations: doubts

against every article of Faith, vanity and presumption and

concupiscence. Did he despair? . . .

St. Rose was afflicted by darkness and a seeming

hopelessness of being saved. . . .

These were saints, you say. But they were also hu-

mans,—no haloes flying around their fevered brows, no
angels assuring them that whatever they did it was the

right thing. But by accepting patiently whatever God sent

them, by bearing their suffering,—just this, nothing more
and nothing less, they conformed to God’s will.

Did not St. Francis de Sales say “If at prayer we do

nothing but drive away temptations and distractions, our

prayer is well made”?

Some sufferings may come from our neighbors,

—

contempt, reproach, loss of reputation, injustices, theft,

and petty persecutions of every kind that rankle and

irritate.

“One ‘Blessed be God!’ in adversity is of greater value

than a thousand acts of thanksgiving in prosperity!” as-

sures Ven. John Avila.

When suffering intensely at the hands of a physician

who had diagnosed his illness wrongly, St. Ignatius fell

into an alarming condition and appeared to the doctor

to be indulging sad and gloomy thoughts.

“Sad and gloomy thoughts?”, replied the heroic found-

er of the Jesuit Order. “Could anything happen to me

which would be difficult or depressing, or which would

deprive me of peace of soul?”

Then, reflecting he went on, “Yes, it would be very

70



bitter if my life-work of the Jesuit Order would be dis-

solved. The establishment of my Society has been the

object of all my endeavors; it is my joy, my consolation

in my declining years, and God’s blessing rests upon it.

Now, if this work should be suppressed,—oh, how could I

endure such a dreadful blow!”

Again he paused, turning thoughts over in his mind,

then made this remarkable utterance: “If it were to hap-

pen without my guilt, about fifteen minutes of meditation

and recollection in prayer would banish all disquietude

from my soul, even were the whole Society to be dissolved

as salt in water!”

WOULD 15 MINUTES BE ENOUGH FOR YOU

TO REGAIN YOUR SERENITY OF SOUL?

Often the trials we read about are such that we declare,

with great self-assurance, that we would be able to bear

up under them. . . .

But—if they actually happened to you? Are you sure?
Would you be as heroic as others? You can be, you know.

Endurance of suffering is a matter of “working at it.”

As one wise farmer said, “Patience means that when I

just can’t plow another furrow, I go ahead and do it.”

Mental suffering, with all its wearing and tearing

of the unseen fabric of the soul, can be the most intense

suffering.

During the Civil War, reports of Mary Lincoln’s

treason were so persistent that finally the Senate Com-

mittee on the Conduct of the War met in secret session

to consider them. True, some of her blood relatives were

71



actually in uniform on the Confederate side. . . .

Without explanation President Lincoln suddenly ap-

peared and stated formally that it was untrue that any

member of his family had treasonable dealings with the

enemy. Imagine the humiliation and added burden laid

upon the shoulders of the “martyr” President that he had

to repudiate any reckless or seditious behaviour of his

family!

And that trial was followed later by such wild hysteri-

cal outbursts on the part of his wife that Lincoln took

his wife by the arm, led her to the window of the White

House room they were in, pointed out the nearby Insane

Asylum, and sternly warned her, if she did not still her

cries of grief over the loss of their dead son, he might

have to send her there. . . .

Think of the great St. Boniface, so zealous in the

work of reclaiming souls, a redoubtable foe of the irregular

lives led by many of the clergy in his day . . . and of how

his martyrdom was only the culmination of suspicion and

misunderstanding and violent conspiracies against him

originating among his own brethren!

Or St. Patrick . . . how he suffered from false brethren,

so that he was put on trial, deprived of his rank, and

“in the midst of the night I saw a writing void of honor

beside my name.”

Father Eusebio Kino, Jesuit apostle of our own South-

west, was called a liar and a fraud by civil and ecclesi-

astical authorities. . . .

John Cardinal Newman underwent a long “penance

of slander and unpopularity” for 30 years. . . .

72



St. Vincent de Paul was accused and made out a

thief. . .

Father Damien the hero of Molokai was called “moral-

ly depraved” and slandered viciously in the newspapers

of his day. . . .

St. John Vianney,—the Cure of Ars,—was so accused
and assailed by his enemies that he said: “Those were

the days when they (various clerics) let the gospels rest

on the altar and preached on me, instead. I was their text.”

The Book of Wisdom (3, 6) makes us understand by

means of a beautiful symbol: “As gold in the furnace he

has proved them.” St. John of the Cross (vol. II, p. 247)

explains to us the manner of this proving and its ultimate

purpose: “This is the way God deals with those whom

it is His will to exalt. He permits them to be tempted,

afflicted, tormented, inwardly and outwardly, so that He

may deify them,: that is, unite them to Himself in His

wisdom.” A
It is, therefore, those destined to the most exalted

positions in God’s great economy and those who are

dearest to Him who must be ready to suffer most. No

one is dearer to Christ than His sinless Mother, and no

one but He has suffered more. No one has been more

exalted by the Triune God than the well beloved Son,

and no one has ever been a Man of Sorrows such as He.

Yes, suffering is and remains a mystery. It would be

well to say with Janet Erskine Stuart of the Society of

the Sacred Heart: “I don’t know any answer; let us fold

our hands and say ‘I believe.’ I love these unanswerable

questions! They make God so great.”

73



If we remain for a few moments in the invigorating

air of Mother Stuart’s thought, she will help us to over-

come any sense of unhappiness that may for some be

consequent upon a consideration of suffering. To end in

a mood of dejection would be to miss the entire point.

Mother Stuart’s biographer tells us that she labored to

show the essential difference between sorrow and unhap-

piness, and that she was uncompromising on the question

of joy. “Joy,” says Mother Stuart, “is a thing peculiarly

Christian and Catholic. . . . The Church really has the

monopoly of the joy of the world. . . . Error is depressing.”

Upon another occasion she said: “Remember the depres-

sing side is never the true side,” and “The distinctive

quality of Christian sorrow is that it is capable of turning

into joy.”

A quotation from William Langland, who in PIERS

PLOUGHMAN depicts much of the bad and some of

the good in medieval life, fits well into Mother Stuart s

“very positive and jubilant” concept of joy:

“Never was there war in this world nor wretchedness

so bitter

That Love, if he liked, might not bring it to laughing.”

She often expressed this idea of joy in terms of song:

“We must not sing flat in the things of God, dispiritedly,

discouragingly. ... I love to think of your making a

cheerful noise to God.’ . . . Go singing through it, singing

in God’s arms. . . . Sing in every way you can. . . . God

gave song to give heart and courage and joy in life; if

not with the voice, sing with the spirit and the under-

standing; sing by words of courage and hope, praise and

74



thankfulness. Call out to one another by high thoughts

and spiritual ambitions.”

If suffering has proved us and done its best for us,

then shall we sing in spirit. We shall gladden the Heart

of God, like the youths in the fiery furnace, with canticles

of joy and praise.

Our pain shall not be wasted. It shall be for us a

treasure immeasurable on the scales weighed by God

our Judge.

* * *

'SOMEBODY ELSE

Somebody Else had a heavier cross

Than the one I bear today,

And the path were far too steep for me,

Had not Somebody led the way.

Somebody Else had a sadder heart

Than the weary one in my breast;

Somebody’s aching thorn-crowned Head,

Had nowhere to lie in rest.

Somebody Else’s tired Hands

And Somebody’s wounded Feet

Were never too weary to minister;

And Somebody’s smile was sweet.

Somebody Else’s Head was bent,

Not with the weight of years;

And the light in Somebody’s beautiful Eyes

Was dimmed by many tears.

75



Somebody Else’s love was spent,

And tears were wept in vain;

Shall I, then, count my weeping’s cost

Or grudge a little pain?

Somebody Else was left alone,

Beneath an olive tree;

And nobody cared for Somebody Else

More than they do for me.

But away past life’s dull gloaming,

Across the Crystal Sea,

Somebody Else and I shall love,

For all Eternity.

Have you read these lines carefully? Then ask your-

self in all truthfulness: ARE YOU SUFFERING MORE

THAN HE DID?

DON’T WASTE YOUR PAIN!

Did you ever hear of the wonderful little Roman girl

who died at the age of 6V2 years old in 1937? Antoinetta

Meo, affectionately called “Nennolina” by her parents,

had a body ravaged by disease. One leg finally had to be

amputated but she offered it to Jesus for sinners, for big

sinners—for “biggest sinners”—those were the ones she
wanted: no small fry for her generous soul. She once

told her father, “Papa, pain is like cloth: the stronger

and tougher it is, the more value it has.” Another of her

remarks during her last illness was: “Now I am suffering

for love of Jesus, but in Heaven I shall ask for so many

76



graces and I shall let fall a rain of lilies on souls.”

Yes, don’t waste your pain! Offer up your anguish,

consecrate your trials.

What tragedy there can be in the torments that we

see all about us,—in hospital and sickroom, private homes
of the wealthy or sordid slums of the poor,—which are
suffered because the stricken invalids must suffer, but

which are not transmuted into something eternal through

a mere act of yielding to God’s will.

Bereavement and abandonment, loneliness and grief,

—they can be golden opportunities to seize on. Tell Jesus:
“Here I am. Take my suffering, my excruciating pains,

my strength too—and my weakness. ALL IS YOURS.
Change the water of my mere human life into the Wine

of Your Precious Blood. Let my tiny trickle of life become

another drop in the vast ocean of Your Omnipotence.

“My routine of irritating or tedious duties, the gnat-

like worries infesting my day, the slights and scorns from

other fault-finding humans around me,—in themselves
these are nothing, but if You take them in the spirit of

abnegation with which I offer them I know they will have

golden merit in the eyes of God.

“Make my uselessness during dark hours of pain and

solitiude become truly useful to others, by letting me bear

my sufferings with patience and to offer my sorrows for

the salvation of souls.

“Every minute sinners all over the world are going

through the final agony of dying ... let my suffering be

applied towards their final solace by letting Your grace

visit their souls. . .

77



ARE YOU A SHUT-IN?

If so, you often, perhaps daily, are aware of your de-

pendent condition, your absolute weakness and fraility.

How can I do anything great or meritorious, you may

ask,—perhaps even with a sneer.
Listen to Pope Pius XI, a man of stern reality in his

outlook on eternity, “The imposing feature in Mission

History is the fact that God accomplishes His aims with

the aid of human weakness.”

Think of it! Instead of counting on the strong and

the mighty of the earth to help His plans become per-

fected, God deliberately has seen to it that you, the weak,

the sick, the bedridden, are the instruments He uses to

achieve His goal for mankind!

Our hearts thrill with admiration when we read of

St. Paul, or of St. Francis Xavier, or of St. Peter Claver

who, with boundless ambition, strove to convert the pagan

world. With undaunted courage they faced a thousand

dangers, bore ceaseless pain and persecution for the sake

of Christ. We find ourselves awestruck at the tale of their

incredible efforts and terrible sufferings? “Oh, if I, too,

could only be a missionary! Must I remain all the day

idle while the privileged few gather in the golden harvest

of souls far away?”

But YOU can be a missionary. How?—A few years
ago God sent to a forgetful world a young girl who was

to teach how every Catholic can be a real missionary

and can share in the Divine Romance of winning souls

to Christ. This girl never went to pagan lands; she did

nothing extraordinary. Yet her influence circled the globe

78



and touched all lands with its sacred influence. We have

the assurance of Christ’s own Vicar, the “Pope of the

Missions.” You have probably guessed that she is none

other than the Carmelite nun, ST. THERESE OF LI-

SIEUX, the “Little Flower of Jesus.”

One incident in her life reveals her secret: In her last

illness Therese each day took a short walk. Noticing how

much the effort cost her, a Sister said to her, “Therese,

you are suffering so much. You would do better to take

a rest.”
—

“That is true,” Therese replied, “but do you

know what gives me strength? I offer each step for some

Missionary, thinking that somewhere, far away, one of

them is worn out by his apostolic labors; and to lessen

his fatigue I offer mine to God.”

St. Therese invites you to follow her example, to

follow in her footsteps.

Who among us is not faced with daily toils and suffer-

ings? Why not, as the “Little Flower,” offer them to God

to gain new strength for some far-off Missionary? Therese

was a brave little soul, all afire with love for God. When

circumstances prevented her from going to distant lands,

just as they are preventing you, she did not on that account

give up her ideal of becoming a Missionary and a martyr

for souls.

How simple to join the CO-MISSIONARY APOSTO-

LATE! No long forms to fill out, or tedious interviews

with anyone. Just send your name in to THE CO-MIS-

SIONARY APOSTOLATE, TECHNY, ILL., or GI-

RARD, PA., and express the desire to offer your sufferings

for a missionary. No dues, no payments, no meetings to

79



attend. From that day on, when you have started to offer

your trials for a missionary who will be assigned to you,

in some foreign mission field or even in mission work

here in America, YOU WILL NOT WASTE YOUR

PAIN ANY MORE!

Sadness and moodiness are corrosive; they rust the

talents and abilities God has given you to help you save

your soul and the souls of others.

Be cheerful! Offer your pain up . . . you will be

seeking joy for your own advantage. Then too you owe

joy to your fellow men . . . God rightfully expects joy

in His service from us, shutins, invalids, paralytic cases,

amputees, paraplegics. . . .

Look at the four seasons that visit the earth. The

farmer plows and harrows; he seeds and the seeds rot

away underground; storms and wind and rain and heat

and attacks by worms and insects assail the fledgling

growth; the farmer re-appears and prunes and clips and

weeds; and only then,—how slow and monotonous the
four seasons ipoved around until the harvest is ready!

—

only then can the farmer expect to find a rich reward of

fruit or grain.

Nobody has ever claimed that the long period of

preparation of the soil, seeding, harrowing, and so on is

a wasted effort on the farmer’s part. Nor need your long-

drawn out period of suffering be considered wasted by

you. But your pain will be wasted if you do not see the

importance of it and offer it voluntarily to God for saving

souls.

80



We know of many a home which harbors an invalid

member of the family. Many a convent has an old Sister

pinned down to a bed of pain. The rest of the family is

“busy with many things” ... the other community mem-

bers are active about the affairs of the convent. All to good

purpose. Yet perhaps there is more merit from that one

sick or bed-ridden member of the group than from all

the bustling activities of the others!

It is only when you become “God’s Little Nothing”

like Mary McGunagle that you can realize the wonderful

value of your pain, the treasure of your torment. . . .

Let me tell you the story in brief of this modern Victim

Soul.

Mary McGunagle, “God’s Little Nothing,” is not a

personality taken from the dim pages of the past. It was

only on August 3, 1942, that she died and was buried in

a cemetery on the outskirts of Providence, R.I. Only a

short year before her death she found that suffering can

become the coin with which souls are purchased by an

adopted missionary in the Co-missionary Apostolate. She

learned that, as St. Therese wrote, “more souls are saved

by suffering than by preaching.” ,

“God’s Little Nothing” has had her story written in

a booklet with that same title. To narrate it all is not

our purpose. However, her pains were not merely physical

but also mental and spiritual. There is one category of

sufferer which seems to bear an especially heavy cross,

that is, the scrupulous soul which seemingly can never

come to rest but apparently is forgetful of the Mercy of

81



God, and which causes untold anguish of spirit both to

itself as well as being a very great trial to the spiritual

confessor, guide or other adviser committed to direction

of such a soul.

In one of the letters which Miss McGunagle penned,

she describes how her friends exclaimed over the “new

life” she took on since she dropped the word “complain”

from her vocabulary. . . . The risings and fallings of her

spirit, all her sufferings of body, the deep gloom of her

soul, her joys and her sorrows, failures and conquests, all

gathered force and streamed forth in a veritable litany

of gratitude. Particularly grateful was the bedridden “Lit-

tle Nothing” that she had managed to rise above her tan-

trums of melancholy and actually display that joy that,

being from God, is of itself a heroic thing.

Glancing through the record of her sufferings, one

phrase after another points up her sufferings. . . . Can

you truly compare your trials with hers and say you are

in greater torment, continuously? Read:

“My daily headache has been the worst in ages. ... I al-

most choked to death . . . very, very tired . .
.
pains in

my chest are very bad ... back is almost breaking . . .

nerves all on edge . . . bad moments . . . hysterical . . .

tired, exhausted stage again . . . terribly discouraged!

... so cold, so sick . . . suffering intensely . . . suffering

between 4 and 9 P.M. . . . sweats . . . temperatures . . .

coughing incessant . . . AND HER LAST WRITTEN

WORDS: “No matter what comes . . . How it comes . . .

FIAT!”

82



Above the entrance of a former well-known school

for girls in Holidaysburg, Pennsylvania, there is an un-

usual emblem and inscription: a burning candle, with

this wording “TERAR DUM PROSIM” which means,

“May I be consumed so long as I am useful.”

The life of “God’s Little Nothing” can beautifully be

foreshadowed in the emblem with the inscription . . . and

the life of many a sufferer,—perhaps even you who read
this—may receive new meaning and value if you too can
follow the inspiration of that message.

Strangely enough the history of the saints does repeat

itself,—in pattern if not in actual details. And the suffer-
ings of souls who strove after sanctity . . . these too are,

as it were, all stamped out from God’s master mold.

The story of Miss McGunagle followed by a year and

a half, the finale of the “Red Rose of Suffering,” Margaret

Nosbisch, whose correspondence with her Missionary is

enshrined in the booklet bearing that title. What cheerful

letters came from the pen of this sufferer for Christ;

what splendid outpourings of her spirit were apparent

through the pain of her body as her wasted flesh left the

life-tide ebb away! The courageous acceptance of her

incessant pain and suffering had merited for the missionary

countless graces and peace and poise of soul and had

given him strength in unusual trying circumstances.

What vast power resides in the quiet ones on the

earth! What tremendous spiritual force is possible in the

countless tortured minds, unknown sickbeds, stricken

bodies all over the world! And how much of it is

wasted. . . .

83



IF YOU ARE SUFFERING, DON’T WASTE
YOUR PAIN!

See what these humble sister spirits were able to achieve,

though they never left their beds of suffering! Pagan souls,

thousands of miles away, had their lives affected for the

better through the application of the suffering of these

devoted victim souls to the saving of those heathen, un-

known to them by name or sight. See what your suffering

can do for you—and for others. Be generous with your
pain!

Now you have seen what joy enters the lives of those

who willingly and even cheerfully offer up their hours of

agony. Truly, the sick are entitled to be called the trouba-

dours of God, if they accept their crosses with joy.

It must have been one sufferer such as we described who

wrote this wonderful SONG OF THE SICK.

I really do not know

The pains and sufferings

That cause the saints to grow

Those agile angel wings.

For, as heavily I lie

Upon this mattressed shelf,

And watch the hours go by,

I think within myself:

I have not felt in me

The sores of Bernadette,

Nor Damien’s leprosy,

Nor Jesus’ bloody sweat.

84



Therese’s taste of death

Has not yet touched my lips,

Nor Xavier’s dying breath,

Nor lion’s fatal grip;

A martyrdom in dungeon cell,

The torture of the rack,

An exile in an earthen hell,

A drug-worn mind and back.

Let arms and legs, O Lord,

and eyes and tongue

Be stricken for the sins

against Thy Name;

And bruise my body

like the one that hung

Upon the Cross,

so I may share its shame.

Thy grace will give me

strength to bear the pain

Which Thy sweet love

inflicts upon my soul;

I offer all to Thee

in hope to gain

The joy and glory

of the victor’s goal.

—Clement, S.A.

(“The Lamp,” Nov. 1950)

85



It was an invalid who penned the following beautiful

CREED. When you feel that your suffering, mental or

physical or spiritual, is too great for you to bear, say this

prayer, or any portion of it which fits your need. You will

find renewed strength.

“My God and my ALL!”

I believe, O my God, that in this state of illness, helpless-

ness and impotence, in which I find myself, I procure your

glory, I save souls, and I advance the work of my own

sanctification.

I BELIEVE—and this is my consolation, my desire
and my prayer—I believe, without having any sensible
proof of it or without experiencing any solace, that my

weakness, my inability and my physical and moral pains

will procure health and strength to your priests, to your

missionaries so that they will be able to devote themselves

to the apostolic and evangelizing work which is confided

to them.

I believe that this isolation of heart which causes me

so much suffering, will be of benefit to them, by making

them feel at home with you, O Holy Trinity, in communion

with all the elect of heaven and with all Christians here

below.

I believe that my painful sleeplessness will obtain for

them a beneficial sleep and a restoration of energy.

I believe that my affliction will obtain this generosity

of heart which will render them joyous in your service and

cause them to hasten with ardor in the path of your com-

mandments, in the path of abnegation and of apostolic

sacrifice.

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I believe that my dryness of soul and this wall of iron

which is placed between me and the things of the super-

natural order will assure them an abundance of
consola-

tion at the holy altar and in daily prayer.

I believe that the withdrawal of all pious
thought, of

all supernatural enthusiasm helpful in undergoing
suffer-

ings, will procure for them the great joy of seeing
clearly

the happy fruits of their labors and of their privations*
in

the exercise of apostolic zeal.

I believe, O my God, that the misunderstandings of

which I am sometimes the victim, on the part of creatures,

will merit for them the gift of attracting hearts in order
to

lead them to You.

I believe that the lack of sympathy and comfort on the

part of persons on whom I should be able to lean in my

moral distresses will obtain for them the material aid and

spiritual encouragement which they need in order to con-

tinue their apostolate with success.

I believe that my peaceful and resigned silence in the

sorrow which overwhelms me will render them eloquent

when they converse with souls in God’s name and will as-

sure them of innumerable spiritual conquests.

I believe that my interior and courageous struggles

against secret revolts which threaten to withdraw my soul

from abandonment and peace will give them admirable

victories in their own spiritual combats and in the wresting

of souls from damnation.

I believe that the state of crucifixion in which I lan-

guish is God’s merciful reply to my ardent desires for holi-

ness and final salvation. Yes, I believe, O my God, that

87



You have accepted me as a victim offered for the intention

of Your priests, of Your missionaries and that it is Your-

self Who holds this frail host or Victim on the altar of

immolation.

I believe that it is because of Your love for me^ O my

God, that You take the privilege of crucifying,me to sanc-

tify me more surely, and to make me worthy to serve You

with my poor sufferings for the salvation of a great num-

ber of souls.

I believe that each affliction of soul and body, sup-

ported by love for You, will create in me a new capacity

for divine love, and that the more empty spaces You thus

create in my poor heart, the more place You will have to

pour forth Your graces of union and of transformation.

O my well-beloved Father, I have the filial presump-

tion to believe in my turn that, this trial once traversed

with Your grace, You will introduce me into Heaven where

I shall go, with all the souls that my patience will have ac-

quired for You, to love You without measure and eternal-

ly sing Your mercies.

88



God’s Candle

You’re just God’s old candle burning out,

And you must burn and not complain

Till God in His good time blows out the

flame.

We’re all God’s Candles,

And some burn just a little while

And then are done.

And others? They burn longer, and

There are some that burn until the end.

And you are one!

God knows why, but to me it seems

That those whom God allows to burn unto
the end

And give the very last they have to Him

Are those whom God loves most,

But anyway

YOU’RE JUST

GOD’S

OLD

CANDLE

BURNING OUT

And you must burn

And not complain.



Abandonment and Confidence

0 God, I believe in Thy infinite goodness,

not only in that goodness which encom-

passes the world, but in that particular
and

all personal goodness which extends to the

miserable creature that I am, and which dis-

poses of all for my greatest good.

This is why, O Lord, even when I do not

see, when I do not understand, when I do

not feel, I believe that the situation in
which

I find myself and all that happens to me is

the work of Thy love; and with all my heart

I prefer it to any other situation which would

be more agreeable to me but which would

come less from Thee.

1 place myself in Thy hands: do with me

as Thou wilt, leaving me but the consolation

of obeying Thee.

(Approved by Pius X, June 2, 1914)

100 days ind. each time. Plen. Ind.

once a month. Rome, Dec. 6, 1915.

Benedict XV.