If you are seeking after God, you may be sure of this: God is seeking you much more. He is the Lover, and you are His beloved. He has promised himself to you.


 


 

Huấn Đức


 • Học biết yêu thương Thiên Chúa dưới sự hướng dẫn của thánh I-Nhă
 • Sống Trong T́nh Yêu Thiên Chúa
  Thiên Chúa muốn tôi làm ǵ bây giờ?
 • Đừng qúa tham lam
  Mẹ Maria phúc âm hóa chính ngài
 • Con đang t́m Mẹ con
  Phúc cho ai t́m Thánh Ư Chúa và đem ra thực hiện
  Lá thư Giáng Sinh
  Sa Mạc
  Căn bệnh nguy hiểm
 
Thập gía hiệp nhất chúng ta với Chúa
  Chấp nhận đau khổ trong yêu thương
  Mời Gọi và Sai Đi

 

 

 
Trang chính Huấn Đức Thánh Gioan Thánh Giá
 
   
  Suffering and Sanctity
 
   
 



Trích một đoạn của Thomas Merton về sự đau khổ qua kinh nghiệm cuộc đời thánh Gioan Thánh Giá
 

   
 

NO ONE can become a saint without solving the problem of suffering. No one who has ever written anything, outside the pages of Scripture, has given us such a solution to the problem as St. John of the Cross. I will not speculate upon his answers. I will merely mention the fact that they exist and pass on. For those who want to read it, there is the Dark Night of the Soul. But this much must be said: Sanctity can never abide a merely speculative solution to the problem of suffering. Sanctity solves the problem not by analyzing but by suffering. It is a living solution, burned in the flesh and spirit of the saint by fire. Scripture itself tells us as much. "As silver is tried by fire and gold in the furnace, so the Lord trieth hearts" (Prov. 17:3). "Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and fear and prepare thy soul for temptation. Humble thy heart and endure: incline thy ear and receive the words of understanding and make not haste in the time of clouds. Wait on God with patience: join thyself to God and endure, that thy life may be increased in the latter end. Take all that shall be brought upon thee, and in thy sorrow endure and in thy humiliation keep patience. For gold and silver are tried in the fire and acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation" (Eccles. 2:1-5)
      
Sanctity does not consist in suffering. It is not even directly produced by suffering, for many have suffered and have become devils rather than saints. What is more, there are some who gloat over the sufferings of the saints and are hideously sentimental about sufferings of their own, and cap it all by a voracious appetite for inflicting suffering on other people, sometimes in the name of sanctity. Of such were those who persecuted St. John of the Cross in his last days, and helped him to enter heaven with greater pain and greater heroism. These were not the "calced" who caught him at the beginning of his career, but the champion ascetics of his own reformed family, the men of the second generation, those who unconsciously did their best to ruin the work of the founders, and who quite consciously did everything they could to remove St. John of the Cross from a position in which he would be able to defend what he knew to be the Theresian ideal.
       Sanctity itself is a living solution of the problem of suffering. For the saint, suffering continues to be suffering, but it ceases to be an obstacle to his mission, or to his happiness, both of which are found positively and concretely in the will of God. The will of God is found by the saint less in manifestations of the divine good-pleasure than in God Himself.
       Suffering, on the natural level, is always opposed to natural joy. There is no opposition between natural suffering and supernatural joy. Joy, in the supernatural order, is simply an aspect of charity. It is inseparable from the love that is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. But when sanctity is not yet mature, its joy is not always recognizable. It can too easily be buried under pain. But true charity, far from being diminished by suffering, uses suffering as it uses everything else: for the increase of its own immanent vitality. Charity is the expression of a divine life within us, and this life, if we allow it to have its way, will grow and thrive most in the very presence of all that seems to destroy life and to quench its flame. A life that blazes with a hundredfold brilliance in the face of death is therefore invincible. Its joy cannot fail. It conquers everything. It knows no suffering. Like the Risen Christ, Who is its Author and Principle, it knows no death.

Saint For Now, Thomas Merton

 

Q: How can we believe in a God when there is so much suffering around us?

Mother Teresa: Suffering in and of itself is useless, but suffering which is a share in the passion of Christ is a marvelous gift for human life. The most wonderful of gifts is that we can share in Christ's passion

Q: How? Is suffering a gift?

Mother Teresa: Yes, and it is a sign of love because it was chosen by the Father to show us that he loved the world by giving up his Son to die for us. In that way, through Christ's life, suffering proved to be a gift, the greatest gift of love, because through his suffering our sins were atoned for

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