Transferred from the Becky Laird thread

[Alan Burns]

This is the  content from Andrew's earlier email which I have been asked to transfer to the Faith Sharing Area:

I received a beautiful email yesterday from a religious sister who is a friend of a friend. I had sent her an email at a low point feeling sorry for myself asking the big question, WHY? Her reply has given me such comfort that I feel the Lord wants me to share it with you:-

Dear Andrew,

May the Lord Jesus in his infinite mercy and compassion grant you the light that you need to penetrate the mystery of his presence in your life. Jesus is so close to those who suffer, he takes on your own suffering and it becomes His, and he offers it to His Father, transforming unbearable sorrow and dispair into the victory of love which heralds the glorious resurrection of all who live and die in Christ.

The ways of God are not our ways and the thoughts of God are not our thoughts. I can in no way pretend to know the thoughts of God for you, for Becky and for your family. But I will try to accompany your family during this agony by my prayer and that of my sisters. I showed the sisters a picture of Becky recently and asked for their continued prayer.

Our God is a God of infinite goodness and tenderness, his designs upon us are for our good and for the eternal salvation of our souls and the souls of those around us. You cannot know the infinite good that God can draw from suffering, it is his secret. He asks us only to trust in Him, trust that he can change the darkest night into the splendour of eternal joy.

God does not punish us or our loved ones in order to purify us, his desire is never to inflict pain and suffering, if Becky has a brain tumour it is not a punishment from God. God's desire is always to love us and to communicate His infinite love for us. But we are unable to receive that infinite love because of our limits as a creature and our limits as sinners. So God prepares us to be able to receive His incredible abyss of love and mercy and He does this through His grace and through suffering. He leads us to a state where we are progressively more and more aware of our need for Him, He opens up a cavern within us which cries out for Him, for His healing, and for His love. He never forces himself upon us, so he respects that we need time in order to grow in our desire for Him. He longs to fulfil the deepest desires of our heart, but we have to learn that our deepest desires are not necessary those which come to mind immediately, our deepest desires are for a love that only God can give us. No human person can fill us, only God, but it takes time for us to come to this knowledge.

It is perfectly true that it is too painful when you think of your 5 children without their Mother for the rest of their lives, because God is not asking you to imagine what future pain and suffering may lie ahead for your family. God knows the pain you bear today and he will grant you the strength and grace for today. He will take care of your children today. God is present with us now in the present moment, but He is not the future because it doesn't exist yet. None of us can bear to think of what possible suffering there might be in the future, we have the grace to bear today's suffering and not more.

God only allows suffering when He can bring out of it a greater good than if it had not happened, otherwise he doesn't allow suffering. This is our faith and why we sing "O Felix culpa" during the Easter Vigil, O happy fault that won for us so great a redeemer. It is better for us to be sinners and forgiven though the sacrifice of the cross than if we have never sinned at all. This might not seem much of a consolation for you faced with the horror of your Wife's illness, but it is the truth of our faith, and the truth sets us free. Jesus is not asking you to understand all that he is doing but he is asking you to make and act of faith that He is Lord of your life and Lord over Becky and that He will pour upon you the grace of the resurrection, you and Becky will know the fullness of his redemptive sacrifice, the vicory of his love over death and suffering.

While on earth you will never know the fruits of Becky's suffering, but Jesus can use Becky's suffering united to his own in order to save nations, stop wars, convert a multitude of lost souls.....You have no idea of the dignity and the value of Becky's innocent soul which is in the hands of God. The world sees a sick woman who is brain damaged, but to God He sees once again the Innocent Lamb who was slain for the salvation of the world. Becky's participating in God's plan of salvation in a way that you can't even begin to imagine.

Try every day to renew your trust in Jesus and make an act of faith that He is bringing about what is best for Becky and the family. Jesus knows your deep sorrow and the moments of dispair, let Him carry you, speak to him in all simplicity telling him when you no longer have the strength to continue and be strong, He will raise you up, He will renew you and give you strength to carry on. Try to read Holy Scripture when you can, it is the voice of the Holy Spirit which is speaking to you personally right now. Remember too that the Eucharist is Jesus giving you your daily bread for the journey ahead, it contains all the graces that you will need in order to live this agony while remaining hopeful in the Lord.

I will pray the rosary for you and your family, may the blessed Virgin Mary enveloppe you with her mantle of protection, may she pour forth her tenderness upon you heart as a balm that consoles and heals and may she keep you steadfast in faith hope and love.

United in the heart of our Mother,

Sister Mary
[/i]

[Alan Burns]

Thist is the more recent section of Andrew's later email which I have been asked to transfer:


I wanted to share with you another divinely inspired email from Sr Mary Madeline on suffering. I keep reading it over and over again and it gives me such comfort knowing my suffering has a purpose, that God knows and shares our suffering and is allowing it for the good.

--------------------------------

I am sorry not to have replied earlier to your email. In religious life your time is not your own and so I can never be sure when or if I will have free time to write, but thanks be to God I have a little time now.

Your Qs on suffering are of course the major stumbling block for so many people, it is beyond our human comprehension that a God of Love should require us to suffer as if it was some kind of entrance exam in order to be admitted to heaven.

Q: How God can make us joyful when we suffer?

In order to penetrate the mystery a little we have to understand what it means when we say that God is Love. It doesn't mean that God is really loving, as if being really loving was an attribute or quality of God. God in his being, in his existance, is Love, there is no distance between God and His love. It is easier to understand when we compare this to our own experience of love. I am loving some of the time, it's a quality in me, my existance and my love are not the same thing. I can exist in a state where I don't love either because I am asleep or because I am in a bad mood and I don't feel like loving.!! God isn't like that He loves eternally and his gaze upon us is always one of love. He wants to communicate his love to us and he wants us to choose to receive his love. His love is demanding and it requires us to be purified of anything that in any way limits our capacity to receive and live of his love. He has a plan for each one of us, and when our lives are conformed to his will for us, we are able to live fully of his gifts, of his love and mercy.

When we discover the will of God for us, it liberates us totally, and our joy is in doing his will, knowing that this is what rejoices his heart. When we love someone deeply we want to please them. And this is how we can find deep interior joy even in the midst of suffering. Because in loving God I prefer to forget myself in order to love him more. His will becomes my only desire. In this way I can suffer greatly if only I know that it is the will of God for me, because in his will alone do I find peace. Deep interior joy can coexist with great suffering if I live united to the will of Christ.

God knows that it is very difficult for us to suffer while maintaining our peace and joy so he helps us greatly with his grace and with his light. He reveals to us his secrets, and one of them is the incredible fruitfulness of suffering. God saved humanity by the Immolation of the innocent Lamb, take some time in prayer to consider what it means that God has saved us from eternal damnation by sacrificing his own son, he could of saved us in a different way, but he chose that of the cross.

When we unite our sufferings to the sufferings of Christ, we partake in this extraordinary act of salvation for all of humanity. This I think is what really helped the saints understand the value of suffering and why they were ready to undergo all sorts of difficulties and trials. They desired only to be united to Christ crucified and to save souls with him. When Jesus reveals this mystery to us in our prayers we can truly begin to be joyful even in the midst of the worst sufferings.

Next Q: How we can love living when we yearn so much for heaven and that this world seems like purgatory, should life really be like this?

God gives us right now everything that he will give us in heaven, Himself, his Mother, the communion of Saints, his infinite mercy and his wisdom. But it is all under the veil of faith. But it is just as real. St Therese said that she was not expecting to have anything in heaven that she had not already had on earth. So we need to be more realistic about what we are receiving from God everyday in order to begin now our eternal life. We should not have the attitude that life is really unbearable but if we manage to keep going one day we'll have the reward of heaven. Jesus came that we might have life in abundance (Jn 15) and now. He is inviting me now into a deep intimacy with him, so that I can live of his love for me now.

It is not a bad thing to yearn for heaven, it reminds us that we are just passing through on this earth. And it is true that our earthly pilgrimage is like purgatory, we live our purification now so that at our death we may go straight home to God. Whenever I return into the world I always think that I am in purgatory!!

Q: Is it really that hard to get into heaven that every soul must suffer in a similar way ?

Jesus said in the gospel that it is impossible for man to get into heaven but that for God nothing is impossible. Heaven is not really a place to get into, like getting into a good school, heaven is a participation in the divine life of God. We will live in the bosom of the Most Holy Trinity. It is absolutlely inconceivable what God is offering us. Our words are too limited to even begin to describe what we will live when we are introduced into the life of God. Suffering is the most adequate preparation for us in order to live this divine life. It is a Q of faith, noone can explain fully why it is like that, we just have to trust God, he knows what he is doing!! The only thing the saints in heaven envy us for, is our capacity to suffer for Jesus. I think this gives a little light on the infinite value of suffering in the eyes fo God.

All souls must be purified in order to see God, either during this life or in puragtory believe me the suffering if purgatory are much worse than those on earth. There is no comparison.


Q: what of those souls who experience very little suffering and life just seems perfect.

All souls suffer while on earth, although the type of suffering may be very different. The greatest suffering is not a particular crisis in our personal life but rather the greatest suffering is the separation from God that we must live on earth.

Psalm 72 is a good psalm for trying to understand why some people never suffer...the psalmist complains to God that the wicked never suffer, they are healthy and rich....while he is chastened every morning. Progressively he penetrates the mystery...

This is not an exhaustive answer to your Qs there would still be much to say but it is a beginning for thought and reflection.

It is late for me now and we get up at 5.30, so Good night!

United in the heart of our Mother,
sr MMg[/i]

[~TW~]

Alan I do wish you and your family well,I also have seen darkness in life,and have said Why.sometimes we never seem to get the answers,sometimes we get answers we do not want.But over the years I know this to be true.

    Nahum 1:7     The Lord is good. A refuge in times of trouble. And he cares for those that trust in him.

                                            ~TW~