There are any number of cryptic and difficult passages in the bible, and so often it is our tendency to ignore them, explain them away, or twist them to conform to our own particular set of theological beliefs. One such hard scripture comes from the writings of the Apostle Paul in his epistle to the Colossians: “Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.” Immediately we are made uncomfortable with his words, for he suggests that the suffering of Christ was somehow deficient and even more troubling is his intimation that he, a mere man and a sinful one at that can make up the difference. What are we to make of this disturbing verse which doesn’t seem to fit in nicely with the larger body of scripture?
While it seems Paul is using some hyperbolic language to drive home his point, it seems that he is nonetheless insinuating that the effects of the Savior’s sufferings are perhaps a bit more limited than is often appreciated and that the sufferings of man are actually more significant to the plan of salvation than is often recognized.
It is probably important to consider here exactly what Jesus accomplished by his life and death on earth for the human race. Both his good works and his sufferings constitute together what theologically is often called “merit,” like a credit on an accounting ledger. When his mission on earth was finished, he acquired a tremendous amount of merit that was deposited in a “heavenly bank account” to the credit of the human race. While this repository of merit is vast, it is importantly not infinite in scope for it represented the earnings of a perfect man over a finite lifetime. Additionally, while the human race technically can draw from this credit to offset its debts, members of the race cannot write themselves a blank check for there are rules on withdrawals in accordance with divine law. Perhaps Paul had these ideas in mind when he used the word “lacking” to describe Jesus’ afflictions.
As a perfect man and a divine being as well, the good works and the afflictions that Christ endured obtained great credit for humanity. But is this to say that the good deeds and sufferings of imperfect human beings are of no value at all? Though perhaps greatly inferior to the accomplishments of the Savior, the members of the human race nonetheless can also rack up merit in the same way, for the difference between what Christ has done and what we can do is not a difference in kind but only of magnitude. This seems to be what Paul was thinking about in making up for the “deficiency” in Christ’s sufferings.
Does God need our help to save humanity? Perhaps to some extent he does if not for any other reason than he is interested in people helping each other, for the highway to heaven is like a chain of souls with those ahead assisting us on the journey while we aid those who are behind us. Salvation is not acheived in a vacuum as if we were all in our own silos but is necessarily the product of one hand helping another.
God is interested in community and desires that the whole human family “bear one another’s burdens” to quote the Apostle Paul again. It is the theological idea of the communion of saints where we not only have a role to play in our individual salvation but importantly in the salvation of others. So in a real sense, we can think of ourselves as co-redeemers with Christ of the human race.
There are a number of ways that we can help each other on the road to God, and our good deeds certainly play a significant part. In the Old Testament we have the patriarchal figure Job depicted as offering sacrifices for his children in case they had sinned, for the act of love in making such an offering to God was of merit to offset to some extent the failures of his loved ones. In the Book of Maccabees, there is a story about a group of soldiers who had died in the fight against the Greek overlords oppressing the Jews. It was discovered that those who had died had sinned by worshipping idols. In an act of mercy, the surviving soldiers collected money to send to the temple as an expiatory sacrifice for those who had transgressed.
Of course we no longer live in a time when we offer real blood sacrifices to God, but we nonetheless can benefit others with real offerings of love. If we send money to help the poor, we can do so in someone else’s name asking God that another receive the merit from our offering. If we help somone with our time or our labor, we can offer that service to God on behalf of another as well.
Good deeds can of course be practical and tangible acts of service, but of course they can also be purely spiritual and this would constitute the act of prayer which forms the staple of the religious life. Prayer can take many forms for sure, but the most common one is petition, often for others and their needs. In the gospels, Jesus taught the Parable of the Persistent Widow to urge his disciples to keep on praying and not give up. Many would recall that story about a widow who kept pestering a godless judge for justice against her enemy. Though he didn’t care about helping her, the impious magistrate ultimately granted her request because he was worn out from her constantly badgering him. Needless to say, God does not answer our prayers simply because we tire him out, but our persistence day in and day out toward some intention does in fact build up a certain spiritual pressure. Each loving prayer offered for another constitutes some unit of merit toward the credit of that person, so that over time a tremendous amount of merit builds up, often enough to overcome the situation that is being prayed for. Why prayers are sometimes answered and sometimes not is often a mystery, but if our petitions are granted, it is often the case that the good credit we accued became enough to overcome the obstacle that we sought to disappear.
While we can offer kindness and prayers for the sake of other people, we can also volunteer to suffer for those who need our help as well. Perhaps the best example of this across all faiths is the practice of fasting which constitutes a voluntary deprivation of nourishment to the body for some amount of time. The sacrifice of hunger, a denial of one of the body’s most basic needs is a tremendous offering to God with great merit, and Jesus taught its effectiveness in the gospels. When the disciples were unable to cast out a stubborn demon from an individual, Jesus had to intervene and let them know that the evil spirit could not be expelled except by prayer and fasting.
In the Old Testament, we see the power of fasting illustrated in the story of Esther who was instrumental in saving the Jews from annihilation by their enemies. Esther had to go before the king if she hoped to turn the tables on her adversaries, but she was not willing to do so without throwing as much good credit to the Jewish people as possible before putting her own neck on the line. So she fasted for three days taking neither food nor water and instructed all of the Jews in the city to do the same. Then as it turned out, the Jewish people were not only saved from destruction but killed thousands of their enemies in the process. In the end some of the Jews including Esther’s uncle were elevated to the highest levels in government.
Voluntary suffering can take a number of forms and the medieval saints probably championed the idea with their often severe ascetism. Not only did pious men and women of old deny themselves food, but they took it to another level denying also sleep and comfort to the body, perhaps subjecting themselves to cold and heat and other torments. Some were even known to wear hairshirts so that they were always itching and even went as far as beating themselves (self-flagellation) perhaps in the tradition of Paul who said, “I discipline my body and bring it into subjection.”
While we cannot judge their intentions or their spirituality, by today’s standards their behavior would often been considered masochistic. Some degree of self-denial is certainly a good practice, but pain and suffering will ultimately find us at some point so we don’t need to go to any extremes to bring it upon ourselves.
Involuntary suffering is just the condition of the human race and one that none of us can really escape from. Often we feel that it is pointless to suffer when we could be doing so many other better more constructive things with our time. Nonetheless it is part of God’s plan for our spiritual formation. It certainly builds character and helps us to acquire virtues like patience and teaches us hard lessons in life. It is also clearly given to us for personal penances to pay off our own debts toward God.
When our pain is great, we often withdraw within ourselves consumed by the magnitude of our suffering. We naturally have a tendency to turn inwards as we try to cope with what we are dealing with. While at such times our thoughts are often furthest from the needs and concerns of others, it is then that we have a great opportunity and can really put our pain into action and offer it up to God to the credit of other people. Rather than just sulk in our misery we can put a positive spin on our suffering and offer it to God as a sacrifice of love for someone else or some particular cause. This is not necessarily easy, but it can be of more value than any other mode of helping others that we could otherwise do, and for some people who are chronically infirmed or debillitated it is often the only thing they can do for others.
To get an idea of how powerful the value of our suffering can be for the sake of another, we could remember the words of St. Teresa of Avila, the 16th century Spanish Carmelite nun who suffered miserably during her own lifetime: “One must not think that a person who is suffering is not praying. He is offering up his sufferings to God, and many a time he is praying much more truly than one who goes away by himself and meditates his head off, and, if he has squeezed out a few tears, thinks that is prayer.” St. Therese of Lisieux, the French Carmelite nun and namesake of Teresa of Avila had similar thoughts. She wrote, “Sufferings gladly borne for others convert more people than sermons” and “Suffering is the very best gift He has to give us. He gives it only to His chosen friends.”
The Apostle Paul heavily emphasized the value of redemptive suffering in his epistles, and it is clear that his sentiments greatly influenced the attitudes of the Medieval saints. He wrote, “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” In the same epistle he said, “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him”
Perhaps following the tradition of the apostle, the church has sought to conform its own liturgical prayers to this idea. In the Roman Church’s Eucharistic Prayer I, a petition is offered to God asking for what Paul asks for: “To us, also, your servants, who, though sinners, hope in your abundant mercies, graciously grant some share and fellowship with your holy Apostles and Martyrs.” What a brave prayer!
While all of us can offer our suffering to God, in the history of the Church there have been a number of souls who have done so in a particularly significant way. In a real sense their entire lives have been a sacrifice of suffering for the good of others, and we refer to these people as “Victim Souls.” St Therese of Lisieux wrote about such people in her autobiography and suggested that they are people who have been chosen by God to suffer for the redemption of others. The Victim Soul’s sufferings are mysteriously joined with the redemptive suffering of Christ.
John Vianney, the 18th century saint and patron saint of priests was one such individual who suffered immensely during his life. He had the special gift of being able to see deep into people’s souls and knew their sins intuitively. He spent at times up to 16 hours per day in the confessional hearing the confessions of tens of thousands of people per year from France and beyond. Though he was given to austerities and regularly ate insufficient food, he was also routinely tormented by the devil every night as attested for years by those outside his home who could hear the screams and the loud cries and clanging of furniture that regularly deprived the priest of sleep. Satan is said to have admitted that if there were three men like Vianney on earth at any time it would destroy his kingdom.
Another priest, the 20th century Padre Pio of Italy is probably the best known Victim Soul of our time. Like John Vianney he also had the ability to read souls and attracted people to the confessional from all over the world. He also paid the price for his service to God with poor health most of his life and was known to have fevers that were documented as high as 118F. The man was frequently beaten by the devil both physically and spiritually and suffered great pain. He was probably best known for receiving the Stigmata (the wounds of Christ) early in his life and routinely lost a cup of blood every day from the wounds in his hands, feet, and side every day.
Other saints have been documented to have the Stigmata including the popular Francis of Assisi in the 13th century. While there are those who have had to suffer the real physical wounds of Christ, there have been others who have been given the pain without the manifestation including 20th century saint Faustina Kowalska of Poland who popularized the devotion to the Divine Mercy. She had what could be called the “hidden stigmata” and routinely offered her pain for the sake of sinners.
It sounds all well and good that we mortals can offer up our good deeds, our prayers, our sacrifices, and even our suffering for another human being. But exactly how much value can we assign to such offerings? Like most everything in life, the answer is not black and white and perhaps depends on a number of factors.
We know from the epistle of James the Lord’s brother that “the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” So it is certainly the case that the holier we are the more valuable our offering to God will be. If we have great faith and love than we can be assured that what we offer up will be precious in his sight, but if we are weighed down by serious sins then what we attempt to give will be of much less worth.
It also seems reasonable that the weight of our sacrifice will depend to some degree on our connection with the intended recipient. If we have a strong link with that individual and our heart is greatly bound up with the plight of the soul we are concerned about, then our offering will be great as well.
If we are suffering and wish to present that to God as a sacrifice it is unquestionably true that the magnitude of our pain will be a factor in the value of that contribution to someone else. But how we are managing our suffering will surely play a role as well. If we are complaining and depressed and angry about the pain we are dealing with, then there is little value in what we present to God for another. However if we are doing our best to cope and trying to remain cheerful and attempting to do as much as we can through the pain we are dealing with, then that will be of inestimable value before God. Therese of Lisieux who spent the last year and a half of her short life succumbing to tuberculosis and the misery that it brought upon her kept working almost to the very end with a good attitude. She writes very relevantly, “It's true, I suffer a great deal – but do I suffer well? That is the question.”
We’ve considered a good deal what kind of offerings we can make for our neighbor and tried to qualify some value that might be attached to them. Indeed, it is a whole other question to what extent those we are seeking to help may be able to benefit from our gifts of love. This also is not a simple question to address but is nonetheless governed by certain spiritual laws which we find throughout the scriptures and particularly in the gospels.
Jesus taught the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant describing how a servant who owed a great sum to his master begged that the debt should be forgiven so that he would not be thrown into debtor’s prison. In compassion the master forgave him, but a little while later the servant found someone who owed him a small sum of money by comparison and throttled him by the neck to pay up. When the master found out about how he treated this man, he was infuriated and threw his servant into prison until he should pay the last penny. The passage closes with the message, “This is how God will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”
The message appears again in the Lord’s Prayer with the words “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” The principle here is that we can only be forgiven by God to the extent that we are willing to forgive our neighbor. It is what is known as the Law of Reciprocity and is seen in various forms in the bible but relevantly also in the Beatitudes where Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” Consequently, only to the degree that we are showing love and forgiveness to our neighbor is the degree that we are entitled to receive love and forgiveness in general, and this is why despite the tremendous storehouse of merit that Jesus obtained for the human race, there is a great limitation on how much it can be accessed. Those who are striving to serve God and neighbor will benefit much more than those who are committed to living selfish lives, for that is the Law of God.
While our desire to help our neighbor should always be altruistic without an expectation for getting anything in return, nonetheless the Law of Reciprocity ensures that those who give will also receive often much more in return for what they have given. This is captured by Jesus’ words in the gospel of Luke: “Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
The message of the gospels is that sharing the good that comes from our works, our prayers, our sacrifices, and our suffering with other people is a win-win situation for everybody. It is an essential element of the Divine Plan for the salvation of the world in which we are all co-laborers in the redemption of the human race. By actively offering ourselves for the sake of others, we in a real sense join the apostle Paul in making up for whiat is “lacking” in the sacrifice of Christ and make a real contribution to the kingdom of God.