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Question
Good morning
Once again, I propose the issue of human suffering, which I cannot find a reason for.
(…)
I can’t even fully interpret the meaning of Christ’s Passion, Death and Resurrection.
I can hardly attribute just the role of witnessing the existence of God to the coming of Jesus, in order to be visible and tangible, doing the most sensational of all miracles: the resurrection of a human being. But couldn’t the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus have been enough? Or, wouldn’t the resurrection of Jesus after His natural death have sufficed, without the experience of Calvary? Above all, I cannot attribute a real meaning to the experience of Calvary.
Of course, Jesus’ experience of the Cross is the example that legitimately calls us to accept our suffering in turn. To accept it as Jesus did, offering it to the Father.
Instead of sending His Son to die on the Cross, God could have truly redeemed us simply by snapping His fingers, given His omnipotence. Or, He could have established to admit in Heaven those who He deemed worthy, without any other need. Mainly, I cannot understand the meaning of the “redemption” of mankind. (…)
Of course, it is much easier to have faith when things are going well. It is much more difficult to remain close to God when we experience suffering , like poor Job. But if we accept suffering in order to prove the authenticity and solidity of our one’s own fidelity to God, one ould end up considering the earthly life merely as an instrument of torture, albeit with a “meritocratic” purpose.
However, it might become harder to consider it as a Gift from a Father who loves us.
Answer
Dear friend,
1. it is not suffering as such that redeems and saves. The bad thief suffered too on the cross and suffered terribly.
The cross saves only if love is released.
In Christ, the greatest love has been released.
2. The greatest love of Christ is linked to the concept of atonement, which you look at as wrong.
Surely, the Lord could save you by snapping His fingers, saying: I want it.
But our sin would still be there. It would just be covered up.
3. Instead, Jesus wanted a greater love where sin abounded, and that sin be eliminated in the true sense of the word.
As man had lost his right over the filial communion with God, He wanted to buy it back through His sacrifice.
Here it is the redemptive death of Christ.
4. Without the concept of redemption the mission of Jesus is much reduced. It would be pure exemplarity.
But, did He have to suffer so much to give a simple example?
5. Instead, He wanted to suffer in order to put His passion in our hands so that it would become ours, as if we had suffered it.
He wanted us to become rich in front of the Father through His deprivation.
St. Thomas says that “by faith” we unite to (identify with) Christ’s Passion and stand before God as if we had made the sacrifice of the cross (rf. ST. THOMAS, Summa Theologiae, III, 62, 5).
As you can see, Christ has given us an immense treasure.
6. And we can deal with that immense treasure because, as the merits of Christ become ours by the virtue of the Holy Spirit, so the merits of some become of others in the same communion with the Holy Spirit.
And thus, a perfect communion and charity in Christ is established among men.
Precisely according to the supreme longing of Jesus expressed in the Last Supper:
“that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.
And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one,
I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me” (Jn 17:21-23).
This is the climax of the communion which Jesus wanted to give us through His Passion.
I wish you every good and I bless you.
Father Angelo