When surrendering to His will is almost impossible to understand.

I was reading an article today titled "Why Doesn't the Chaplet Always 'Work?'" It helped me understand why I keep repeating the same phrase ("at least he will never remember this") to a family member who is fretting about the pain another family member is enduring due to medical procedures. The other family member then responds with - "but it still hurts." Of course it hurts! I am fully cognizant of that fact! However it's a necessary evil at this time and in the end these procedures will serve to make the patient better. (Some of you know who I am referring to - please do not reference his name in any comments you may make - thanks!)

Knowing that I was not making myself clear with my oft repeated response of "but he will never remember" I decided I needed to dig deeper into the Catholic counsel to "offer it up." So I read the article mentioned above and a few paragraphs really twigged with me. Such as:

"The other form of evil that the Chaplet does not always seem to "work" to eliminate is physical suffering. That is, suffering that does not arise directly from human sin, but from sickness, disease and accident, from misfortunes and natural disasters, and even from the inevitable process of growing old.

God has not given us a full and complete answer as to why He often permits these physical evils to run their course, often in spite of our prayers and Chaplets. Sometimes, in response to our prayers, He intervenes with miraculous healing and relief. Sometimes He asks us to bear our sufferings, and offers us the grace to cooperate with Him in bringing about a greater good than if He had not permitted them (for example, because He wants us to grow in patience, or courage, or trustful surrender to Him, or because He wants us to grow in love by "offering up" our sufferings, in union with the sufferings of Christ on the Cross, for the good of souls). "

Now of course the small patient in question cannot offer up anything -but his parents can. They have no idea what "offering up" means though. I admit that this is one of the most difficult concepts I have ever encountered and even after intensive study of all things Catholic for over seven solid years I am barely scratching the surface of any sort of understanding in regard to this. I cannot expect the parents to know anything about it either as they left the Church long ago never having grasped the true depths of Catholic teaching in the first place (not really any fault of theirs - their catechesis was poor, the examples of their family members was dismal and they have surely never heard a homily dedicated to offering it up.)

So, I need to get past the blame game and figure out how I can communicate this concept to them in a way they can understand. They are mired in the thought that God only wants us to be happy. Not quite. (For a better explanation of that you can read this.) All the parents can see is that their child is hurting physically which naturally hurts them emotionally. Having a tiny bit of understanding of how God's mercy works I see this is as an opportunity for them, indeed for all of us, "to grow in patience, or courage, or trustful surrender to Him...in union with the sufferings of Christ on the Cross, for the good of souls." It's a tall order, I will admit that.

All of this makes me think of the verse from Scripture that reads "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of his body (which is the church) in filling up that which is lacking in Christ's afflictions. Colossians 1:24. I wrote about this some time ago - make sure you read Laura's comment as well.

So, no easy answers but then that's not God's way anyway. All the more reason to keep praying JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU!

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