Embrace your suffering and do God’s will

Listening to the Spirit

Lord Jesus, teach me to be generous;
teach me to serve you as you deserve,
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to seek reward,
except that of knowing that I do your will.

Amen.

(St. Ignatius Loyola)

Listening to the Word

Matthew 16:21-27

Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.” He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life? The Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay all according to his conduct.”

Reflection

I like the way how Jesus talks to his disciples in today’s Gospel: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” The Evangelist portrays Him as an authentic leader with strong freedom of speech, who is completely frank to His follower. He didn’t promise to them riches or a life without problems, but since the beginning, He was very clear about the difficult mission that He proposed to those who wished to follow him.

After Peter professed his faith to Jesus as the Messiah, He revealed his mission which implies suffering. The disciples could think that all their sufferings and struggles could be solved by the Messiah, however, their expectations were challenged by Jesus’ mission. It isn’t an easy mission, there aren’t shortcuts.

In my opinion, the biggest teaching of Jesus is his deed of taking up His cross and doing always God’s will until the end. His earthly life wasn’t easy, but he went beyond His struggles.

Thinking in my own experience, I generally try to avoid suffering because I fail to see the connection of my struggles to God’s will. When I was a kid, I was thought that doing God’s will means living a life without problems or suffering. I’m becoming more convinced that the experiences of life, especially the difficult ones, are the events that help us to see clearer God’s will in our life.

The purpose of life is to do God’s will, it isn’t avoid suffering or solve all the life struggles and problems. Challenges in life will be always there, the most important is to embrace our suffering and continue with the mission that God gave us.