The first reading for today's liturgy continues our continuous reading of St. Paul's Letter to the Colossians. We have reached the verse in the first chapter that every CUSAN knows by heart: Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church . . . (Colossians 1:24).
The notion of rejoicing in the midst of pain or suffering of any kind seems foreign to us. However, if we read the Acts of the Apostles carefully, we will find that the apostles took great joy in the fact that they were persecuted, in the fact that they were flogged, imprisoned, and threatened with stoning. Their joy rises from the fact that they believed that such incidents were proof that they had been found worthy of their calling to follow Jesus. They were following in the footsteps of the crucified Savior. If God had asked Jesus, the Just One, to suffer, then they counted it a blessing that they were called upon to suffer as well.
This verse is the foundation of CUSA's motto: We suffer for a purpose. We believe that the crosses that we have been asked to bear are a gift from God; and, like the apostles before us, we see in those crosses the same validation that they found in what was asked of them.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M.
St. Paul is not trying to diminish the sufferings of Christ when he claims that he is filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ. On the contrary, St. Paul is simply stating that by suffering with Jesus, we continue the mission of redemptive suffering. Greek philosophers believed that every new age in history was preceded by a period of turmoil or travail. Suffering was an integral part of that turmoil. So St. Paul asks us to bear our sufferings joyfully as a way of giving birth, if you will, to the next age of history; namely, the time when Jesus will return and gather us all into the realm of our sovereign God. We await his return when he will complete the task by bringing with him our salvation – life eternal with God.