Today's passage from the Letter to the Romans is of particular importance to CUSA, an apostolate of persons with chronic illness and/or disability. St. Paul speaks of suffering, of delayed gratification, of labor pains, of the whole of creation which is groaning and of hope. These subjects all contribute to a "theology of suffering" which St. Paul uses not only to make sense of the sufferings of Jesus but also of his own and of those who suffer with him.
As a man, St. Paul would not have known the pain of labor. The Greek philosophers would not have known it either. However, their limited knowledge of this fact of life was enough for them to come to an understanding that a woman's pain in giving birth was part of the process. From the experience of child birth, they came to believe that every new age was born through pain, labor pains. The groaning of a woman who is about to give birth is long forgotten after she holds the newborn in her arms, at least, so I have been told.
St. Paul is waiting for the return of Jesus and with him the new age that has been promised through the Scriptures. Just as the high priest enters the Holy of Holies each year on the Feast of Atonement, Jesus has entered the heavenly sanctuary. When the high priest has sprinkled the blood of the lamb on the mercy seat, he returns to the assembly and proclaims God's forgiveness. The blood of the lamb has saved them from their sins. When Jesus returns from the heavenly sanctuary, he will bring with him our salvation having shed his blood for our sins. His return will signal the beginning of a new age in which we will no longer experience pain, sadness, tears or death, all of which are the result of sin.
That new age can only be born through pain and affliction. By suffering, we unite ourselves to the crucified Jesus. When we pick up our cross and follow in the footsteps of Jesus, we participate in the birth of that new age that will come when Jesus returns with the new life that has been promised. In fact, St. Paul believed that his sufferings and those of all who believed, actually hastened the day of Jesus' return.
CUSANS, therefore, understand that the physical pain of chronic illness and disability is "nothing compared to the glory that is to come." It is our privilege to share with Jesus in giving birth to the new age. Put very simply, but nonetheless soundly, our sufferings are but a participation in the process of giving birth to the new age of salvation. As St. Paul states in his Letter to the Colossians, he and we make up for what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ. Our sufferings hurry the completion of the labor process. We help to give birth to, to bring near the day of salvation. Pain and suffering are redemptive in that they will eventually usher in the age when pain, sickness, disability and death will be no longer.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator