Suffering perfects love

WE NEED to understand this point very well. If we want our love to be authentic and perfect, we not only have to welcome suffering when it comes because of love, but we also have to look for it. We have to be willing to complicate our lives for those whom we love. This is the true mark of love. This is the perfection of love. Short of this, our love is only apparent, at best.

The Letter to the Hebrews articulates this doctrine very well. “He (Christ) ‘for a little while’ was made ‘lower than the angels,’ that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting that he, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the leader to their salvation PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERING.” (2, 9-10, emphasis mine)

That is why Christ, as St. Paul would put it, emptied himself of his status as God in order to become man and to assume the wounded condition of man for the sole purpose of our salvation. (cfr. Phil 2, 7)

We need to align our understanding of love to this standard set by Christ. We should be willing to suffer for others. And suffering can take many forms — inconvenience, discomfort, being misunderstood, taken advantage of, unjustly treated, etc. With God’s grace, we should just be game with all these possibilities.

Thus, we really have to be truly humble, willing to be humiliated and to forget ourselves and just think of the others regarding how to serve them, how to help them. We have to be quick to understand and forgive them. We have to be magnanimous. If slapped in one cheek, we should offer the other. If challenged to walk one mile, we walk two, as Christ told us. (cfr. Mt 5, 39)

This is how true love looks like. It does not count cost, It does not expect any return. It simply gives and gives, but it is a giving that actually is a filling to the one who gives. We really have to learn to suffer, without feeling like a victim. If we believe in Christ, and follow his example, we know that our suffering out of love will lead to the resurrection.

We have to strengthen our belief in Christ’s words: “Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back.” (Lk 6, 38)

Yes, we have to be theological in our loving, since that would put our love in line with the demands of our faith and the charity that comes from God. We have to be wary of pegging our love in some sensible or worldly criteria alone or in some intellectual or philanthropic standard. The perfection of our love can only be attained with Christ who showed it and shares it with us in the cross.

We have to lose the fear of suffering. While suffering will always be suffering and will always have a negative value if seen only in human standards, it becomes a very positive, liberating and perfecting factor if considered from the perspective of our faith.

The considerations of faith are not meant to contradict our humanity. Rather they are meant to transcend our human condition, purifying and elevating it to the supernatural order for which we are meant due to our dignity as image and likeness of God, children of his in Christ through the Holy Spirit.

We ought to be happy when suffering in any form comes our way. For those who believe in Christ, it is a clear chance we have not only to develop authentic love, but also to perfect it. It is a clear chance to be ‘another Christ’ as we are meant to be!

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Fr. Roy Cimagala is the Chaplain of the Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise, Talamban, Cebu City (roycimagala@gmail.com)/PN