Often suffering itself is not the deepest pain. It is essentially more painful not to be able to love people who make us suffer. We have to make ourselves ready to suffer. We fear suffering and flee from it. The unconscious has been loaded, so to say, with rejection of suffering. The other rind which separates the dark layer from the sphere of thought and action, is resistance to suffering. We flee by any means from suffering and personal distress. We are convinced that only the guilty should suffer.

So we are always in search of a scapegoat on whom we can load the painful punishment. We justify ourselves and accuse others in order to escape suffering. Behind all human harshness lies the fear of having to suffer. With every hurt received comes the desire to retaliate. The alternative to an aggressive reaction is swallowing everything by which, however, nothing has been suffered through. It has only been represented and is stored in the subconscious like everything else that is already waiting there for redemption. How many distractions we invent during meditation! They only serve to prevent the confrontation with our darkness, because it is painful.

Redemption takes place only through suffering. Our nature resists suffering. So we always need to strengthen our inner readiness to suffer what life imposes on us. Our readiness to suffer can be compared to a trapdoor. If someone wants to enter through to it to another room, it opens wide with a strong movement. As soon as someone has passed through it begins to close. Before half a minute has gone, it is already firmly closed again. It is similar with our readiness to suffer. In a moment of good will we are only too ready to take up our cross and follow Christ. In this shortest time this readiness disappears quietly and unnoticeably, until we again reject all that means suffering, as we did before. The readiness to follow Christ reduced itself to the pleasant moments.

We ourselves hardly notice it. Active readiness is very important. If we are not ready to suffer, we unconsciously reject nearly everything from the beginning. We don't even notice that we have again
suppressed something. This takes place most often in meditation. In the silence we come to face ourselves, and so our unsolved conflicts begin to move in our unconscious. They force themselves into consciousness to be accepted. that is, redeemed. If the active readiness to suffer is lacking at the moment, we do not even become aware of the fact that we again suppress the unredeemed shadow into the unconscious.

With active readiness to suffer our times of meditation become more painful, but also more salvific. What is suffered in love is healed.

BY REV. FR. FRANZ JALICS  S.J.

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Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -