Love, in other words can transmute pain and make it sacrifice which is always a joy. If you lose a sum of money, is not your loss softened by the discovery that it was found by some very poor person whom you loved? If your head is racked with pain, your body wasted and worn from long vigils by the bedside of your child, is not the pain softened by the thought that through your love and devotion, the child was nursed back again to health? You could never have felt the joy nor had the faintest idea of what your love was if that sacrifice had been denied you. But if your love were absent then the sacrifice would have been a pain, vexation and annoyance.
The truth gradually emerges that our highest happiness consists in the feeling that another good is purchased by our sacrifice; that the reason why pain is bitter is because we have no one to love and for whom we might suffer. Love is the only force in the world which can make pain bearable by transforming it into the joy of sacrifice.
Now, if the dross of pain can be transmuted into the gold of sacrifice by the alchemy of love then it follows the deeper our, the less the sense of pain and the keener our joy of sacrifice. But there is no love greater than the love of Him Who laid His life for His friends. Hence, the more intensely we love His holy purposes, the more zealous we are for His kingdom, the more devoted we are to the greater glory of Our Lord and Saviour, the more we will rejoice in any sacrifice that will bring even a single soul to His Sacred Heart. Such is the explanation of a Paul who gloried in his infirmities and of the Apostles who rejoiced that they could suffer for Jesus Whom they loved. That, too, is why the only recorded time in the life of Our Lord that He ever sang was the night He went out to His death for the love and redemption of men.
No wonder saints have always said that the best and greater gift which God could ever give them would be privilege He gave His Son, namely, to be used and sacrificed for the best and greatest end. Nothing else could ever so much please them as to renew Christ's life in theirs; to complement His work in their own; to fill up in their bodies the sufferings which were wanting to the passion of their Lord. The world would take away pain. The Crucifix would transform it by love by reminding us that pain is from sin and sacrifice from love and nothing is nobler than sacrifice.
The cry of earth's anguish went up unto God-
Lord, take away pain,-
The shadow that darkens the world Thou hast made,
The Cross and the Crucifix
The close coiling chain
That strangles the heart, the burden that weighs
On the wings that would soar.
Lord, take away pain from the world Thou
hast made That it love Thee the more.
Then answered the Lord to the world He had made:
Shall I take away pain?
And with it the power of the soul to endure
Made strong by the strain?
Shall I take away pity that knits heart to heart
And sacrifice high?
Will ye lose all your heroes who lift from the flame
White brows to the sky?
Shall I take away love that redeems with a price
And smiles through the loss,-
Can ye spare from those lives that would climb unto Mine,
The Christ on His Cross?
No, the world cannot spare the "Christ on His Cross". That is the reason the world is sad. Having forgotten Him, it is in pain. And oh! what a waste of pain there is in the world! How many aching heads there are which are never united with a Head crowned with thorns for the Redemption of the world; how many lame feet there are whose pains are never softened by a love for those other Feet which climbed the great hill of Calvary; how many bruised bodies there are which knowing not the love of Christ for them, have no love to soften their pains; how many aching hearts there are who are in pain because they have no great love such as that of the Sacred Heart; how many souls there are who look at the cross instead of the Crucifix who have the pain without the sacrifice who never seem to learn that just as it is through want of love that hell arises; how many souls there are who have missed the joy of sacrifice because they have never loved! Oh, how sweet is the sacrifice of those who suffer because they love the Love Who sacrificed Himself for them on the cross. To them alone comes an understanding of the holy purposes of God.
BY ARCHBISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN (1895 - 1979)
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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 -
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