Homily, 9-11-23; Monday of the 23rd Week of Ordinary Time:
I’m sure most of you have heard the expression: “don’t cut off your nose to spite your face”. Sometimes we refuse to do or accept something good for us, because we are angry or have a resentment against a person who is trying to help us. For example, I can think about President Trump and all the good things he did for the country regarding world peace, immigration, the economy, and of course providing a pro-life Supreme Court. And yet, I know conservative Catholics who refused to vote for his reelection because they were offended by his management style and personality. They ignored the good he did, and rejected him because they didn’t like him as a person. In today’s gospel passage, the scribes and Pharisees refused to recognize who Jesus was, despite His miracles, because they resented Him. He did good works, He offered them signs that He was the Messiah, and, in spite, they rejected Him and the salvation He offered them.
In a similar way, we can reject the sufferings and crosses that God sends our way, sufferings that are for our own good and that of the Church. Jesus suffered and died for our salvation, to open the gates of Heaven. But that doesn’t mean that we can sit back and have a life free of suffering and sacrifices. From the cross Jesus said: “It is finished.” But if His suffering and death was sufficient for us to all get to Heaven, He wouldn’t have told us to pick up our crosses and follow Him. He wouldn’t have said that whoever refuses to take up his cross and follow Him could not be His disciple. He wouldn’t have told us that we would be persecuted.
St. Paul tells us this morning: “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.” St. Alphonsus comments on this passage: “Can it be that Christ’s passion alone was insufficient to save us? It left nothing more to be done, it was entirely sufficient to save all men. However, for the merits of the Passion to be applied to us, according to St. Thomas, we need to cooperate by patiently bearing the trials God sends us, so as to become like our head, Christ.” If, in spite, we reject our crosses and sufferings, we do so at the risk of long term harm in Purgatory, where we will be made perfect through suffering.
We accept our sufferings for our own benefit, but also for the benefit of our friends and family members. St. Paul indicates that he accepts his sufferings on behalf of the Church. Our suffering can be redemptive if we offer it up in intercession for souls who are going astray. We should not only have concern for our own salvation, but for all mankind. Benefitting others is also the foundation for our understanding of indulgences. Sufferings and good works of the saints and holy ones, and those performed by us, are stored in a treasury that can be applied to provide mercy to souls in Purgatory, or destined to Purgatory.
Let us not refuse to cooperate with what God sends our way, lest we lose the greater benefit that it offers in the long term.