Alright, it's just occurred to my that my approach to Catholicism is almost all through analogy. Hmmmm... If you have patience and time for another one, here's how I explained Redemptive Suffering to a Baptist minister while in labor with our dead child. I could have included it in the Ru-486 post, as it was the same day, but I think it needs its own spot. Do me a favor and breathe deeply every 2 minutes as you read it...I was in labor, remember.
So, here's what the minister who was sent to me for pastoral care said and my response:
Him: We don't know why these things happen. We don't know what God's purpose is in them. They seem so senseless and there doesn't seem to be a point. All we can do is trust and hope that one day we understand.
Me: Of course there's a point, it's called Redemptive Suffering.
Him: I've heard the term, but it is not one which I am familiar or comfortable with. I can understand the longing for finding meaning in meaningless pain, but it's just not there. This world is pain. That's all the explanation there is.
Me: No, there is a point, want me to explain?
Him: (skeptically) GO ahead.
Me: Let's pretend for a second that I'm a sword maker. I'm sure that they have a name for those guys, but I don't know it, so pretend I'm one of those guys who makes swords. I would take a big lump of metal, I'm not sure what kind really, I'm only a pretend sword maker, and throw it into the fire. After a while, I would pull it out and beat the hell out of it, then I would throw it back into the fire. I would do this over and over again, the throwing it in and beating the hell out of it. After a while, I would cool it in a big bucket of water and then start polishing it and sharpening it until it was sharp and shiny and was a sword.
Well, it's kinda like that. God's making me into a sword and I just happen to be at the "beat the hell out of it stage". That's okay, because at the end, He will cool me off and polish me up and I will be sparkly and shiny and I will be a sword. And I'm a girl, so shiny and sparkly work for me.
8 comments:
I like your reruns-- this is great.
I am willing to bet that after this experience, the Baptist minister ran out of the hospital, across the street to the nearest Catholic church, and enrolled in the first RCIA class on his way to become a Catholic... then a Catholic priest.
If he didn't... all I can pray is that God will open his deaf ears.
Love this. So sorry for your suffering, but of course God does only give us what He will help us to bear. I think you've explained very well what so many other faiths and 'world views' fall flat on making sense of. Many times I thought 'this would crush me if there was no purpose in it' -Loretta
I think this is my favorite of your posts.
So beautiful that you were able to bring meaning from your suffering not only for yourself but to minister to someone that was incredibly misguided.
I'm in the beat the hell out of it stage, too. God has a long way to go with me and I have a long way to go with Him.
Rom 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
James 1:2-4 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
The Mom's analogy is true, and the minister only needed in that moment to look to Scripture (as seen above) to know this. But rather than this story indicting all Baptists,it just shows that one guy (not all Protestants) failed to give an adequate answer in the moment. Either it was because he didn't have an answer (which would be sad if true), or he was trying, inarticulately, to make the point Paul is making in Rom 8:28; that God has a purpose in our suffering (in addition to sanctification) that we might not know in that moment.
What pastor has not been in moment when he is trying to counsel someone who is grieving, and he suddenly finds his tongue tied? So grace is in order. And when it happens, This Cross I Embrace, I would hope that he first runs into the arms of his savior, Jesus, studies His Word, and drops to his knees asking the Holy Spirit to guide him in understanding and teaching:
For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual..."For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.
(1Cor 2:11-13,16)
Also, if that minister said, "This world is pain. That's all the explanation there is," then he forgot one of the most foundational truths in the Bible. Death (like that of the baby) and suffering is the effect of sin and The Fall. The very passage that I quoted from above, Romans 8, is about our looking forward to the hope of redemption from the physical and spiritual corruption caused by sin. I don't know why he was unable to point out that basic truth.
Me likey.
Msgr. Pope writes on a similar theme this week here. Also worth a read.
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