Twenty-Ninth Sunday Ordinary Time Cycle B
10/09/2021
October 17, 2021
Is there any value in suffering?
The author calls the future messiah The Suffering Servant of God.
He tells us that the Servant of God will suffer and offer himself as sin sacrifice for all people.
From our perspective in time, we know that this was fulfilled by Jesus, His passion and death.
Sometimes we can fail to understand God's infinite love for each of us.
A love so strong that he was willing to sacrifice his son.
As all human beings and as followers of Christ, we too will face struggles and difficulties in our own lives.
But does God know or care that we suffer in this life?
In this letter from Hebrews we are told, once again, of the price that Christ paid for our salvation.
Jesus is well aware of our weaknesses and sufferings, our difficulties, struggles, pains, frustrations, etc.
He too went through all of them and he truly understands what we are going through.
As Christians we have been given the grace, the gift, to know that our sufferings are a part of our life here on earth that will lead us and others to eternal life.
We know exactly how much Jesus did for us in order to win our place in heaven.
Jesus had just given the apostles his third prediction of his suffering and death that awaited him in Jerusalem, but that message fell on deaf ears. They could not see how suffering could possibly a part of his establishing His Kingdom. They were sure like, the Jews of the time, that the kingdom that God would be here on earth and all problems, all political problems, etc. would be done away with. Aren't like that too. God is suppose to take away all my problems and sufferings.
Jesus tells James and John that they will be in his kingdom and that they too will share in the suffering that he was to take on.
The same will be true for each of us.
In our world of today there is no place or value for suffering. We do not ask for suffering, but we know that in all of our lives it will come.
Are we like the world, thinking that there is no value in suffering?
Or do we see that we too have been called to enter into the suffering of this world as a part of our lives that leads us and others to everlasting life?
We never ask or pray for suffering but for the courage if and when it comes.
For video clip below
Video Clip Franciscan Greg Fieldman
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