Penance with Purpose

Harnessing the hidden potential of pain

09/10/2019

Colossians 1:24–2:3 Brothers and sisters: 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, of which I am a minister in accordance with God’s stewardship given to me to bring to completion for you the word of God, the mystery hidden from ages and from generations past. But now it has been manifested to his holy ones, to whom God chose to make known the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; it is Christ in you, the hope for glory. It is he whom we proclaim, admonishing everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. For this I labor and struggle, in accord with the exercise of his power working within me.

I will be doing a little extra penance today. What precisely is penance? My definition would be penance is “suffering aimed at a spiritual target.’ That is, I am not doing penance – like fasting – to just lose weight. Rather that fasting called penance is for the purpose of obtaining grace – God’s love and mercy – for me or for others. Penance is a spiritual resource or “asset class” you might say, and we shouldn’t waste it but take full advantage of its hidden capabilities.

The reason I am doing extra penance today is for a friend I visited last night. She is pregnant and her doctor told her the baby has a high likelihood of having downs syndrome. As you can imagine, she and her husband were devastated by the news. All their hopes and dreams, plans and preparations for the baby’s future suddenly seemed to disappear like a dream and they have woken up to a harsh and cold morning. A friend of mine said recently every parent hopes their child grows up to be a president or a priest. In other words, we want to give our children the best, and these folks feel like they have failed in that effort, even though it was not their fault. The purpose of my penance today, therefore, is to ask God to give that mom and dad the grace they need to shoulder this unexpected cross. We don’t always get to choose our cross; sometimes our crosses choose us.

This notion of penance with a purpose is not some crazy Catholic idea but based solidly on biblical foundations. In today’s first reading, we hear St. Paul teach in Colossians 1:24: “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.” That is truly an extraordinary passage of scripture for many reasons. And here’s one reason: Paul is doing penance for the people of Colossae. How so? Well, he wrote the letter to the Colossians – together with his other letters to the Philippians, Ephesians, and Philemon – while in prison in Rome. In fact, those four New Testament letters are often grouped together and jointly called the Prison Letters or the Captivity Letters.

But notice Paul did not waste the suffering of his incarceration, but transformed it into powerful penance – suffering aimed at a spiritual target. What target? Paul offered his pains and imprisonment as a sacrifice for the Colossians to help them carry their cross. I am doing a little extra penance here in Fort Smith to help the Body of Christ – my friend with a possibly downs syndrome baby – just like St. Paul did penance in prison in Rome for the Body of Christ in Colossae.

My friends, what are you doing with your pains and problems, your sufferings and sacrifices, your inconveniences and irritations, this Christian asset class called penance? Usually what we do with them is complain about them and wish they would go away. But what if you looked at penance like a shrewd financial advisor looks at an asset class, like stocks or bonds, and instead of wasting your sufferings capitalize on them in a spiritual sense? In other words, offer up your sufferings on behalf of the Body of Christ. We all know people who need our prayers, like my pregnant friend. You may have children who have stopped going to Mass. The poor people of the Bahamas have nothing at all and are being evacuated from their country. And countless other souls who did not pick their cross, but their cross picked them. Pray for them, but also do penance for them, because they too are part of the Body of Christ.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen has a curious custom whenever he drove by a hospital. He would sigh from the depths of his soul. Why? He visualized all the sick and suffering people in these hospital beds whose sufferings were being wasted, not transformed into penance, suffering aimed at a purpose. He was like a financial advisor seeing people miss the chance to invest on some hot stocks, like getting in on the ground floor of Walmart. Recently, I stubbed my toe at the edge of my bed one morning while making my bed. Instead of uttering a curse word, do you know what I said? I shouted: “Praised be Jesus Christ!” And that’s how you turn pain into penance, suffering aimed at a spiritual target.

Praised be Jesus Christ!