Battalion of Sorrows

Transforming ordinary suffering into extraordinary sacrifice

06/28/2020

Matthew 10:37-42 Jesus said to his apostles: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. "Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because the little one is a disciple— amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”

We have all had to make sacrifices lately during this pandemic. I recently received a list of such sacrifices with a touch of humor. For example, this is the first time in history we can save the human race by lying in front of the T.V. and doing nothing. Big sacrifice. Here’s the definition of irony: gas under two dollars a gallon and no place to go! That’s a serious sacrifice. Homeschooling is going well: so far two students expelled for fighting, one teacher fired for drinking on the job. That reminds me of one store that had a neon sign recently that read: “Get all your back to school supplies here!” It was a liquor store. Since everyone has started washing their hands, like we’re supposed to, next week we will start working on shapes and colors. Maybe we should close down the media for 30 days and watch 80% of the world’s problems go away. All are sacrifices, some big and some small.

But do you know the original meaning of the word sacrifice? Sacrifice is a compound of two Latin words: “sacra” meaning “holy and “facere” meaning “to make.” Sacrifice, therefore, is to make something holy offering it to God. In other words, sacrifices might not only be touched by humor, they can also be touched by holiness, because they make us holy. St. Paul writes in Romans 12:1, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” When I stub my toe on the edge of the bed in the morning, I try to exclaim, “Praised be Jesus Christ!” (instead of exploding with some expletive), and suddenly, my suffering turns into sacrifice. Every time he drove by a hospital, Archbishop Fulton Sheen would let out a deep sigh as he saw all that wasted suffering not becoming a sacrifice, helping suffering patients become saints.

In the gospel today, Jesus also suggests that we not squander our sufferings. But rather, we should transform them into sacrifices that help us to be holy. He admonishes: “Whoever finds his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” The operative words are “for my sake,” that is, only if we lose our life for the Lord’s sake, for love of him, do we find true life. In other words, dying doesn’t make you holy, only when you die for God, do you become a martyr and saint. Stubbing my toe on the edge of the bed, does not make me holy, but only when I say, “Praised be Jesus Christ!” It’s the inner motivation of the heart that triggers and transforms suffering into sacrifice, so we become “living sacrifices acceptable to God, our spiritual worship.”

My friends, sooner or later, we will all suffer, but not all of us will sacrifice, and that should make us sigh deeply like Fulton Sheen did, seeing wasted suffering. Sometimes, our suffering may be great like contracting pancreatic cancer or COVID-19 and end up on a ventilator or lose a job or experience a divorce. At other times, our suffering may be small, like being the butt of a joke or a gnawing toothache, or a flat tire or no football this fall (that might be a big suffering). The question is not if we will suffer, but when and how much. As Shakespeare said: “When sorrows come, they come not single spies / But in battalions” (Hamlet, IV, 5).

But here’s the good news about suffering. Suffering can be turned into sacrifice every time we unite our pains and problems to the suffering of Christ on the Cross. How do our sufferings become part of Christ’s perfect sacrifice on the Cross? I thought you’d never ask! You bring them to the Mass and lay them on the altar. At Mass we join our sorrows to Jesus’ sacrifice. That’s why the priest says right in the middle of Mass, “Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God the Almighty Father.” The priest’s sacrifice is the bread and wine. Where’s your sacrifice? It’s that “battalion of sorrows” you endured last week. On the altar of the Mass, God turns ordinary sufferings of Christians into the extraordinary sacrifice of Christ. That is how God makes this pandemic serve his purposes, as an instrument of our sanctification, our spiritual worship.

Let me conclude with a quotation from Romans 8, which shows how this “battalion of sorrows” becomes an army of angels leading us to victory in the spiritual life, that is, making us holy. It is said that if all the 16 chapters of Romans are precious stones on a crown, then Romans 8 is the central diadem, the central jewel that shines brightest. St. Paul asks rhetorically in Rom. 8: 35, 37: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or nakedness, or peril or sword?...No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” That is, all these sufferings serve the Lord’s purpose to make us saints, if only every time we suffer, instead of exploding with expletives, we say:

“Praised be Jesus Christ!”