Caput XLIII
The Merciful Purpose of Suffering
All suffering comes from God's ordering to punish past sins or prevent future ones, and Scripture provides the answers we need rather than private revelations.
These words suggest, then, that whatever troubles we endure, we suffer by God's ordering, so that either past sins may be punished in us, or future ones prevented. But once we've weighed these two things, we haven't complained, understanding that a merciful Judge wants to spare us from the eternal punishment we deserved through this brief penalty. Nor will we think you've been abandoned in any way, since from the very experience of the whip we've come to know that God's providence was poured out on us in such a way that through this very thing hope could be present — because he loves those whom he deigns to care for, so that they might not sin, just as it says: Those whom I love, I rebuke and correct (Apoc. III, 19).✦ Indeed, all of us, when we're afflicted with any troubles of mind or body, long to know the causes of those troubles, so that in what we suffer, from the very knowledge of how things have unfolded, we might find some kind of comfort. But there's no need now for God to answer each of us individually in what we each endure, because he composed sacred Scripture, in which anyone who seeks will find the answer to their situation. To give just one example among many: Paul, when tested in the weakness of the flesh, heard: My grace is enough for you, for power is perfected in weakness (II Cor. XII, 9).✦ XII, 9). Therefore in sacred Scripture Paul is afflicted individually, so that none of us who don't hear this consolation might seek to hear it privately for ourselves. Hence in Job: Once, and not twice with the same words (Job XXXIII, 14); nor will he answer to everything.✦
Scripture Speaks Where Prophets Once Did
God no longer answers individuals through prophets or angels because Scripture now contains all that any person needs to understand their affliction.
It is as if God were saying: He does not answer the hearts of individuals privately—since perhaps each person seeks to know the causes of his own distress—but He constructs such an utterance through which He might satisfy the questions of all. Therefore God no longer responds to our thoughts or afflictions through the voices of prophets or through the ministries of angels, because the power of Scripture comprehends whatever can happen to individuals. For the thing formed does not say to the potter: Why did you make me thus?✦ But there is something the servant and creature can say—what the Son and Creator Himself said: Not my will, but yours be done (Luke).✦ 22:42).
Christ's Obedience as Our Model
Because Christ and the Church are one body, we share in His sufferings now so that we may share in His rest, as Paul testifies by completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions.
It must be understood, however, that as blessed Jerome argues in his book on the Psalms: If Christ and the Church are one body, and if the two are one flesh, it is necessary that they now be equally united in one suffering, and that when they have passed through it, they may be united in one rest.✦ For if the sufferings belong to the head alone—and Christ is the head—why does Paul, a member of His body, say: I supply what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ in my flesh (2 Cor.)?✦ 9:12).
Bearing Our Portion and Living What We Read
Each believer must bear a proportionate share of Christ's sufferings as a debt owed to the commonwealth of the body, and must transform what is read into lived obedience.
All the sufferings of Christ — who suffered in the Head, that is, in himself, and who suffers in the members, that is, in us — must be borne by each one of us. And what we endure, we pay as a debt we owe, as though each of us were carrying out a shared duty of the commonwealth, bearing our portion of suffering according to the measure of our strength, as if applying a rule of proportion to the passions.✦ Otherwise, if we find ourselves outside that discipline — the discipline of which, as the Apostle says, we are to be partakers — what then?✦ Therefore we are adulterers and not sons; and if we lack discipline, the consequence is that we also lack the inheritance.✦ For it is in ourselves that we must transform what we read, so that when the mind is stirred through hearing to put into practice what it has heard, our life may rise up and work alongside it.
Read the original Latin
His itaque verbis id suasum sit quod molestias quaslibet idcirco divina dispensatione patimur, quatenus aut praeterita peccata in nobis puniantur, aut futura prohibeantur. His autem duobus consideratis, non murmuravimus, intelligentes quod benignus Judex ab aeterna poena, quam merebamur, nos per momentaneam excusare velit, nec ullo modo vos derelictos putabimus, quippe cum ex ipsa flagelli experientia Dei providentiam ita nobis impendi cognoverimus, ut per hoc ipsum spes inesse possit, quod diligat quibus curam ne peccent adhibere dignatur, juxta illud: Ego quos amo, arguo et castigo (Apoc. III, 19); siquidem omnes dum quibuslibet mentis et corporis molestiis afficimur, earumdem molestiarum causas nosse optamus, quatenus in eo quod dolemus, ex ipsa rerum accidentium notitia quoddam consolationis genus habeamus. Sed non est necesse jam ut singulis, in eo quod quisque tolerat, Deus respondeat, quia sacram Scripturam condidit, in qua unusquisque, si requirat, causam suam inveniet. Ut enim unum e pluribus proferamus, Paulus infirmitate carnis tentatus audivit: Sufficit tibi gratia mea, nam virtus in infirmitate perficitur (II Cor. XII, 9). In Scriptura ergo sacra idcirco affligitur Paulus sigillatim, ne singuli nostrorum, qui non audiunt hanc consolationem, audire eam privatim quaereremus. Hinc in Job: Semel loquitur, et secundo idipsum non repetit (Job XXXIII, 14); nec ad omnia respondebit.
Quasi diceret: Deus singulorum cordibus privatim non respondet, cum fortasse causas angustiae suae singuli scire quaerunt, sed tale eloquium construit, per quod cunctorum quaestionibus satisfaciat. Non itaque jam nostris cogitationibus aut afflictionibus per voces prophetarum, aut per angelorum officia Deus respondet, quoniam vis Scripturae quidquid singulis potest evenire, comprehendit. Non enim dicit figmentum figulo: Cur me fecisti sic? Sed est quod dicat servus et creatura, quod dixit filius et Creator: Non mea voluntas, sed tua fiat (Luc. XXII, 42). Sciendum tamen, quia sicut beatus Hieronymus in libro de Psalmis disputat: Si unum corpus est Christus et Ecclesia, et si sint duo in carne una, necesse est ut modo pariter in passione una, et cum transierint, sint in requie una. Nam si passiones in solo capite, quod et Christus, quare membrum ejus Paulus dicit: Suppleo ea quae desunt passionum Christi in carne mea (II Cor. IX, 12).
Universae enim passiones Christi, qui passus est in capite, id est in se, et patitur in membris, id est in nobis, ab unoquoque nostrum ferendae sunt, et hoc quod patimur quasi ad communem reipublicae functionem pro possibilitate virium nostrarum quasi canonem passionum inferentes exsolvimus quod debemus. Alioquin si extra disciplinam fuerimus, cujus, ut ait Apostolus, participes erimus? Adulteri ergo, et non filii: et si disciplina caremus, consequens est ut haereditate careamus. In nobismetipsis namque debemus transformare quod legimus, ut cum per auditum se animus excitat, ad operandum quod audierit vita concurrat
Scripture echoes
- ↩Rev.3.19 — Those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline; therefore be earnest and repent.
- ↩2Cor.12.9 — And he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." So most gladly I will rather boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
- ↩Job.33.14 — For God speaks once, and twice, yet no one perceives it.
- ↩Isa.45.9;Rom.9.20 — Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker—a piece of clay among the clay pots of the earth! Shall the clay say to its maker, "What are you making?" Or your work say to him, "He has no hands"? Rom.9.20 — But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Will what is molded say to its maker, 'Why did you make me like this'?
- ↩Luke.22.42 — Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; but not my will, but yours be done.
- ↩Eph.5.31-Eph.5.32 — For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Eph.5.32 — This mystery is profound—and I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.
- ↩Col.1.24 — Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and I am filling up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of his body, which is the church.
- ↩Col.1.24 — Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and I am filling up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of his body, which is the church.
- ↩Heb.12.8 — But if you are without discipline—something all have come to share in—then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
- ↩Heb.12.8 — But if you are without discipline—something all have come to share in—then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
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