Day 7. Hurts Like Heaven
Vocation Discernment Preliminary Novena
“Am I Ready for Discernment?”
The same night [Jacob] got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying,“For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”
Genesis 32:22-30 NRSV
Our life, in order to be Christian, has to be a continual renunciation, a continual sacrifice. But this is not difficult, if one thinks what these few years passed in suffering are, compared with eternal happiness where joy will have no measure or end and where we shall have unimaginable peace.
Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati
Jacob’s perseverance is rewarded in a strange way. After hanging tough in this all-night struggle, Jacob gets a painful souvenir. The angel realizes he can’t win and wrenches Jacob’s leg at the hip. Ouch. That’s a wound he won’t forget. Every morning for the rest of his life as he gets out of bed he’ll remember the fateful night by the river.
I used to think it was strange that the people who appeared to be most faithful to God also seemed to suffer greatly. To my way of thinking, if I do God’s will, I’ll be blessed and my life will run smoothly, no problems. Why then do the good die young – or at least suffer so? This isn’t just my own observation. A popular story tells of St. Teresa of Avila stepping from a coach in a flash flood and falling into the mud. Looking up to heaven in frustration, she cried out, “Lord! After so much suffering this one really is well-timed!” “Teresa, this is how I treat my friends.” he is said to have responded. She shot back, “O! God of my soul! That's why you have so few!” [1]
This pattern of trials is particularly evident with young people considering a vocation. As soon as they get serious about the struggle, some trial comes out of left field: a mysterious chronic fatigue, or inexplicable abdominal cramps, or migraine headaches – you name it. It’s too consistent to be coincidental. Then again, some young people experience intense resistance from family or friends. In many cases persecution would not be too strong a word. Their resolve is greatly tested. Why, I have wondered, doesn’t God protect them from such difficulties? After all, they are trying to do his will. Isn’t that hard enough?
God’s wisdom is not our wisdom. His approach to a vocation is not ours. The consistent lesson of the lives of the saints is that suffering and sanctity go hand-in-hand. And the hardships start early. It’s not a pleasant message to hear, but to tell you otherwise might leave you unprepared for the inevitable.
“My child, when you come to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for testing. Set your heart right and be steadfast, and do not be impetuous in time of calamity. Cling to him and do not depart, so that your last days may be prosperous. Accept whatever befalls you, and in times of humiliation be patient. For gold is tested in the fire, and those found acceptable, in the furnace of humiliation. Trust in him, and he will help you; make your ways straight, and hope in him.” (Sir. 2:1-6 NRSV)
For most people, the evil to be avoided at all costs is pain itself. So the idea of suffering permitted by God or pain freely embraced in union with Christ is seen as dangerous medieval pietism. As any fitness trainer will tell you, though, “no pain, no gain.” And what is true for the body is true for the soul. Pain is a necessary precondition for growth. The all-out avoidance of pain isn’t just unwise, it is cowardice.
Others, relatively few, are so convinced that suffering and discipleship are unavoidably linked that they go to the opposite extreme and undertake a form of self-inflicted sanctification. They go over-board with lengthy fasting and other penances and endanger their health in a strange effort to beat God to the pain-punch, as it were.
My own approach has involved in the past a sort of grim resignation to the inevitable. Awaiting the worst, I have pictured God as a divine bully on the verge of sending some particularly painful trial my way. Or I have seen him as a spoil-sport waiting to take away whatever I enjoy most. What a skewed image this makes of the loving face of God!
Here’s my current working solution to the problem of pain: Don’t worry about it. Will you suffer? Yes. Can you do anything to change that? No. Will it be too much for you? No, though it may go beyond what you think is too much. As St. Paul writes, “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor. 10:13 NRSV). It’s an invitation to trust. God knows the measure of suffering that’s sufficient for you. He permits it for your sanctification and it flows, believe it or not, from his love.
Suffering is much more than just “paying your dues” as a member of the body of Christ. It’s your sharing in the redemptive work of Christ. With St. Paul we say, “I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.” (Col. 1:24 NRSV) Since a vocation is a closer conformity to, a closer imitation of Christ, you should be aware that you will share his fate in some way. As one popular Catholic speaker puts it, “If you’re going to follow Jesus, you’d better look good on wood.”
We’ve said much about suffering that’s out of our control. But what about suffering we freely choose? I mentioned fasting earlier. Let’s return to the subject of personal penance. Don’t conclude from what I said above that I’m against fasting – only excessive fasting for wrong reasons. Actually, taking on your own penitential practices is an important part of discernment. Fasting is especially necessary if you are going to discover God’s will. Daniel fasted to know God’s will for exiled Israel. (Dn. 9:3ff) In prayer and fasting the early Christian community at Antioch heard the Holy Spirit’s summons to send Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey. (Acts 13:1-3)
Is it possible, I wonder, to reclaim today the lost art of fasting? Fasting has been reduced to almost negligible proportions. Fr. Richard John Neuhaus once observed, “The bar has been so lowered that what officially counts for fasting today is tantamount to a moderate and well-balanced diet” [2]. In contrast, he defined traditional fasting as “a rigorous self-discipline whereby appetites are brought under control in order to sharpen prayerful adhesion to God.” It’s not that food is bad. It’s that food can so easily become more important to us than what’s really important.
This Novena calls for a fast day once a week. You could do the “one full meal and two snacks” fast, or you could do something more rigorous. For example, try going all day on just juice and, if needed, bread. Consider the importance of the matter at hand – God’s will for your life. Isn’t it worth the discomfort? Talk about it with your Discernment Advisor.
Novena Prayer
MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
- Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, © Abbey of Gethsemani
Make it My Own
Daily Discernment Workbook
BREAK OPEN YOUR BIBLE
1. The Cost of Discipleship
Suffering and discipleship – they’re inseparable. Some of Jesus’ hardest sayings are on this subject. Read the following passages and write some of the conditions of discipleship
Luke 14:25-32
Luke 6:40
Luke 9:22-26
What does Jesus mean? Explain the passage below in your own words.
“Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
John 12:24 NRSVCE
SAINTS SAID IT
2. Fasting and Penance and Prayers, Oh my!
Self-denial is the practice of freely giving up things that we are too dependent on for comfort. Another word for this is mortification. In mortification, we develop the habit of resisting the constant demands of our inner selfishness. You don’t have to do heroic things to practice mortification. A modern day saint makes a few suggestions:
“The most accessible realm of mortification lies in our ordinary routine: in our conscientious approach to professional work, in our stubborn perseverance to finish things well, in our habitual punctuality, in the heroic fulfillment of our obligations, in the care we take of our tools and our work environment, in our spirit of service and charity to others. A smile can sometimes be the best proof of our spirit of penance. He has the spirit of penance who knows how to conquer himself in the little things of each day, without making a big fuss about it. This is the selfless love that God expects from us.”
Bl. Jose Marie Escriva, Letter, 3/24/1930
Why would anybody freely choose to make themselves uncomfortable in order to grow closer to God? I list as many reasons as I can think of.
3. The Hard/Easy Road
Consider what St. Thérèse, the Little Flower, had to say about suffering.
“I always feel, however, the same bold confidence of becoming a great saint because I don't count on my merits since I have none, but I trust in Him who is Virtue and Holiness. God alone, content with my weak efforts, will raise me to Himself and make me a saint, clothing me in His infinite merits. I didn't think then that one had to suffer very much to reach sanctity, but God was not long in showing me this was so and in sending me the trials I have already mentioned.”
St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul [3]
How does this quote help me see suffering in a new light?
Conclude with
“Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be.
World without end, Amen.”
[0] lead quote - A Book of Prayers in Honor of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, by Rev. Timothy E. Deeter
[1] Teresa of Ávila, God Alone Suffices, Jean-Jacques Antier, tr. by Claire Quintal, Boston, Pauline Books & Media, pp. 278, 279
[2] Richard John Neuhaus, The Public Square, First Things Magazine, March 2002
[3] Story of a Soul, Thérèse of Lisieux, (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1976), p. 72