24
Suffering is a Remedy for Sin!
In order to be perfect, a medicine
should serve as a cure for present
evils, a restorative for the past and a
preservative against the future. Suffering
accomplishes all this with great success.
It cures our present sins. Our hearts may
be likened to sponges saturated with
the poison of actual sins which are
committed every day, especially selflove
which is so attached to the things
of this world, so greedy for pleasures,
and so full of pride and prone to evil.
It needs be that God should press long
and heavily such a
heart with the weight
of tribulations, so as
to squeeze from it the
very last drop of this
infectious poison. Will
we continue to grieve
over our afflictions
with no reflection that
we are mourning over
what is for our good?
Rather than being
annoyed with the real
evil which is sin, we are
angry at its remedy.
Let us be grateful to
God for, in wounding
us with stripes, He cures
and heals our deepest
ills. Ask the Divine
Physician to pay no
attention to our fits of temper, but
to apply the necessary cure for our
serious wounds. Suffering cures the
present evil wrought in us by sin, and
it remedies the wounds left in the soul
by past sin. Every sin places us under
the obligation of returning glory to
God by repentance, and then of making
satisfaction to Him for the wrong we
have done. When we sin, we contract a
debt with Divine Justice. At all costs, that
debt must be paid in this life or the next,
by punishment which is voluntary or,
at least, accepted with submission, or
by hours and years in Purgatory. How
wrong, therefore, it is of us to be
unwilling to suffer after having sinned!
We are debtors and do we object to pay
the debt? We have tasted the sweetness
of sin, yet do we refuse to experience also
its bitterness? It is a great mercy that
God chastises us here where punishment
is so light and is accompanied by so
much merit. We should thank God and
cease to complain. Let us make a firm
resolution to silence self-love, that guilty
companion of ours and, when it begins
to cry out from its cross, call to mind
the beautiful wor ds of the good thief:
“And we indeed
suffer justly, for we
receive the reward
due to o ur sin.”
(Luke 23:41)
Consider the healing
power of suffering
which extends not only
to present and past ills,
but also to those which
may occur in the
future, which is what
we would expect of a
really effective remedy.
All our inclinations
to fall into sin come
either from pleasure or
from fear. We commit
sin because we are in
pursuit of perishable
good or we are trying to escape from
some evil. Tribulation takes away our
appetite for pleasure and gives us
strength of character to resist every
attack of the devil.
Suffering is not only the best of all
remedies for our spiritual health, but
it is also the only one! Do not resist
this remedy which can heal our souls
of all sin. We must carry our cross
patiently because, by our sins, we have
deserved Hell. How is it possible that
we complain of our afflictions?