Oblates of St. Francis de Sales

New DeSales World Newsletter - Summer Edition

Experience of Suffering

To live, to love, to be human means many things - including the experience of suffering.

No Christian, any more than Christ Himself, is called to love suffering. However, we are called to love, and if we are willing to love, then we must be willing to suffer - to bear with our limitations, frustrations, imperfections, disappointments, heartaches - and those of others.

Ironically, some of our greatest pain comes not from suffering itself, but from our attempts - at all costs - to avoid suffering. Francis de Sales offers us some ways of looking at suffering that not only reduce our temptation to avoid it but also to see it as an invitation to accept our ongoing need for healing, reconciliation, and love.

"What is the bed of tribulation?
It is simply the school of humility."
(LR I 8)

"God never permits anything to come upon us
as a trial or test of our virtue
without desiring that we should profit by it."
(C XVII)

"Our misery is the throne of God's mercy."
(LW VI 12)

"If it be God's will that the remedies overcome
the sickness, return to God thanks with humility;
if it be God's will that the sickness overcome
the remedies, bless God with patience."
(In III 3)

God's will is as much in sickness
As it is in health."
(T IX 10)

"The truly loving heart loves God's good pleasure
not in consolations only
but also in afflictions."
(T IX 2)

Many people would be willing to have afflictions
provided that they not be
inconvenienced by them."
(In III 3)

"One ounce of patient suffering
is worth more than a pound of action."
(S IX 9)