by Saint Alphonsus LiguoriHe that loves Jesus Christ loves Sufferings.
THIS earth is the place for meriting, and therefore it is a place for suffering. Our true country, where God has prepared for us repose in everlasting joy, is Paradise. We have but a short time to stay in this world; but in this short time we have many labors to undergo: Man born of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with many miseries. [Job, xiv. i.] We must suffer, and all must suffer; be they just, or be they sinners, each one must carry his cross. He that carries it with patience is saved; he that carries it with impatience is lost.
St. Augustine says, the same miseries send some to Paradise and some to Hell: "One and the same blow lifts the good to glory, and reduces the bad to ashes." [Serm. 52, E. B. app.] The same Saint observes, that by the test of suffering the chaff in the Church of God is distinguished from the wheat: he that humbles himself under tribulation, and is resigned to the will of God, is wheat for Paradise; he that grows haughty and is enraged, and so forsakes God, is chaff for Hell.
On the day when the cause of our salvation shall be decided, our life must be found conformable to the life of Jesus Christ, if we would enjoy the happy sentence of the predestined: For whom He foreknew He also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of His Son. [Rom. viii. 29.] This was the end for which the Eternal Word descended upon earth, to teach us, by His example, to carry with patience the cross which God sends us: Christ suffered for us (wrote St. Peter),leaving you an example, that you should follow His steps. [1 Pet. ii. 21.] So that Jesus Christ suffered on purpose to encourage us to suffer. O God! what a life was that of Jesus Christ! A life of ignominy and pain. The Prophet calls our Redeemer despised, and the most abject of men, a titan of sorrows. [Isa. liii. 3.] A man held in contempt, and treated as the lowest, the vilest among men, a man of sorrows; yes, for the life of Jesus Christ was made up of hardships and afflictions.
Now, in the same manner as God has treated His beloved Son, so does He treat everyone whom He loves, and whom He receives for His Son: For whom the Lord loveth He chastiseth . . . and He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. [Heb. xii. 6.]
For this reason He one day said to St. Teresa: "Know that the souls dearest to My Father are those who are afflicted with the greatest sufferings." [Life, addit.] Hence the Saint said of all her troubles, that she would not exchange them for all the treasures in the world.
She appeared after her death to a soul, and revealed to her that she enjoyed an immense reward in Heaven, not so much for her good works, as for the sufferings which she cheerfully bore in this life for the love of God; and that if she could possibly entertain a wish to return upon earth, the only reason would be in order that she might suffer more for God.