The Second Beatitude

“Offer it up!” If you’re a Catholic, you probably first heard it from the lips of your mother. If you’re not, you may have heard a Catholic friend say it. It can sound like hard, uncaring advice. Yet, taken in the right way, it is anything but. What does it really mean to “offer it up?”

The “it” in the saying refers to suffering. No one goes through life without suffering. It can be physical or emotional, temporary or lasting. And it can be intense, maybe the most intense experience we will have in life.

If we can’t escape suffering, how can we deal with it? Some people live by what’s been called the Pleasure Principle: “Seek pleasure; avoid pain.” That’s led some people to illegal drugs and alcohol as a way of alleviating their suffering. But as any drug addict or alcoholic can tell you, addiction just makes things worse.

A few people try to avoid suffering through suicide or euthanasia. But the mere fact that some are willing to take such a drastic step to avoid suffering raises the question: Is suffering such a great evil that it even outweighs life itself?

That may have led one Catholic writer to put it this way: “If suffering has no meaning, then life has no meaning.” Or to put it another way, since we are bound to endure suffering, and struggle during our lives, we might as well find meaning in it. A kite rises against the wind. Suffering and struggle are like the wind that tosses and buffets us through life. It is only when we see suffering and struggle, not as obstacles, but as opportunities for growth that we can rise higher and stronger.

So if someone suggests that you “offer it up,” they are saying more than just “Live with it” or “Get over it.” They are giving you one of the keys that opens up the door to the meaning of life.

In today’s world, people often seek meaning in achievement or success: write a prize-winning book; score a big political victory; manage a billion dollar company. People who achieve these great goals are people we may look up to.

Yet as Christians, we are offered another role model. Saint Francis of Sales put it simply: “Live Christ.” Put on the life of Christ as written in the Gospels, and what you will find is suffering, the sufferings of the people of God who follow Him and His own suffering as well. But, it is not a futile suffering. It is the kind of suffering that sets us free.

Human suffering was at the heart of the actions of Jesus: healing the sick, consoling the afflicted, feeding the hungry, freeing people from deafness, blindness, leprosy, and many other evils.

Suffering was not only at the heart of Christ’s actions, but at the heart of his teaching. The eight beatitudes, a guide to the Christian life, were addressed to people who were beset by various sufferings, namely the “poor in spirit,” the “afflicted,” the “persecuted,” among others.

And at the end of Christ’s life came his own suffering on the Cross. Most of us would flee from such suffering, but He did not try to avoid it. Although He had done nothing to deserve the suffering He endured, he willingly offered himself up as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.

If we “live Christ,” we offer our own sufferings up, not only as a reparation for the evil things we have done in life, but also for the evil committed by those around us and by people we have never met. We share in the sufferings of Christ to help redeem a sinful world.

By doing so, we find meaning in our sufferings. In finding meaning, we can cast aside the feeling that we are being victimized; we can overcome the subconscious need to complain about our sufferings in the hope that we can transfer some of the pain to others around us; we can shift our intense focus from what ails us to what ails others. And we can also find an answer to the question: “Why me?”

Suffering is a part of life. By “offering it up,” we can find joy. Or like St. Paul, we can say: “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake.” Yes, “offer it up” seems like hard advice, but we have it on faith that it is a key to happiness here and in the hereafter.
Tim Lanigan