DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Sunday, May 20, 2018

How do we respond to the suffering in the world?

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. – Romans 5:3-5

Paul, a man who knew personal suffering, seeking to encourage people who also knew suffering, shares with them the process by which suffering can be transformed into something mighty, noble and beautiful.  Suffering, if faced courageously, can over time strengthen the spiritual, physical,  mental, and emotional endurance of a person and a community.  In the process of gaining and sustaining that endurance the moral fiber of our character is woven with threads of wisdom gained.  And when the deeper and more thorough moral character lifts one’s eyes to the noble hope of God, the hope of a new Realm of Peace emerging, we press on with purpose.  And in this pilgrimage toward that glorious Hope we learn that it is Love, Holy Love, Divine Love humanly experienced and expressed, that is the process by which the Hope is fulfilled.

Divine Love, humanly expressed is how suffering is transformed into that glorious Peace.

In His Service always,

Fr. Charitas de la Cruz