If you hang around Catholic circles enough, you'll eventually hear someone give the advice, “Offer it up!” The basic idea is that we should offer to God the sufferings and inconveniences that we experience as a kind of prayer, just as Jesus offered his sufferings on the Cross.

In this short personal reflection, I'd like to try to make sense of this traditional Catholic way of prayer. Does God delight in our suffering? How is there any value in giving him our pain and inconveniences?

My Own Recent Challenges

As some readers will know, I broke my ankle on June 24, the Solemnity of the Birth of John the Baptist, at Damascus Summit Lake Camp. I'll admit that it's a bit ironic to suffer such an injury on the day when we recall Zechariah, John's father, prophesying that the Lord will “guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:79). My steps that day weren't very peaceful.

Here's the quick story: I was playing a game at camp with parish teens called “Archery Tag,” which is perfectly safe, despite its intimidating name. As I was running and dodging foam arrows, I jumped and spun to take cover behind an inflatable barricade. When I landed with a twist, I suffered a very painful spiral fracture of my tibia and fibula. When an ER nurse saw my foot turned awkwardly too far to the left, she joked, “Did you put your foot on wrong this morning?” I spent the next twelve days in a fiberglass splint with my foot pointed a few degrees in the wrong direction.

I had surgery on July 6, the Memorial of St. Maria Goretti—it seems only fair that a teen saint should intercede for my operation—and I've been recovering well since. If all goes well, I'll be putting weight on my foot again by August 20.

Although things have been going as well as can be expected, and many people have gone out of their way to be supportive, the past month has had its fair share of difficulties. I spent several weeks confined to the couch around the clock, unable to get around and constantly needing to elevate my ankle. I've since become much more mobile, but getting from point A to point B often involves far more effort than normal. To top it all off, the circumstances of my injury have inspired dozens of people to tell me something like, “You're not a teenager anymore, Leonard!” (Such statements are all in good fun, of course, but I sometimes get the feeling that I'm about to be wheeled away to the nursing home or, perhaps, the funeral home.)

In short, recent weeks have been challenging.

Does God Delight in Suffering?

One of the oldest and most challenging human questions is why there is suffering in the world. Philosophers call this “the problem of evil.” If God is good, why do bad things happen in the world that he created?

Scripture touches upon the question by explaining that suffering and death entered into humanity because of sin. In the well-known story of Adam and Eve, our first parents, we learn that humanity experiences suffering and death because of our rejection of God. The Catechism highlights that the heart of their sin (and of all the human sins that followed) is “disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness” (CCC 397).

Scripture clarifies that God does not delight in suffering and death themselves, but allows them in order to bring about conversion. Lamentations says, for example, the Lord “does not willingly afflict or bring grief to human beings” (3:33). God says to the prophet Ezekiel, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from their ways and live” (33:11). The Book of Wisdom says:

For God formed us to be imperishable;
the image of his own nature he made us.
But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world... (2:23-24).

Again, God does not rejoice in our pain, but allows it for some greater good.

Jesus Gives Meaning to Suffering

The Gospel is the extraordinary story of God, who in himself is unable to suffer, assuming a human nature so he could share in our suffering. He was not content to watch our misery from afar, but became one of us, so that he could endure the sufferings we endure, including death. Then he rose again from the dead, so that those of us who are united to him in faith might have the hope of rising again. The Catechism of the Catholic Church highlights how Jesus transforms our suffering:

Moved by so much suffering Christ not only allows himself to be touched by the sick, but he makes their miseries his own: “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.” But he did not heal all the sick. His healings were signs of the coming of the Kingdom of God. They announced a more radical healing: the victory over sin and death through his Passover. On the cross Christ took upon himself the whole weight of evil and took away the “sin of the world,” of which illness is only a consequence. By his passion and death on the cross Christ has given a new meaning to suffering: it can henceforth configure us to him and unite us with his redemptive Passion (1505).

How can our suffering configure us to Jesus and unite us with Jesus' redemptive Passion? Much could be said on the topic, but I'd offer this quick summary: Jesus overcame sin through his suffering, and he offers us the opportunity to join in that victory through our suffering. While Adam's sin (and ours) shows disobedience and lack of trust in God's goodness, Jesus' suffering (and all suffering united with his) shows obedience and trust in God's goodness.

When Jesus accepted the suffering of the Cross, he did so as an act of obedience to the divine plan. “[H]e humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). He prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). While Adam said “no” to God, Jesus gave an unconditional “yes.”

Jesus submitted to the Father's will because he had no doubt about God's goodness and will. He said to the rich man, “No one is good but God alone” (Mark 10:18). He instructed in the Sermon on the Mount, “If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him” (Matthew 7:11). He had surrendered to death on the Cross because he knew that the Father would restore his life: “For the sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross, despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). Jesus accepted the evil of the Cross because he anticipated the good of the Resurrection.

Our acceptance of suffering, too, can be an act of obedience and trust in God's goodness. Nothing happens in our lives or in the course of human history without God permitting, and we can be confident that he would not permit it except for the sake of some greater good. When we accept the sufferings that come our way, it's as if we're saying, “God, you are good, and I trust that you wouldn't allow this if it weren't for some benefit.” Our “yes” to the little crosses of life unites us to the perfect “yes” of Jesus and prepares us to share in his Resurrection. 

In some mysterious way, St. Paul assures us, we can share in Christ's work of redemption when we unite our sufferings with his: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking* in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church” (Colossians 1:24). Our “yes” to the sufferings that God has allowed helps to make the Church more like Jesus himself.

So, the next time you experience some suffering, whether big or little, take the advice of Catholic grandmothers and “Offer it up!”