Offering Our Suffering with Jesus to the Father

By Sister Mary Sarah Macht, RSM, MSN, FNP-BC

November is a time when we remember those who have gone before us in the celebration of All Saints Day (November 1st) and All Souls Day (November 2nd). This makes November a special time to focus our attention on the reality of the Church as the Church Triumphant (those in heaven), the Church Suffering (those in Purgatory), and the Church Militant (all of us). We need to remember that we have an obligation as members of the Body of Christ to pray for one another and that prayer for both the living and the dead is a Spiritual Work of Mercy. So, how can we pray for the living and the dead? One way is that we can offer our sufferings, big and small, in union with Jesus to the Father.

Saint Therese sings “songs of love” to Jesus

Read this section from Saint Therese on offering all things in love to Jesus, taken from the meditation of the day for Wednesday, June 10th from the Magnificat:

“My Beloved, this is how my life will be consumed. I have no means of proving my love for you other than that of strewing flowers, that is, not allowing one little sacrifice to escape, not one look, one word, profiting by all the smallest things and doing them through love. I desire to suffer for love and even to rejoice through love; in this way I shall strew flowers before your throne. I shall not come upon one without unpetalling it for you. While I am strewing my flowers, I will sing, for could one cry while doing such a joyous action? I shall sing even when I must gather my flowers in the midst of thorns, and my song will be all the more melodious in proportion to the length and sharpness of the thorns.

O Jesus of what use will my flowers be to you? Ah! I know very well that this fragrant shower, these fragile, worthless petals, these songs of love from the littlest of hearts will charm you. Yes, these nothings will please you. They will bring a smile to the Church Triumphant. She will gather up my flowers unpetelled through love and have them past through your own divine hands, O Jesus. And this Church in heaven, desirous of playing with her little child, will cast these flowers, which are now infinitely valuable because of your divine touch, upon the Church Suffering in order to extinguish its flames and upon the Church Militant in order to gain the victory for it.”¹

Reverend James Brent, OP | Offer it up

Watch this video below about the meaning of the concept of “offer it up”.² This phrase has fallen out of practice a bit among Catholics, but it is a powerful lever for the spiritual life and for the poor souls in Purgatory, who need our prayers.

Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.

– Col 1:24 (NIV)