If Christ Asked You to Make a Sacrifice in Exchange for Something, Would You?
Actually, he asks us to do that every day...
Someone asked me on Quora: If Christ Asked You to Make a Sacrifice in Exchange for Something, Would You?
Actually, he asks us to do this every day. What’s the exchange? Our devotion and discipleship in return for eternal life united with God.
Then he said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.” (Luke 9:22–24)
We Catholics, too, make “deals” with God all the time, for example when we offer up our prayers, works, joys, and sufferings for “the salvation of souls, the reparation of sins, the reunion of all Christians, and the intentions of the Holy Father this month.”
Of course, the word “deal” sounds like it’s a business exchange, which it is most definitely not. It’s a love offering of what we have and are and do, for God to use as He sees fit.
Unlike Protestants, Catholics are hyper-aware of the value of suffering and sacrifice. No wonder—what we call “worship” is the priest’s daily sacrifice of Jesus on the altar. That’s what the Mass is.
Catholics consider suffering permitted by God a blessing because in His infinite wisdom, He allows us to go through those trials to purify and sanctify our souls so they’ll be scrubbed clean in anticipation of union with Him. We believe that we can’t enter Heaven covered in the stinking tar of sin. We need to be made clean first.
And while the initial cleansing came from being washed in the blood of Christ and receiving the Holy Spirit, we still need to do our part by striving to live a holy Christian life, which—if you do it right—is a very different lifestyle from the average American’s. But to be squeaky clean, we need to suffer… either here in this life or in Purgatory, which, as I read, is a million times worse. Better to be martyred in this life than to spend an hour in Purgatory.
If this sounds like I’m good at suffering, you would be mistaken. I’m as whiny as they come, and I’m certainly not above throwing pity parties for myself when I hit a rough patch in the road. We’re all students here.
We can also offer up our own sufferings to help others and—not many people know this—can even offer to suffer “extra” for someone’s benefit. I’ve done it a few times.
One time, I offered to “suffer a little” on behalf of a Catholic couple who were fighting a hard and seemingly futile battle to be able to adopt their three foster kids. I asked Jesus to go easy on me, though, because I’m a wimp (and He knows that). That night, out of nowhere, I became violently ill—with fever, chills, cold sweats, joint pains, stomach cramps, insomnia, you name it—and the next morning, I was back to normal, as if nothing had happened. The couple did get the children, by the way.
Honestly, though, I don’t know how many times I’d be able to do this. Methinks that if I want to sacrifice for others, I should work on getting better at fasting. :) I really admire those saints and victim souls who offered up their lives, joining their suffering to Christ’s, often enduring great pain and devastating illness to help save souls, release those in Purgatory, and alleviate the sins of the world… but they were better people than I.
I hope that at some point in my life, instead of whining and complaining, I might acquire the necessary holiness to gladly accept and even embrace and invite any suffering God sends me. I pray that we all will.
EDIT: V., one of my mega-fans (love you, girl!), asked me a few questions, which made me realize that I should have added a few things to this post.
Retroactive Offerings: I had a lot of traumatic things happen to me in my childhood and young-adulthood, and one day I said to God, "Man, I wish you had told me about this 'offering up' thing earlier. I could have used all that suffering for my salvation."
He said, "Remember the Eternal Now? You can still offer it up retroactively." Which is HUGE. Remember, only our human reality works with linear time (and even that glitches sometimes, but that’s another story for another day). In God’s reality, everything just is. There’s no past or future; everything’s happening “at the same time” (which again is a temporal term, but our human language is limited). I can even pray for the salvation of people who are long gone. Are you worried that your parents didn’t make it to Heaven? Pray retroactively for their souls. Seriously.
Another issue my friend brought up was that suffering for others seems extremely pointless when “people are so ungrateful and forget what you've done for them in less than 5 minutes.” Maybe I should have clarified this, but I never actually told the Catholic couple in the story above that I was doing this for them.
Jesus said this:
“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (Matthew 6:1–4)
So the best thing is to keep charitable acts on the down-low. I’m not very good at this either (though I’ve gotten a bit better in recent years). There were times when I tried my hardest to keep my mouth shut about those random acts of kindness, but just couldn’t manage to stay quiet about it. I think my all-time record was a day or so.
At some point, I got really mad at myself for being so addicted to the admiration and praise of others. It felt like I was doing all of this for nothing if I couldn’t get my reward from VatiGod—because His praise and approval should really be the only thing that counts. So now I’m working on getting better at keeping mum, although it still kind of kills me. Pray for me, and I’ll pray for you.
God bless you!
P.S. If you feel generous, consider upgrading to a paid subscription to support me with a few bucks a month. I’d really appreciate it. If you got this in your inbox, you can simply click the “Upgrade to Paid” button at the bottom of the email. Right now, I’m getting ready to turn Diary of a Stumbling Saint into a book, so the more time I can devote to that, the sooner it’ll be published. My paid subscribers will get an early sneak peek at the book cover, have full access to the blog archives, and other inner-circle goodies. Thanks in advance!
Just wanted to mention that I absolutely adore your blogs! They’re the highlight of my day :) I love the no nonsense approach, sound Catholic info, and how similar you are to me in a lot of aspects. The shame one was a recap of my 7th grade, including cute boys pretending.
This one struck a cord though because it’s a question I grapple with a lot. I’m a wimp at suffering. Probably more so than anyone else, as my tolerance to pain and discomfort is to the left of zero. My “mild” autism and OCD doesn’t help either. I’ve never offered to suffer for anyone else because like you, who knows what Jesus will throw in my direction (and I’m already burned out enough as is with the regular amount of crud thrown at me generally from just living).
Not only that, my own personal rap sheet is longer than I care for it to be, and my exit interview with Jesus won’t be pretty. So any and all suffering I ask to be applied towards whatever time in purgatory I’ve so far accumulated for myself. Kind of like a get out of jail free card, or reduce my sentence card. So there’s my question I grapple with: Why would I suffer for others when I have enough to atone for for my own self?
Maybe it’s also what I’ve learned from life in general, that people are ungrateful and forget anything and everything you’ve done for them in less than 5 minutes. And non Catholics (which seems to be most of the world these days) would never ever ever think about suffering for another, let alone for me, if I needed it. I don’t know, just a thought about “working out your own salvation” first….
I’d love your thoughts! (Can’t get enough of them to be honest, and no I’m not kissing your behind, I genuinely love your work).
good point!