22nd Sunday, OT-A: Mt.16,21-17, "To Suffer Is To Live"

The world today reckons suffering as a non-value. Look at our lifestyle: There is instant coffee, instant pancit canton or sotanghon or batchoy, instant juice drink, instant you-name-it. “Instantism” has so developed in us that we already tend to see the virtues of patience, perseverance and endurance as unappealing. We squirm at the slightest inconvenience. We don’t want to carry crosses in our lives. For many of us, to be in the world is to enjoy all the pleasures, all the comforts and all the luxuries life can offer. And if the meaning and intention of life is to be happy, certainly suffering would be out of place. To suffer is to waste one’s life. To desire to suffer is insanity.

But we must remember that suffering is God’s way of bringing life into the world, of breathing out a new spirit into the world. We are in the world, yes. But we are not of the world. For us who wish to reach the end which is eternal life, for us who see beyond this world, for us who believe that there is life after death, suffering is the way to life.

Peter did not understand the whole import why Jesus had to suffer. He was unable to grasp that the Lord’s suffering was the only way to life. The Lord could not fulfill his messianic mission unless he humbled himself, suffered rejection and was put to death. His death was to be the spring from which would flow new life for the world. Peter tried to talk the Lord out of it. Perhaps, he meant well; we would not want a family member or a friend to suffer. But the Lord told him sternly: “Get behind me, Enemy! You are not judging by God’s standards but by man’s!”

It was through suffering that the world was saved in the Lord Jesus. Suffering, then, is a value. To this truth Peter was blind. If he were only able to see beyond suffering, he, at that moment, would have reckoned it sweetest. For after the Lord’s suffering, man was given new life.

Do you realize that people who have patiently gone through a lot of trials, people who have carried their crosses with faith in God, are the strong and tough ones? Who do you think are the people who surrender easily and even resort to committing suicide to end their suffering? They are the ones whose faith has not been edified because they would not take up their daily crosses. I do not think though that God wants us to suffer. God loves us so much that all he wants is our happiness. But while it is true that God wants all to be happy, he also chastises those whom he loves. So when difficulties and hardships abound, His grace abounds all the more. Didn’t Jesus say, “Blessed are they who suffer, for theirs is the kingdom of God?” Let us not be afraid even when problems and difficulties flood around us. He who suffered much will come to our aid. Let us “rejoice in hope, be patient under trial, persevere in prayer.”