We live in times when many people have replaced reason with feelings. That’s nothing new. It’s always been a major deceit of Satan – urging us to follow his argument that, “If it feels good, do it.” The saints, however, urge us to embrace suffering with Christ on the Cross!
St. Teresa of Avila: “Take up that cross…. In stumbling, in falling with your spouse, do not withdraw from the cross or abandon it. Consider carefully the fatigue with which he walks and how much greater his trials are to those trials you suffer, no matter how great you may want to paint them and no matter how much you grieve over them…. We always find that those who walked closest to Christ were those who had to bear the greatest trials.”
St. Vincent de Paul: “We can only go to Heaven through suffering, but it is not all that suffer who find salvation. It is only those who suffer readily for the love of Jesus Christ who first suffered for us…. We must remember that all incapacity and distress is sent to us by God. Life and death, health and sickness, are all ordered by Him; and in whatever form they come, it is always to help us and for our good.”
St. Ignatius Loyola: “If God causes you to suffer much, it is a sign that He has great designs for you, and that He certainly intends to make you a Saint. And if you wish to become a great Saint, entreat Him yourself to give you much opportunity for suffering; for there is no wood better to kindle the fire of holy love than the wood of the cross, which Christ used for his own sacrifice of boundless charity…. Jesus Christ teaches you that you will only participate in His consolations in proportion to your constancy in suffering after His example and for His love.”
St. Gerard Majella: “Only one thing is necessary in your anguish: bear everything with resignation to the Divine Will; for this will help you to attain your eternal salvation. Hope with a lively faith and you will receive everything from Almighty God.”
St. Philip Neri: “There is no purgatory in this world. Nothing but heaven or hell. Sufferings are a kind of paradise to him who suffers them with patience, while they are a hell to him who has no patience… The greatness of our love of God must be tested by the desire we have of suffering for His sake…. Bear the cross and do not make the cross bear you.”
St. Elizabeth Seton: “Can you expect to go to Heaven for nothing? Did not our dear Savior track the whole way to it with His Blood and tears?”
St. Madeleine Sophie Barat: “As iron is fashioned by fire and on the anvil, so in the fire of suffering and under the weight of trials, our souls receive that form which our Lord desires them to have…. Our Lord who saved the world through the Cross, will only work for the good of souls through the Cross.”
St. Alphonsus Liguori: “By the law of nature, there is no pleasure in suffering; but Divine Love, when It reigns in a heart, makes it take delight in its suffering…. What does he gain who refuses the cross? He increases its weight…. He who embraces the cross and bears it with patience lightens the weight of the cross. Indeed, the weight itself becomes a consolation; for God abounds with grace to all those who carry the cross with good will in order to please Him.”