Around New Years, I and a few priest friends had a chance to make a pilgrimage up to Canada. Some probably thought we were crazy for going on a trip to Canada during December and January, but that’s beside the point…

On our trip, we visited several beautiful Catholic pilgrimage sites, and one of the most powerful and memorable was the Shrine of the North American Martyrs in upstate New York.

This is the site where St. Isaac Jogues and his companions (whose feast day we celebrated on Saturday morning) were brutally martyred. The stories, if you haven’t ever heard them, are really quite astonishing — the suffering they underwent is almost unimaginable. St. Isaac had his fingernails literally torn out, and his fingers gnawed down to the bones because his torturers knew that Catholic priests could not celebrate the Mass without certain fingers being fully intact. Others among the North American Martyrs, including St. John de Brebouf, had scalding hot water poured over them. They were stabbed, flayed, beaten, and hatched. Others were burned with hot coals.

But the most amazing thing that I took away from my visit to the Shrine of the North American Martyrs was not the gory details of their martyrdom… but it was actually something that our tour guide said to us. Because after recounting some of the horrific sufferings that these Jesuit martyrs underwent while preaching the Gospel to the indigenous Huron people, she said that all 8 of those North American Martyrs could have gotten away — Each of them! They all had chances to escape at one time or another — but they all chose to stay.

They chose to stay… and drink the cup that Jesus drank.

They drank the cup of suffering…

They chose to continue serving the Huron people… until the bitter end.

And this might confusing to us. Because suffering is hard. Hearing about the suffering of others is hard and confusing. What those martyrs did seems almost unimaginable to us.

Very frequently, I get to meet people and pray with them… who have suffered in ways that I literally can’t even imagine — They’ve suffered in ways that I’ve never suffered, and maybe never will.

I’ve never experienced the death of my own child — a miscarriage, a stillbirth, a sickness… and I never will.

I’ve never gone through the loss of a spouse… and I never will.

I haven’t gotten a terminal diagnosis yet.

I didn’t experience abuse or trauma or anything like that growing up…

So if anything like that has happened to you, or if you’re going through some other kind of suffering I didn’t mention… then I want you to know, that even though I might have no idea what kind of suffering you’ve been through …or if the people around you have no idea what you’ve been through… if you’re afraid that nobody else can relate or understand your suffering… I want to say:

Jesus can.

Jesus does understand.

He knows.

Because we believe that when Jesus picked up that Cross, all of the world’s suffering — every drop of pain that was ever experienced by anybody at anytime in any place — was piled directly onto his back.

And he didn’t try to get away.

He didn’t try to run.

He chose to stay.

Why?

Because He wanted to experience our weakness.

He wanted to be close to us in all our suffering.

He wanted to prove once and for all that God is actually with us — precisely at those moments when He seems farthest away.

I hear stories all the time of how people have left the faith, or drifted away from the Church when some horrible tragedy happened to them or to somebody they loved… And they ask: “How could a loving God ever let this happen?”

And all we can really do is point to the Cross.

That’s the answer.

Jesus experienced the pain that you are going through.

Our second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews said it this way: “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin.”

Jesus was tested! He was tempted!

We have a God — We have a High Priest in Jesus — who has experienced every aspect of darkness, pain, heaviness and sorrow — He’s experienced even the weight of temptation!

So he can sympathize with us. He understands us.

And this gives us courage!

This gives us confidence!

I recently found this beautiful quote from St. Thérèse of Lisieux… Maybe you know this, but she ended up dying an incredible painful death at the age of 24 from Tuberculosis — And as she was dying, she said this about her sickness…This is a saint… GRAPPLING with the reality of suffering.

“What would become of me if God did not give me courage? A person does not know what this is unless he experiences it. No, it has to be experienced.”

That’s so real. Nobody can understand this pain that I’m going through unless they experienced themselves.

Then she says:

“Pray for those who are sick and dying, little sisters. If only you knew what goes on!”

If only you knew! 

…If only you experienced it… 

Well… St. St. Thérèse believed and was convinced — that Jesus did know. He had experienced it…

And that truth gave her so much courage and confidence.

“It is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love,” she writes… 

It’s very easy to lose confidence when we are suffering. It’s easy to fall into the trap of self-pity… “WOE IS ME” Maybe we start to compare our suffering with other people — We can get so angry and bitter when things don’t go our way!

In the gospel today, James and John approach Jesus and say: “We want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”

We do this to God all the time, don’t we? We want the Lord to do what we want Him to do… we want things to go our way…

But to that, Fr Jacques Philippe says this: “The worst thing that could happen [to us] would be for everything to go exactly as we wanted it, for that would be the end of any growth.”

Because I think it’s easy for us when we are going through trials to try to compare our sufferings with other people’s sufferings.

And when we do that — we can fall into two different errors: 

On the one hand, we can look at other people’s suffering, and say to ourselves: “Why are they complaining? They don’t have it so bad! Look at MY life! Do you see ME complaining???” It’s so easy to give into self-pity. That “WOE IS ME” mentality.

Or on the other hand… we might think more along these lines: “Ohhh, those people over there are suffering so much… that person has it so much worse than me… so really, my suffering doesn’t matter at all in comparison. It’s not so bad, really.” — And we stuff down our suffering, and try to ignore the pain…

Neither of these attitudes will lead to the healing that Jesus wants to bring us.

We don’t have to worry about comparing our suffering to other people — 

Jesus is interested in being with you in whatever it is that you’re struggling with.

Whether it’s Big. Medium. Or Small.

That doesn’t matter to Him.

He freely went to the Cross to experience ALL of it…

Perhaps you know this already — But the process of Crucifixion is actually a process of suffocation more than anything else. As your body becomes weaker and weaker, and your muscles strain more and more, you are less and less able to prop yourself up to take the next gasp of air. And so you literally start to lose the ability to breath.

That’s what Jesus underwent for us.

That’s what he did for me.

For you.

For your kids.

For your grandkids.

For your coworkers.

For your friends.

For your worst enemy!

Even for that presidential candidate that you are threatening to leave the country over if he or she wins in a couple weeks’ time…

God literally suffocated for all of us.

Let’s all just pause… take a deep breath… And let that sink in.

Jesus suffocated for us.

But here’s where it gets hard…

Because Jesus did not suffer so that we wouldn’t have to.

He suffered so that we would know how to…

A wise priest friend recently admitted to me: “Apparently, I don’t know how to suffer very well.”

Yep.

That’s all of us.

…We all have so much to learn about how to suffer.

Because we live in a world where people are almost allergic to suffering. We’re all about delaying, ignoring, and avoiding suffering and death for as long as possible and at any cost.

But Jesus shows us another way.

He tells us that we need to suffer well, and to serve. That we need to choose to stay… to not run away.

“You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.  For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

That’s a hard act to follow:

Jesus the Suffering Servant.

It’s hard to suffer well.

We don’t like to suffer.

But here’s another tough word, this one coming from Fr. Jacques Philippe:

“If suffering makes us bitter and ill humored, it’s because our hearts are devoid of faith, hope, and love.”

Woah.

Ok.

That stings.

Still…

Nobody wants to suffer.

Nobody actually thinks it’s good to experience pain.

Nobody wants to die on a Cross.

And guess what? …Jesus didn’t want to either!!!

He even prayed to His Father that if it was possible — that this chalice… this cup… might pass him by.

Jesus understands. He gets it…

He knows EXACTLY what it feels like to not want to suffer. 

And who in their right mind would want nails driven through their hands and feet? Who would want to suffocate on a block of wood for hours on end while people looked at you and made fun of you? 

Who wants any of that?

Nobody.

Not even God the Father… We hear those words from Isaiah: “The LORD was pleased to crush him” and we might get the wrong impression: “Oh God enjoys this… It pleases Him. He WANTS to see Jesus suffer.”

No!

The Father only “wants” any of this because of the greater GLORY to be revealed later.

So Jesus submits:

“If possible, let this cup pass. Yet, not as I will, but as you will.”

I think if we’re gonna learn how to suffer well — to suffer like Jesus — then we always need to be asking ourselves:

“Am I running away from my Cross?”

“Am I avoiding suffering… fleeing from pain…?”

We have so many coping mechanisms, don’t we?

Ask the Lord right now:

“Am I refusing to drink the cup that You drank?”

Don’t run away.

Choose, instead, to stay.

St. John de Brebouf — one of those North American Martyrs that I opened this homily talking about — he said this, and I’ll finish with his words:

“Bear up with courage under the few torments remaining… the sufferings will end with your lives. The grandeur that follows… will never end.”