The Meaning of Suffering
The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
Ascension
4.9 • 7.7K Ratings
🗓️ 16 March 2017
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Books upon books have been written about the problem of suffering. Fr. Mike isn’t about to reinvent the wheel in this video, but the wisdom he shares in it echoes that of the saints. What did the saints and martyrs know about suffering that enabled them to endure so much of it? Christ didn’t give them some mystical superpower; he simply gave their suffering a purpose.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents. |
| 0:08.1 | So we're in the season of Lent and a lot of times people associate the season of Lent |
| 0:12.5 | with the season of suffering and that's kind of accurate. |
| 0:15.6 | We do a lot of penances during Lent. |
| 0:17.2 | We have certain fast days and we abstain from meat. |
| 0:20.7 | We abstain from other things. |
| 0:21.7 | We always give up something for Lent. |
| 0:23.5 | Life is full of suffering. |
| 0:25.7 | One of the big mysteries of life is why do we suffer? |
| 0:27.9 | Like if God loves this, why do we suffer? |
| 0:30.7 | Maybe you're watching this because you can't get out of bed or you can't get out of a wheelchair. |
| 0:34.7 | Maybe you're watching this because you're in the middle of this crisis and there seems |
| 0:38.2 | to be no escape and hasn't just gone on for a day or for a week or for a year but it's |
| 0:44.5 | gone on for 10 years. |
| 0:45.5 | It's gone on for 20 years and your suffering just does not make sense. |
| 0:52.5 | It's in this moment that we have to understand what Jesus really came to do with suffering. |
| 0:57.9 | Jesus didn't come to take away suffering and that's hard because we think like, |
| 1:02.5 | why wouldn't he? |
| 1:04.0 | Doesn't he love us? |
| 1:05.0 | Why wouldn't Jesus come to take away suffering? |
| 1:07.7 | No, he didn't do that. |
| 1:08.8 | In fact, he said this. |
... |
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