Suffering and the Mystical Body
S. Paul writes
“So we, though many, are one body in Christ.” (Rom 12:5)
We are not just a collection of like-minded individuals, but actual and real members of the Body of Christ. S. Paul mentions this many times. Hence when we offer our prayers and sufferings in unity with the Sufferings of Christ, we are actually partaking, as Members of His Body, in the process of Redemption.
Consider Colossians 1:24.
“…[I] who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for his body, which is the church... (Douay)
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A convert to the Catholic church from Protestantism commented: I don’t know if I purposely avoided this or just blindly missed it, but for the first 40- years of my life I never saw this verse. And to be honest, when I finally saw it, I still didn’t know what to do with it. Nothing in my Lutheran, Congregationalist, or Presbyterian backgrounds helped me understand how I or anyone could rejoice in suffering, and especially why anything was needed to complete the suffering of Christ: nothing was lacking! Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection were sufficient and complete! To say anything less was to attack the omnipotent completeness of God’s sovereign grace. But then again, this was the apostle Paul speaking in inerrant, infallible Scripture. And we were to imitate him as he imitated Jesus. It took a reading of Pope John Paul II’s encyclical on the meaning of suffering to open my eyes to the beautiful mystery of redemptive suffering.”
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Col 1:24 reads
‘kai antanapléró ta hysterémata tón thlipeón toú Christoú’ – literally ‘and fill up those things that are lacking of the sufferings of Christ.’ <ta hysterémata> means <the things that are lacking or wanting’.> The translators of the King James Bible were well aware of the implications of this passage, and they resorted to a rare and, in this phrase, an extraordinarily strained translation of ‘ta hysterémata’ as ‘that which is behind’ (KJV) (as in ‘behind the wardrobe’)… a phrase that hardly makes sense and is completely out of line with the entire passage. This is one of the most obviously distorted ‘translations’ in the KJV which has clearly been chosen to fit their pre-arranged scheme. The circular reasoning of then turning round and basing one’s Faith on the carefully tailored translation of Scripture is obvious. By contrast, Catholics hold that the Faith is *supported* by Scripture, but that it is not *based* on Scripture.
Catholic teaching affirms the reality of the Mystical Body of Christ, of which we are members by Baptism. Now Christ suffers all things, but some things He suffered in His Body on Earth, and others are suffered by His Mystical Body, that is, by ourselves if we are baptised. When we accept these trials and Offer them Up in Reparation, we actually participate in the Work of Redemption. This is a great privilege of the baptised.
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Now certain sufferings were inappropriate to the Person of Christ:
He did not, we believe, suffer
*diseases;
*all the sufferings peculiar to women;
*shameful temptations.
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It is our privilege to bear these trials and Offer them Up.
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I will affirm that it is a very prominent and characteristic feature of Catholic spirituality to insist on the positive value of suffering, when offered up to Christ. It is even a sign of ‘special predilection’. I have seen many people who gain great happiness and strength from this doctrine. It is a great mistake to think that all suffering is evil.
Now those who are chosen, by God’s Grace, to overcome the temptations to homosexuality are achieving something definite in the building up of the Body of Christ, which could not fittingly be done in any other way. These people have a right to feel privileged. … But they must strive to overcome.