The associated reading for this reflection can be found in your Every Sacred Sunday Mass journal or online here.
Today’s readings refer back to a theme we leaned into during Lent: suffering. “But it’s Easter! Aren’t we done with suffering?” I told myself when first realizing this. The simple reality is we can never be “done” with suffering on this side of Heaven. But if we choose, we can have real peace in the thick of it.
In the Second Reading, Peter the Apostle tells us that we are to be patient in our suffering. The world, by contrast, tells us that we are to take control of our suffering so as to end it quickly and make it as painless as possible. That kind of attitude instills a fear of suffering in our hearts that keeps us from knowing it for what it truly is: a gift of love administered to us from the tender heart of God.
God calls us to suffering, not out of cruelty but out of love, so as to draw us into deeper union with Himself through the cross of his Son. Our suffering, united to Christ’s, produces in us a love that is pure and free from all self-interest. When liberated from pride, our hearts shall want for nothing. And we shall see that, even in the most unforgiving of deserts, there are verdant pastures, and our Shepherd always leads us to them.
The world, on the other hand, is incapable of giving us such authentic freedom and pasture because the “abundance” that it offers only deceives, kills, and destroys what is pure in our hearts.
We must shun the voice of the world and heed only that of our Shepherd. This is not easy. For the world tells us to preserve ourselves from suffering, but Jesus tells us to hand ourselves over to it. Why? Because the fruit of suffering is self-sacrificing love, and it is through such love that we come to have life and have it more abundantly.
Our Shepherd knows this well and walks ahead of us in the desert to lovingly remind us that our suffering does in fact have an end: the transformation of our hearts into His.
So no, Easter does not conclude our suffering—it divinizes it. And there is truly peace in knowing that while our pain will not last forever, our patience in it will endure into eternity.
Let us pray, then, for the courage to continually hand ourselves over to suffering. For patience in bearing it, so that through it, our hearts may become more like our Shepherd’s. Our lives may become more abundant, and we may merit to take our place at the table God spreads before us, where our cups overflow with love.
Melanie Peinado is a wife and boy mom of two. Her main aim is to serve Christ and his Church through the small sacrifices of a hidden life at home. She lives with her family between California and the Middle East where she gets to enjoy lots of good food with lots of good people.
