Why Do We ‘Offer it Up’?

By Lucas Pollice, M.T.S.

As we prepare to enter the season of Lent, we are all starting to think about what we are going to give up such as sweets or coffee, and one of the key themes of Lent is fasting.  But this brings up the important question of why do we “offer it up” and what is the meaning of redemptive suffering? Many of the answers come from St. John Paul II in his magnificent apostolic letter “Salvifici doloris” (On The Redemptive Meaning of Christian Suffering) (SD).  St. John Paul II gives us great insights on how Jesus, through his own suffering and death, has transformed our suffering to become redemptive.    
Jesus fully reveals the answer to suffering through his own suffering and death on the Cross.  The redemption of the world was accomplished through suffering; a suffering intimately united with love.  Christ suffers innocently and voluntarily out of love for us. Therefore, suffering is transformed from being an experience of evil into an experience of love, and a love that becomes redemptive. 

St. John Paul II teaches that in Christ, suffering “has entered into a completely new dimension and new order:  It has been linked to love, to that love which creates good, drawing it out by means of suffering, just as the supreme good of the Redemption of the world was drawn from the cross of Christ.” (SD,18) The cross of Christ reveals that suffering, when intimately united with love, is the source of hope, goodness, and salvation, which strikes at the very roots of evil and has an entirely new meaning.

The redemptive quality of suffering does not only apply to Christ’s sufferings, but also to the sufferings of each and every Christian, for our sufferings are now intimately united with Christ’s suffering.  St. John Paul II teaches that “in bringing about the Redemption through suffering, Christ has also raised human suffering to the level of the redemption.  Thus, each man, in his suffering, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ.” (SD,19) This is why St. Paul testifies that “now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.” (Col 1:24) This is not to say that Christ’s suffering and redemption was in any way insufficient or incomplete, but Jesus allows us to participate in his redemptive suffering for the sake of the Church and others. “[W]e need to remember that the unicity of Christ’s mediation is ‘inclusive.’ He enables various forms of participation in his salvific plan because, in communion with him, we can all become, in some way, cooperators with God and ‘mediators’ for one another.”  (Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Mater Populi Fidelis, 28) Therefore, each and every instance of suffering, by uniting it with the love of Christ, is now impregnated with salvific meaning and purpose and becomes a source of hope and salvation in the life of the Christian and for others.

St. John Paul II further teaches that the redemptive meaning of human suffering is also an occasion to fulfill the vocation of love.  Suffering is salvific in that it allows the human heart to show mercy and love to those who suffer.  Suffering calls man outside of himself and moves him to make a gift of himself to another. St. John Paul uses the parable of the Good Samaritan to illustrate his point.  In the parable, the man who is to be loved is not any ordinary person but is suffering.  This suffering of the man on the roadside requires the response of love, in particular, merciful love.  It is through suffering that Christ reveals to us his merciful love, and it is through the suffering of others that all followers of Christ are to unleash that same merciful love of Christ.  St. John Paul II beautifully reminds us that “the world of human suffering unceasingly calls for, so to speak, another world:  The world of human love; and in a certain sense man owes to suffering that unselfish love which stirs in his heart and actions.”  (Savifici doloris, 29)  

It is so profound that suffering, the very experience of evil, gives birth to a new world of love and mercy, and that the evilest event imaginable, the apparent “death of God” at Calvary would in turn be the wellspring of divine mercy and love. St. John Paul sees this paradox as the heart of the redemptive meaning of human suffering:  “Suffering is present in the world in order to release love, in order to give birth to works of love towards neighbor, in order to transform the whole of human civilization into a ‘civilization of love.’” (SD, 30)

May this holy season of Lent be an opportunity for us all to rediscover the power of our redemptive suffering and see our daily sufferings, when joined to Christ’s suffering as not a burden, but a great gift to release the love of Christ into the world and help to bring about the salvation of souls. 

(Professor Lucas Pollice is Director of Missionary Discipleship and New Evangelization for the Diocese of Colorado Springs.)