You will have heard the sporting adage, ‘no pain, no gain’ more times than you care to remember. It is a very helpful reminder to assist us in training for athletic pursuits. Whether for strength or endurance, there is a need for training. In a nutshell, such training means exceeding physical or spiritual limits. To train and to grow stronger requires us to push ourselves beyond our current boundaries. Strength training, for example, involves breaking down the muscle fibers in order for them to regrow stronger: it is painful. Similarly, training the soul requires breaking down learnt behaviors and introducing new ones: it too can be painful.

Growth comes at a price. If we fail to train physically, our body no longer maintains sinews and muscle fibers; if we fail to train spiritually through prayer, sacrifice, and seeking holiness, we develop a spiritual atrophy. I mention this as an overlay to the Scriptures that you have heard proclaimed today: 1 Peter and John 16 concerning the little while that the Lord talks about. In both the Epistle and the Gospel, we see a similar message regarding strength training: ‘no pain, no gain.’

In the Epistle today, one verse is missing, and that verse is an important key to the passage.  After the advice that is given to endure the world: to endure bad leaders, to endure even kings (perish the thought) we are to endure them, because this honors God.  But we are missing the explanation as to why this endurance honors God. Similarly missing is the hymn of praise in honor of this reason.

The explanation is given in the missing verse; my translation is as follows:

What sort of credit is it if you endure being struck whilst you are sinning? But if you endure         suffering whilst you are doing good, this is grace before God. What sort of credit is it if you          endure being struck whilst you are sinning? But if you endure suffering while you are doing         good, this is a grace before God.

Immediately after, Peter launches into a Christological hymn of praise (1 Peter 2:21-24): Christ suffered for you, giving you an example that you should follow in His steps.

This hymn gives us a pathway or a model. Although Our Lord did no wrong, He had to suffer and He did not even complain about it. That is the gist of the hymn. Remember that in Easter time, the Church is focused very much on those who have just been baptized, those who have just been made members of the Church; and this Sunday after the balm and the glory of having been made new in Christ, the Church introduces the idea of suffering for Christ in this world. Really, the first and greatest hurdle that any of us have in our Christian discipleship (the so-called ‘problem of suffering’) is the question of suffering in our lives.

The trite answer (true but trite) often given is that you should unite it to the Cross; take your suffering, and unite into the Cross. That is true: you should. But it is not a very satisfying answer. Remember what I was saying about athletic training? No pain, no gain. It is the same answer given to the question, or problem, of suffering. But we need to give a deeper answer, because the ‘problem’ with suffering is really that so many of our children give up the Faith when they do not find the Christian answer to be satisfactory.

The Gospel tells us about the little while that we will grieve, the modicum in Latin. This idea is so important, the Church reinforces it by repeating the word modicum nine times in the Liturgy today. When writing prose, you should never repeat the same word more than twice, but here we have it nine times as if to make the point; there will be a little while in which God will ask you to suffer in some way, shape or form. The suffering may be physical; it may be spiritual; it is probably going to be both. The Catholic answer to the problem of suffering, one which gives us hope, is that all suffering comes to an end. It is not eternal. It is a little while, and then you shall rejoice.

When we consider suffering in light of our athletic analogy, someone very wise once observed to me that there are two types of pain. There is muscle pain, which, although uncomfortable and sometimes really quite dolorous, it is something that we can endure, we can put up with it. But there is also joint pain, isn’t there? When we are training, sometimes we might pull a ligament, we might even break a bone. We experience joint pain as the body doing something that it should not have to do. Joint pain is always painful, never pleasant and does not seem to have much of a point. If you are injured in your athletic training, you have to start again from the beginning – which seems completely frustrating. We can more easily accept muscle pain, because we can see that it will do us good in the end. However, joint pain sets us back completely and does not seem to have any benefit or reward for us.

As Christians, let me be very clear with you, we must be careful not to place a condition upon the type of suffering that we are prepared to accept from God. The condition that we are tempted to place goes something like this, “Lord, I will accept the type of suffering where I can see that it is going to benefit me.”

If I train in the gym, pushing weights that are heavy to lift, there is the sweat of my brow, but I know that I will be stronger in the end: I am willing to suffer. Another example: if I have to study hard preparing for an examination, there is arduous work involved, but I can see that it will do me good in the end. That is the kind of suffering we are prepared to accept, because we can see the benefit.

The other kind of suffering, the ‘joint pain’ type, we are less prepared to accept.  That kind of suffering seems to come from nowhere, and it seems so unfair. We ask, “Why does God permit this to happen to them?” It seems out of left field, something we cannot possibly accept. Why, for example, do little children have to suffer cancer? Why is it that I have to suffer a debilitating disease? Why is it that despite all my best efforts I can never seem to make economic ends meet? It is not fair. That is the kind of suffering that we almost subconsciously do not accept from God.

The point of the suffering encapsulated in the 1 Peter Christological hymn is revealed when we reflect on Christ himself. We know from the person of Christ that the type of suffering that we are asked to endure will encompass both muscle pain and joint pain. How do we know this? Christ suffered for you, giving you an example which you should follow in His steps: Christ had no need of the ‘muscle pain’ kind of growth. Christ is perfect; He is God; therefore, all suffering that Christ endures on the Cross is the joint pain kind of suffering, which has no benefit to Him whatsoever. It would be a heresy to say that in some way Christ needed to suffer in order to grow. We Christians are called to suffer like Christ, to endure the joint pain type of suffering that seems to have no answer.

But there is an answer. We are called as Christians, not only to suffer for ourselves in hope of that spiritual or even physical growth, we are also called to suffer for others. That is the example of Christ. I will take on suffering for you, my neighbor, without asking questions, without counting the cost. That is truly Christian discipleship, suffering for others. And more to the point, you and I have a huge advantage, because we are baptized and offer Sacrifice to God, that God will accept. Those who are not in God’s friendship, cannot offer any Sacrifice that God will accept. Therefore, for them, God asks you, His friends, to suffer even more. It is spiritual maturity that allows us to accept that suffering, not as just a challenge from God, but as a gift from God. You are asked to suffer for God, because you are able to offer Sacrifice for people who are not able to do so. And as such, you are following in the steps of Christ Himself.

To finish with an amusing analogy. The great saints come to recognize the sufferings and trials that God gives them with a good sense of humor. It is said that Teresa of Ávila, who when she fell from her horse, was recorded as remarking, “Well, if this is how you treat your friends, it is no wonder you have so few of them.” Teresa could find the humor in it, because she knew that this is just for a little while, a modicum. Our life, in the eyes of God, is but the blink of an eye. It is just a little while that God will ask you to suffer and even suffer deeply for a purpose that you will only know when you come before your Maker, and He explains the purpose of that suffering in your life, face-to-face.