"God's Love In Our Broken Lives" is no strange theme to all of you! It certainly is no strange theme to all of those who work with me here at AVE MARIA PLACE in Wauregan, Connecticut. "God's Love In Our Broken Lives" is the theme of just about everything we do here and on the road! And now, as we have prayed and shared about our work of late, it has become more and more clear to me that it is time for our "newsletter", too, to focus on that theme in order to more effectively minister to our more than eight thousand readers!  So many of you write us regularly and share so deeply and movingly the brokenness of your own lives. So many of you have written pleadingly for support as you seek to bear the crosses of brokenness and suffering that this world hoists upon your shoulders. I sincerely pray this morning that as we refocus our newsletter beginning with this very issue that it will become a greater GIFT for you who wish to share and for those of you who need to be shared with.

 

          Today as I write it is the feast of Saint John I, who became pope in 523. He was imprisoned and starved to death in 526. As we read the lives of the saints and as I hear more and more of YOUR OWN STORIES in our parish missions and other retreats, I am more and more conscious that none of us escapes suffering in this world. I am sure that when the emperor of the Roman Empire converted to Catholicism in 366 A.D., many of that time breathed sighs of relief that perhaps now the sufferings of the Church were truly at an end. One hundred and sixty years later, in the cruel martyrdom of Pope John I, we see that the sufferings had not "gone away"!  And as we look at our own stories today, one thousand six hundred years after the conversion of the Roman emperor, it is too evident that sufferings still have not "gone away"!

 

          As I travel parish to parish and retreat house to retreat house on this same theme of "God's Love In Our Broken Lives" the reality of ever-present suffering seems to travel with me! I've never met anyone yet who has managed to escape the reality of suffering in this life but, sadly, most of us seem to be wasting most of our lives trying to escape it! We ask "why is it here?" and "who is to blame for it?" and "who gave it to us?" Only rarely do we get to the exciting discovery of all that God, the "Master Recycler," will do with all this "trash" of our life if we but give it to Him!

 

          On this feast day of the holy martyr, Pope John I, Saint John of Avila, whose letter on suffering the Church gives us as part of today's Divine Office, (the daily prayer of the Church) seems to get so excited as he contemplates the "Master Recycler" at work! He begins by quoting Saint Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, "Praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God of all consolations, who consoles us in all our trials and enables us to console others who are being tried. For we urge them on as God urges us on. As we share generously in the sufferings of Christ so do we share generously in His consolation.” The words are those of Saint Paul the Apostle. He was beaten with rods three times, flogged five times, stoned once and left for dead. He suffered every persecution man can inflict. His body was twisted by pain and toil and all this was his lot not just on one or two occasions, for he writes, “We are constantly being handed over to death for Jesus' sake so that His life may be revealed to us.” In all these tribulations he does not murmur or complain about God as weaker men do. Dear brothers and sisters, I pray God may open your eyes and let you see what hidden treasures He bestows on us in the trials from which the world thinks only to flee. Shame turns into honor when we seek God's glory. Present affliction becomes the source of heavenly glory. To those who suffer wounds in fighting His battles, God opens His arms in loving, tender friendship, which is more delightful by far than anything our earthly efforts might produce. If we have any sense we shall yearn for these open arms of God!

 

          Saint John of Avila wastes no time on the question of "Why suffering?" or "Who done it?" He dismisses any doubts as to who is responsible as he says of Saint Paul, "He suffered every persecution man can inflict!" One can almost feel the writer's excitement, however, as he goes on and on about "the treasures God bestows in our trials"! God does not bestow trials upon us but treasures in our trials! When we focus on God as bestowing the trials we miss the very treasures He brings forth from the world's trials and persecutions in our lives!