Wholly Family by Mary Moore: Offer it up for Lent: Becoming Christ-like in our suffering

If you grew up with a good Catholic mom like I did, you heard the following phrase often: “Offer it up.” It was issued for any number of reasons, like a get-out-of-jail-free card for a mom who was tired of hearing the whining related to our thirst, hunger or boredom. And it sure beat the alternative three words that lesser moms might say, “Zip your trap.”

I find myself quoting my mom quite a bit now that I am a parent, and one of my favorite phrases is in fact “Offer it up.” Avoiding those other three words not only keeps me from getting ousted from the Mother of the Year club I pretend to be in, but it holds me accountable as my children will only practice such self-denial if they see it modeled by the one who asked them to.

As the quintessential multi-tasker, I listen to books while I run, pray the rosary while I clean house, and fight insanity while grocery shopping with children. So when I realized why Catholics “offer it up,” I was thrilled.

While giving something up can be healthy in itself, bearing the loss with meekness does something else. It helps us to achieve sanctification.

St. Francis de Sales, a 16th century bishop and doctor of the Church who spent much of his time “in the world and not of it,” gave the kind of advice for individual sanctification that I only wish someone had told me at my first child’s baby shower. It might have saved a few years of heartache.

He wrote to a friend who was experiencing domestic suffering, “The many troubles in your household will tend to your edification, if you strive to bear them all in gentleness, patience, and kindness. Keep this ever before you, and remember constantly that God’s loving eyes are upon you amid all these little worries and vexations, watching whether you take them as He would desire. Offer up all such occasions to Him, and if sometimes you are put out, and give way to impatience, do not be discouraged, but make haste to regain your lost composure” (emphasis mine).

I am certain the letter could have been written directly to me and entitled, “On the Occasion of Potty Training.”

Many of the saints believed that we could actually offer up our sufferings and unite them with Christ on the cross, and in doing so we could achieve sanctification for ourselves and others.

Contrast this redemptive suffering with three other words: Count the cost.

We live in a world that would have every suffering person pour his or her heart out on the Oprah Winfrey show, claim victimization with audience encouragement, and then become instantly compensated, or at least pacified by a smashing makeover and a free iPhone. There is no shortage of medical doctors, even naturopaths, to be solicited for the cure to nearly every ailment which they see as compromising one’s quality of life.

With so many solutions offering a virtually painless life, why would Catholics choose to suffer during Lent? Simply put, by fasting or small voluntary sacrifices we “put on Christ” and join with him in suffering. It makes us humble, countercultural, and Christ-like.

The other great gain of redemptive suffering is that, practiced regularly, it disciplines us to withstand even greater sufferings that result from our living in a fallen world. And the strength we gain from taking up our cross in those situations goes beyond our own sanctification. The little eyes that watch us see an image of Christ, who as we recall during the preparation of the gifts at Mass, “humbled Himself to share in our humanity.”

Then the faith for which they may one day be ridiculed will be for them a real manifestation of love because they saw it lived out by others who were humble, countercultural, and Christ-like.

Mary Moore is a syndicated columnist who lives in Chandler. Please send comments to letters@catholicsun.org.

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