SUFFERING
BASIC R.C. BELIEF
From Devotions For The Holy Souls, Catholic Truth Society of Ireland, Imp. Colmanus a Doneraile, page 20. "The Sacred Heart addressed the two disciples on the way to Emmaus in the words: `Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory?' Neither can we enter into His glory without suffering."
Ibid., page 24. "He that refuses here the thorns of penance and mortification, shall hereafter have the thorns of torments and the worm that never dies. This is an infallible truth."
CATHOLIC JOURNALS
From Leaves, Mar/Apr 1979. Article by Rev. Anthony Kirschner, CMM (Marianhill Father). "A woman named Marie writes to us `with a sad and heavy heart.' Her mother, a cancer victim, has just been taken to the hospital for the fifth time.
"To some, Marie's mother's suffering is wasted. But Marie's mother uses it to buy mercy from God."
SECULAR JOURNALS
From Milwaukee Journal, 11/2/90. "Pain was Prayer: Illness kills 'Suffering Sister.' Sister John Vianney's last moment...meant an end to 40 years of excruciating pain...On the surface, the story of her life and death would appear to be one of the dashed hopes of a young girl who longed with all her heart to be a Roman Catholic nun and teacher. But it was also the story of a woman who believed that her suffering had meaning, an atonement for the sins of others, not unlike the meaning of the suffering of Jesus."