“Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Mt 5:11-12).
It is certainly difficult for us to understand suffering positively, as the Son of God presents it to us here in the Sermon on the Mount. This reality remains as alien to us as death. Although there may be some mystical souls who are particularly united to the Lord in the dimension of suffering, for most Christians these words of Saint Augustine can serve as a guide:
“Who longs for distress and bewilderment? The task Thou entrust to us, Lord, is that we endure them, not that we love them”.
But the Lord’s words in the Beatitudes remain true: our Father’s love can be revealed even in the circumstances of a fallen world, and in eternity we will be rewarded for all we have endured in this life for Jesus’ sake. Sharing in His suffering connects us to the depths of His love. “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,” says the Lord (Jn 15:13), and we could add: “for his enemies, to save them for eternity”.
When persecutions and calumnies befall us in the following of Christ, our gaze is lifted to eternity and to all those who have endured these sufferings for the sake of the Lord. With them we enter into a communion of love for God, and at the same time God’s indestructible love for us, who has suffered all this for us, can make its home in our hearts.
Because through suffering we become so much like the Lord, He left us these words to assure us that our Father will reward such a degree of love already in this life by giving us His consolation, and in eternity by His inexpressible nearness.