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By Maximilian Watner
Guest Columnist

Some time after the Jews were delivered from the bondage of Egypt, we read that the people of God were oppressed on all sides by foreign invaders, the Madianites. The Jews prayed for help, and the Lord raised up Gedeon, son of Joas, to defeat the enemy. But when the Angel first appeared to Gedeon to choose him for the task of Israel’s deliverance and assure him of the Lord’s help, he replied, “I beseech thee,… if the Lord be with us, why have these evils fallen upon us? Where are his miracles, which our fathers have told us of….?” (Judges 6:13)

When we wake up each morning, that is often the query on our lips: where are His miracles? We have to face the same battles that we have fought and failed at for years. We have prayed and prayed, and nothing seems to change. And since our Faith assures us that God always does His part, we are forced to the conclusion that it is we who have failed these many years.

That may be the case, but it is equally important to realize that all those stings, from our own weakness or from external causes, are part of the suffering that can bring us closer to Christ.

Suffering is more than simply a punishment for the bad things we do. It can have that element, and it is surely a consequence of Adam and Eve’s Original Sin, but that is not the end of the story. Everything we suffer, from spilling coffee, to a cancer diagnosis, to the burden of our own weakness, is an opportunity to choose God instead of ourselves. We all know the depths of selfishness that lie within our own hearts. Daily, we experience the deeply-rooted desire to seek our own pleasure, to enjoy our own comforts at the expense of others, to obtain all the credit for whatever task is at hand. This selfishness is the oldest and best-known companion of our lives. Only suffering can turn us away from that.

A great French bishop once wrote that the less there is of our will, the more there is of God’s. This is starkly brought home when we suffer. Instead of hardships being occasions to harden our hearts and reject our circumstances, we can choose to embrace them and say in our own words, “I offer this to you, Jesus, in union with what you suffered for me on the cross.” We thereby accept difficulties as an expiation for our sins and as an opportunity to practice choosing God’s will by turning away from our own wishes.

This is an extraordinary response to our troubles. Of course, though, our feelings may not change when we do this. The grace to offer and accept everything with love goes so deeply against our inclinations that, if we succeed in doing it, we can say that we have seen God’s daily miracle.

BROTHER MAXIMILIAN WATNER is on the staff at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Buckingham County. He can be reached at webmaster@stas.org.