Today we arrive at a turning point.
If we misunderstand today, we will misunderstand much of Rose of Lima.
Rose loved the Cross.
She contemplated Christ's Passion. She accepted suffering. Eventually, she practiced forms of penance that can seem shocking to us.
But Christianity does not teach that suffering is intrinsically good.
Jesus healed people.
Christians founded hospitals.
We relieve hunger.
We treat illness.
We oppose injustice.
We console the grieving.
If suffering were itself good, Christian charity would make no sense.
So what did Rose see in the Cross?
Something much deeper:
She discovered that suffering, which by itself is an evil, can become a place of communion with Christ when it cannot rightly be avoided and is united to His love.
Today we need to understand that mystery.
KNOW — A sentence from Rose
One of the most important texts associated with Rose comes from testimony preserved from her life and later included in the Church's Liturgy of the Hours.
Rose describes Christ saying to her:
"Let all men know that grace comes after tribulation."
She continues with the conviction that without carrying the Cross one cannot find the road toward heaven.
Read badly, this sounds like:
God hurts people so that they can earn heaven.
That is not Catholic theology.
Read within the mystery of Christ, however, Rose is pointing toward something much richer.
To understand it, we have to go to Calvary.
UNDERSTAND — Christianity makes a strange claim about suffering
Christianity does not begin with an explanation for suffering.
It begins with something more startling:
God entered it.
Human beings ask:
"God, why do You allow suffering?"
And Christianity eventually points toward a Man hanging on a Cross and says:
That is God the Son.
Christianity does not give us a God who watches suffering safely from heaven.
The Word became flesh.
He experienced:
hunger,
fatigue,
rejection,
betrayal,
loneliness,
humiliation,
physical pain,
grief,
and death.
Even the terrible human experience of apparent abandonment enters His prayer:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Jesus enters suffering from the inside.
That changes the Christian relationship with suffering forever.
But why the Cross?
There is something we need to clarify.
Jesus did not merely experience the Cross.
He offered Himself upon it.
That distinction is essential.
At Calvary, violence is being done to Jesus.
Yet Jesus simultaneously transforms what is happening by freely making His life a gift.
This is already visible at the Last Supper:
"This is my body, which will be given for you."
The Cross therefore contains an astonishing transformation.
Human beings produce:
violence.
Christ answers with:
self-giving.
Human beings produce:
hatred.
Christ answers with:
love.
Human beings produce:
death.
God brings:
resurrection.
The Cross reveals something fundamental about Christianity:
God can take something evil and, without calling the evil good, bring a greater good through it.
That is Christian redemption.
And now we can understand Rose
Rose looked at suffering differently because she looked at it through Christ.
Imagine suffering by itself.
It can feel meaningless.
Why me?
Why this?
Why now?
What good can possibly come from this?
But Rose discovered another possibility.
When suffering cannot appropriately be removed, she could say:
"Jesus, I don't understand this. But I give it to You."
Now something changes.
The pain may remain.
But the suffering no longer has to remain spiritually meaningless.
It becomes an offering.
This is the Catholic meaning of "offer it up"
You have probably heard Catholics say:
"Offer it up."
Unfortunately, it can be said so casually that it becomes almost cruel.
Someone is genuinely suffering and another person responds:
"Offer it up."
That can sound like:
Stop complaining.
That's not what the theology means.
Properly understood, "offering it up" is extraordinarily profound.
It means:
I unite something I did not choose with the sacrifice Christ freely chose.
Not:
My suffering saves the world.
Rather:
Christ's saving sacrifice gives my suffering a new possibility.
St. Paul expresses this mysteriously in Colossians 1:24 when he speaks of rejoicing in his sufferings and "filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions" for His Body, the Church.
Obviously Paul does not mean Christ's sacrifice was defective.
The Cross is sufficient.
What remains is that the members of Christ's Body participate in the life of their Head.
The Christian doesn't merely watch Jesus carry the Cross.
Through grace, the Christian is united with Him.
Think of the Mass
This is where Catholic theology becomes extraordinarily beautiful.
At Mass, the priest says:
"Pray, brethren, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father."
Notice:
my sacrifice and yours.
What is your sacrifice?
Ultimately everything you bring.
Your work.
Your love.
Your disappointments.
Your obedience.
Your struggles.
Your sacrifices.
Your suffering.
Your entire life.
These are united sacramentally with the one sacrifice of Christ.
So imagine entering Mass carrying something painful.
Instead of simply thinking:
"I hope God makes this disappear."
there is another prayer available:
"Father, I place this on the altar with Christ."
The suffering doesn't become the Eucharistic sacrifice.
But you, as a member of Christ, offer yourself through Him.
That is an extraordinarily Catholic way to live.
Rose discovered this radically
This helps explain something about Rose that otherwise looks almost incomprehensible.
She did not simply tolerate suffering.
She increasingly saw suffering as a possible meeting place with the Crucified Christ.
She saw Jesus suffering and wanted to say:
"You will not suffer alone."
That is the language of love.
Think about sitting beside someone you love who is dying.
You cannot remove their pain.
You cannot solve death.
You cannot fix the situation.
But you remain.
Why?
Because love says:
"If you must go through this, I want to be with you."
Rose looked at Christ crucified in something like that spirit.
Jesus, I want to be with You.
But here comes a crucial distinction
There are two very different spiritualities:
Spirituality A
"Suffering is good. Therefore I should maximize suffering."
That is dangerous and not the Christian principle.
Spirituality B
"Love is good. Sometimes love requires sacrifice, and unavoidable suffering can be united with Christ and transformed by love."
That is Christianity.
The goal isn't:
maximum pain.
The goal is:
maximum love.
That distinction will become absolutely essential tomorrow.
The Cross is not the final destination
Notice something else.
Christianity doesn't end on Good Friday.
If it did, Christians would be worshippers of tragedy.
The sequence is:
Cross → Tomb → Resurrection.
Rose's theology of suffering makes sense only within this movement.
Christian hope says suffering does not have the last word.
Sin doesn't.
Failure doesn't.
Illness doesn't.
Injustice doesn't.
Even death doesn't.
The Resurrection makes an astonishing claim:
God can bring life out of something that appears completely dead.
Rose trusted that pattern.
And this is why suffering and Christian joy can paradoxically coexist.
Not because pain feels pleasant.
But because:
Christ is present here, and this is not the end.
Now Rose asks us an uncomfortable question
Many of us instinctively pray:
"Jesus, take this away."
There is nothing wrong with that prayer.
Jesus Himself prayed in Gethsemane:
"Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me."
Notice that.
Jesus didn't pretend suffering was pleasant.
He asked for the cup to pass.
But then:
"Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done."
There are therefore two movements in Christian prayer.
First:
Lord, please deliver me.
And then, when the Cross remains:
Second:
Lord, meet me here.
Rose became extraordinarily interested in the second.
Perhaps more than most of us are comfortable with.
PRAY — Today we go to Gethsemane
Today, don't begin with Rose.
Open your Bible to Luke 22:39–46.
Read Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane slowly.
Then identify one suffering currently present in your life.
Don't choose the biggest trauma of your entire life.
Choose something real and present.
Perhaps:
a disappointment,
uncertainty,
an irritating person,
loneliness,
fatigue,
a worry,
a failure,
a responsibility you don't want,
something you cannot control.
Name it.
Then pray:
Jesus, I want this cup to pass.
If it can rightly be removed, please remove it.
If I can change the situation, show me what I should do.
But while it remains, do not let me waste it.
Enter this suffering with me.
Unite it to Your Cross.
Teach me how to love inside it.
Then remain quiet.
Now make Rose's question more practical
Don't ask merely:
"Why is God allowing this?"
Sometimes that question has no answer available to us.
Instead ask:
"How can I love God and other people inside this?"
That question can change suffering.
Suppose someone hurts you.
The suffering asks:
How do I retaliate?
Love asks:
How do I respond truthfully without hatred?
Suppose you're exhausted.
The suffering asks:
Why do I have to do this?
Love asks:
Who needs me to remain faithful today?
Suppose something fails.
The suffering says:
My worth has diminished.
Love says:
Can failure make me more humble, compassionate and dependent upon God?
Now suffering is becoming spiritually fruitful.
Not because suffering became good.
Because love entered it.
LIVE — Your first deliberate "offering up"
Today something annoying will happen.
Probably something small.
Traffic.
A delay.
An interruption.
An inconvenience.
Someone irritating you.
Something not going according to plan.
Your instinct will probably be irritation.
When you notice it, stop.
Don't deliberately create suffering.
Use the suffering already present.
Say quietly:
"Jesus, I give You this."
Then add something important:
"Use it for ______."
Put someone's name there.
Someone who needs prayer.
Someone struggling.
Someone who has hurt you.
Someone far from God.
Now your inconvenience has become intercession.
Again, your pain isn't purchasing grace from God.
Rather, you are allowing your suffering to become an act of love within your union with Christ.
That is what "offer it up" can become.
Your Rose Journal — Entry 5
Tonight write:
1. The suffering I most frequently ask God to remove is ________.
2. What frightens me most about that suffering is ________.
Then go deeper:
3. If this suffering remained for a time, I could still love by ________.
And finally:
4. Jesus, if You are really present inside this Cross, teach me ________.
Don't rush #4.
One final encounter with Rose
Return to your crucifix tonight.
Look at Christ.
Don't focus first on the nails.
Look at His open hands.
They are not clenched.
Christ gives Himself.
Then imagine Rose standing beside you.
Not telling you:
"You need to suffer more."
Instead hear the deeper lesson of her life:
"Don't run away from Jesus when life hurts."
That may be one of the greatest lessons Rose can teach us.
Because many people remain close to God while prayer feels consoling.
But when disappointment comes...
when God seems silent...
when prayer becomes dry...
when life becomes unfair...
when something precious is taken...
the temptation appears:
Where are You, God?
Rose's answer became increasingly radical:
He is here too.
Perhaps especially here.
Where Rose has taken us
Our path now looks like this:
Day 1 — Desire:
Jesus is worth everything.
Day 2 — Detachment:
What competes with Him?
Day 3 — Love:
He loved me first.
Day 4 — Identity:
My worth comes from belonging to Him.
Day 5 — The Cross:
Even suffering can become a place where I meet and love Him.
And now we are finally prepared for the hardest day in our journey.
Because Rose didn't stop at accepting unavoidable suffering.
She deliberately practiced penance.
Some of it was severe.
Very severe.
And tomorrow we must resist two opposite mistakes.
One is to romanticize Rose:
"She was a saint, therefore everything she did should be imitated."
The other is to dismiss her:
"Those practices were extreme, therefore Rose has nothing to teach modern Christians."
Both are inadequate.
Day 6 — The Difficult Rose
Tomorrow we'll examine fasting, bodily mortification, sleep, the famous crown associated with her penance, and the more extreme accounts of her ascetic life.
But our real question will be much more important:
What was Rose actually trying to accomplish through penance—and what would faithful, healthy, authentically Catholic imitation of her asceticism look like today?
Day 6 may be the most important session for learning to love Rose without turning her into a caricature.
