The greatest tragedy in the world, Cardinal Cushing once said, was not pain, but wasting pain. We all suffer, everyone of us, the youngest to oldest. We suffer loneliness, cancer, the loss of a wife, a husband, a child; we suffer misunderstandings, family conflicts, ruptured friendships, cosmetic disfigurement, mental, emotional, physical incapacities. We suffer a sense of utter powerlessness, an empty feeling of futility. The world is awash in pain. How tragic if that pain is wasted; that pain can be united with the suffering of Christ on the cross to achieve enormous good. The Cardinal knew that Christ did not make possible the salvation of the world through his teaching, his preaching, his miracles, but by his suffering and death on the cross. When He appeared to be utterly powerless, He was radiating the greatest power unleashed in the world. When He was crying out, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” ...
“The truth hurts sometimes. If we are going to be taught by God, the fisherman, we first need to be captured by Him. And His hook is going to have a bite. Of course, it's going to hurt.” - Father Donald Calloway, MIC