Suffering

Since we have undertaken to work for the conversion of heathen and the triumph of the church, let us, like Xavier, be ready to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Crucified. How false it would be , to pretend to be victims and missionaries if we could not siffer with Jesus Christ ! MD9

Let us learn above all else from Sabbas  to pursue with gentleness and charity those who cause us to suffer and who are in the wrong.MD:11

   Very often when the devil cannot conquer a soul by personal suffering, he makes use of those whom we love. To remain faithful ,we have to see them suffering, or even cause them suffering. To accomplish the will of His Father, our Lord did not hesitate to give a share in His sufferings and humiliations to Mary and Joseph, and after them to all His friends, St. Stephen, St John ,the Holy Innocents, and others. MD:65

Let us consider suffering,inits many different forms, merely as snow; it will thaw, it will pass. MD73

Have the courage to leave everything for God, and we will find in union with the Passion, the strength for sacrifice. MD: 100

Allthe saints have had their martyrdom,some by shedding their blood,others,by trials of all kinds;it is impossible to love God than others,without suffering more thanothes. MD:107

If, like Agnes,we prefer the sufferings and trials coming from creatures who are often our executioners,to the pleasures,which these same creatures offer us as a snare,we too,shall overcome all the things of this world,not by our own merits but by the power of the Lamb of God who is thestrenght of His virgins and His victims, MD:110.

 Such was John Joseph’s love for the cross, such was his longing to unite himself with his crucified love by suffering. MD: 191.

This life is an exile. The soul who adores God is often plunged into an icy bath, a symbolizing, so to speak, the absence of all sensible delight; Christ, her beloved, is hiding. Truly, at such hours the cold is terrible. Some souls cannot endure this suffering; attracted by the warm bath of  pleasure under whatever form it presents itself, they leave the ice of trials, and plunge into false joys, in which the devil has offered them a deceiving happiness. MD: 198