Three Kinds of Suffering and then... just kidding, and their Resolutions

Tonight we heard mass at the parish and luckily for us, the priest was Fr. Manoling Francisco, SJ. He was outside when we arrived and as we went up the ramp, he saw us and approached us to shake hands. Very gracious of him.

As always he spoke very clearly and his homily was particularly enlightening. As the Gospel had to do with taking up one's cross and following Jesus, he decided to speak on 3 kinds of suffering.

The first one, he said, is pre-moral. It is something beyond our control -- like illness, calamities, etc. We just have to be resigned to it, he said. We should not think of pre-moral suffering as a punishment sent by an evil spirit nor by an angry God. They aren't.

The second he identified was moral suffering. The example he cited was that of a battered wife. According to him, when Jesus said what he did about taking up one's cross, he wasn't referring to moral suffering. According to Fr. Manoling, moral suffering should be confronted and then denounced. For one's protection, a battered wife should up and leave the batterer and take the children along to prevent more of the same.

The last suffering he said is one that results from one's decision to love. Sufferings of this nature include being patient with a senile parent, forgiving an errant spouse, etc. Such suffering, he said, should be embraced.

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While Fr. Manoling's homily will not make sufferings of whatever form go away or any less painful, they will certainly be less of a mystery and possibly, just possibly, knowledge of their nature and the proposed Christian solution to them will make them easier to accept/address.

After the mass, as friends and I chatted near the doors of the church, Fr. Manoling greeted us, shaking hands in particular with my husband, son and myself. Though he is who he is, he has remained humble. ANd by the way, we have the same birthday. That's my claim to fame. I share my birthday with a good and holy man.