Today we are staying in Palas de Rei. I think that it would translate to something like palace of the king, but we have been joking that it is palace of REI, the outdoors store at which we bought most of our gear.
We are only 62kms from Santiago, and, although we are close, the past few days of hiking have been quite mountainous. This has presented me with, unluckily, not a new problem but one with which I have delt many times on our pilgrimage: blisters. The terrain isn’t making anything better either and is starting to take a small toll on my calves. Don’t worry, my pains are nothing truly considerable and this post isn’t just me venting about my aches and pains.
Michael and I have joked about naming our blisters after virtues. So when I feel a sharp pain from the blister on my heel, I should focus on using that discomfort as a reminder to grow in perseverance. We have only been saying this as an ongoing joke, yet I think there is something valuable to be learned here.
We are always told by society and popular culture that we should do what feels best and if we don’t like doing something we should simply stop. But is that really what we are made for? Is our life supposed to be just a collection of emotions?
When speaking about this very topic, Pope Benedict XVI offered some simple yet wise words. “The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.”
Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with wanting to feel comfortable. Likewise wanting to fulfill our sensory needs are apart of being human. However, we are so much more than just an emotional body. Each of us has a very specific purpose for our life. One that goes beyond this world. As I have pointed out before, if we seek to be fulfilled by earthly means, our thirst will never be quenched.
We are all made to be great, in fact we are all made to be saints. And to achieve this we must go beyond our own desires and deny ourselves. When pain and discomfort presents itself, instead of retreating into a place of temporary consolation we can embrace it and offer it up. When we offer our sufferings to the Lord we unite ourselves to Christ and his passion.
To find a perfect example of this, we don’t have to look any further than our Blessed Mother, Mary. Her fiat (“let it be so”) to God brought about the salvation of the world, yet it wasn’t without pain. Mary wept as she watched her son be whipped, torchered, mocked, and crucified. I cannot think of anything more tramatic than a mother witnessing the death of her own child. Although Mary was already intimately connected to Christ as his mother, she drew even closer to him when her sufferings were united to his. Her “yes” at the Annunciation allowed Christ to come into the world and eventually brought her to the cross with her son. Even at the cross, she accepted God’s will and trusted in his plan, and by doing so entered deeper into relationship with him by suffering with him.
We should all be trying to grow closer to Christ everyday. Any physical, mental, or spiritual sufferings are not a hindrance, but an aid to achieveing this goal. Suffering is a fact of life and we can either look at it with fear and aversion or we can see it as a tool of purification and as a preperation to accept our future death, when we will surrendor everything into God’s hands. Imitating our Lord, especially in his sufferings, may not be easy, but it will bring us closer to truly fulfilling our lives.
– Luke