Guts

I have wasted a lifetime of trials because I have been waiting for the perfect sacrifice!

Saint Rita of Cascia (Unknown)

Sacrifice seems like such a simple thing.  It is clean and neat and almost romantic when we think about it.

I imagine the lives of the Saints.  Saint Rita of Cascia experienced the Mystical wound of a thorn from the Crown of Thorns of Christ during her lifetime.  This wound is depicted in artworks as a tiny red spot on the Saints head.  It looks almost beautiful – like a bit of lipstick staining the skin after a kiss.  In reality, the wound was very painful.  It would fill with maggots and smelled very foul.  It smelled so foul that the nuns in the convent with Saint Rita could not bear to be around her as the offensive smell made them so uncomfortable.

For a wound to smell in this way and to be filled with maggots it was likely very infected.  The skin around the wound was also likely very inflamed.  The Saint was unlikely to be beautiful to look at with a wound in the middle of her face.  She was unlikely to be pleasant to be around if the smell was terrible.  She would have been isolated and lonely away from the other sisters.  Perhaps she felt ashamed at times about the smell or the wound?  Perhaps the wound on her head smelled bad even to her?  It surely would have ached.

And though we consider this miracle with hindsight and think of it in romantic terms – seeing it as a sign of God’s favour and love of the Saint – at the time she would have just felt sore and isolated and embarrassed.  People would have spoken about her.  People would have mocked her and avoided her. This sacrifice that she made was not clean and neat and tidy – it was guts and blood and pus and maggots.

As Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska was dying, her body began to smell.  She recounted an incident where one of the nuns passed her in the hallway and asked what the terrible smell of decay was and she replied that the smell was the decay of her own body…

She also suffered terribly and wrote at one point in her Diary on 10 March 1938…

“Continuous physical suffering. I am on the cross with Jesus. On one occasion, M. Superior [Irene] said to me, ‘It is a lack of love of neighbour on your part, Sister, that you eat something and then you suffer and disturb the others during their night’s rest.’ Yet I know for sure that these pains which occur in my intestines are not all caused by food. The doctor [probably Dr. Silberg] has said the same thing. These sufferings come from the body itself or rather are a visitation of the Lord. Nevertheless, after that remark I resolved to suffer in secret and not to ask for help, because it is of no avail anyway, since I throw up the medicines that are given to me.” (Diary 1633).

Saint Faustina died of tuberculosis of the intestines, which was undiagnosed for many years.  This suffering – this sacrifice – was not easy and not beautiful.  It was ugly and uncomfortable.  It hurt and demanded such patience from those who suffered…

I have been comparing this suffering with the various small sufferings of my own life.  I have spent much of my life wishing my sufferings away.  I have spent much time trying to get away from that suffering or trying to move past it.  I have spent much time trying to move away from my little trials…

And it occurs to me – upon reflection of these great trials and sufferings – that I have forgotten how to see the suffering.  I have tried to see it as romantic.  But it is not – it is guts and blood and pus.  It smells bad and feels bad and is terribly terribly unfair.

And I have been thinking about that today.  And it breaks my heart to realise that I have wasted a lifetime of trials because I have been waiting for the perfect sacrifice!

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.