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| Thanks to Wiki for the photo of Alaskan Fireweed |
So many Catholics know avoid suffering and even "hate" it. When we really suffer, we suffer in the body, the spirit, and the emotions. Real suffering involves the entire person and that is the point.
Suffering is the only thing which purifies our mind, heart and spirit.
Suffering is the only thing which destroys our self-will.
The wonderful John Hardon, who should be canonized, wrote this:
Expiation. First, then, regarding expiation. There are two ways of expiating because there are really two things to expiate. Expiation is already the pursuit of holiness. Nevertheless, it is one thing to remove sin and grow in holiness thereby; it is another thing to grow in virtue and grow in holiness thereby. Expiation has to do with sin. When anyone sins the person does two things wrong. First of all, God is offended; there is a breach of the friendly relationship between the Creator and the creature, which sin either partly, or if it is grave, completely breaks. But sin also causes disorder. It is not only that God is offended, but there is havoc, damage, harm done to the person who sins and generally to many other people besides.
Consequently, when we talk about expiation, on the first level it is expiation through reparation to God. Since He has been offended, the offense must somehow be repaired. A few doublets will bring out the implication. Disobedience must be made up by obedience; dishonor by honor; indifference by respect; the turning away from God in sin must be replaced by the turning toward God by reparation. The theological term that we use referring to the turning away from God is always an “aversion” from God. “Version” means turn, so “aversion” means to turn from. And we know that this is not a movement of muscles or geographic direction; it is of the heart. Consequently, to expiate sin, one must make up with more turning towards God; where there has been a lack of love there must be more love. Expiation is, therefore, deeply personal. Where sin consists, essentially, in the love of self, it is repaired by the love of God; and if there has been more self-love in the sin committed, there must be more God-love in the reparation offered.
Second, there must also be expiation through mortification. That word has a very technical meaning. In context, it means that besides offense against God there has been disorder in the world, harm caused and injury done. There must be mortification by sacrifice of creatures where there has been indulgence of creatures. Whenever we sin, we attach ourselves to a creature to which we have no right and prefer it, either more or less or completely, to God. The essence of expiation as mortification is that we voluntarily give up a creature to which we do have a right, in order to make up for the indulgence of a creature to which we did not have a right. To miss that is to have missed a great deal.
So we have various comparatives: self-indulgence is expiated through self-denial where the denial is of things to which we have a right—otherwise it is not mortification. If we don’t have a right to the creature it cannot be called mortification because we are not to choose that creature anyway. Again, pleasure and pain: in sin we embrace a pleasure; in mortification we embrace a pain with our wills.
Sanctification. Now, why is there suffering for sanctification? We could hardly know this except for God’s becoming man. Job struggled with it, and we know he didn’t do too good a job. The mystery was raised, but the final answer came only with Christ. We now know because of Christ that suffering can be not only expiatory, but also sanctifying. God became man to show us that it can be done and how it can be done, and of course, the fact that He did it tells us that it should be done.
The essential element in the use of suffering as a means of sanctification is that a person voluntarily accepts the suffering out of love for God. If that is not present, the whole thing is meaningless. This was Christ’s motive. So it is not merely the tolerance of suffering. We are told in revelation that “having the joy set before Him” He chose the cross by preference. Suffering must become sacrifice to be sanctifying.
This implies, at least relatively speaking, innocence in the person who suffers. In other words, the suffering he has is not that which has been brought on by his own sin. We know that we deserve a lot of suffering, but all kinds of suffering can come our way which we did not bring on ourselves and for which we are not responsible, culpable agents. That element of innocence is important. It can relieve people of much worry, so that they no longer hopelessly ask, “Why me?” That’s the first letter of the alphabet; that is precisely what Christ is teaching us. He was the absolutely sinless, innocent Lamb of God and He suffered for other people’s sins. The notion of altruism and of vicarious suffering is very close to the heart of suffering as the means of sanctification. Suffering is the much more sacrificial when we least deserve the pain we experience. That’s hard to take! When we have it coming, we say to ourselves if we’re honest, “What did you expect? The last time you met her you told her off; so now she told you off. Tit for tat.” But if someone told you off, and you have been extraordinarily kind to her, that’s where suffering for sanctification starts.
http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/pea/suffer.htm