Story by Joe Pisani
As I sat in the pew, saying my prayers and waiting for Mass to begin, I looked around at the scattering of people who came through the door. I knew most of them. The faithful who come to daily Mass are a recognizable group. They usually arrive a half hour early to sit in silence before the tabernacle and then stay to pray the rosary.
As I looked at each of them, I said a silent prayer, hoping we’d all be reunited in the heavenly banquet someday. Then, I realized something else:
Not that most of them were seniors, who had been coming to Mass a long time.
Not that they were patriots who loved their country and their Church. Walking through the parking lot, you’d quickly come to that conclusion because their cars had American flags flying from the roofs and bumper stickers with slogans like “Save America, Pray the Rosary.”
What struck me most of all, as I looked at them in the pews, was that they were all carrying crosses. Everyone will carry a cross in life, but as we age, the number of crosses and the weight of the crosses can become even more burdensome.
One woman cared for her husband with Alzheimer’s, and it had been a long hard road for her.
Another suffered a stroke and was brought in her wheelchair, accompanied by a fellow using a walker. A few of them could no longer kneel because of arthritis and other infirmities that accompany old age, but I’m sure Jesus didn’t mind that they sat through the Mass.
One man had a son suffering from addiction. Several — probably more than several — had cancer and were undergoing treatment. Another man’s wife had been hospitalized and needed the care of a nurse around the clock.
Most of them had lost a husband or a wife and were living their so-called golden years alone; so morning Mass was one of the few opportunities they had to socialize and spend time with one another … and with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. You’ll never have a greater friend than Jesus in your old age.
These were the members of Church militant, the faithful who were holding the world together with their rosaries and sacrifices. They were the ones sharing in the suffering of Christ to bring down unimaginable graces on a darkening world.
Even though they carried crosses, they were still joyful and hopeful, and that was because, I’m sure, they were carrying them with Christ.
I thought of Pope St. John Paul II, who was no stranger to suffering — from his childhood when he lost his mother and sister and later his father, to his coming of age in occupied Poland during World War II. And, of course, during his years after the assassin’s attempt on his life and his final ordeal with Parkinson’s disease.
He also was the author of the apostolic letter, “On the Christian Meaning of Suffering.” Released 40 years ago on Feb. 11, 1984, the letter “Salvifici doloris” (“Redemptive suffering”) explores suffering in the light of the cross.
“Each one is called to share in that suffering through which the Redemption was accomplished,” John Paul II wrote. “He is called to share in that suffering through which all human suffering has also been redeemed. In bringing about the Redemption through suffering, Christ has also raised human suffering to the level of the Redemption. Thus each man, in his suffering, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ. (19)” That means each of us can help Christ brings souls back to him.
Everyone dreads suffering, but it comes to all of us at some time in our lives. No one is immune. It is, as they say, “a mystery.” It is a mystery that trips up many people and causes countless others to deny God’s existence. It can lead us to atheism, anger and resentment … or in an entirely different direction. There are those who embrace their crosses, as these seniors do, and as we all should pray for the strength to do.
“Suffering, in fact, is always a trial — at times a very hard one,” Pope St. John Paul II wrote. However, “It is suffering, more than anything else, which clears the way for the grace which transforms human souls.”
That’s what I witnessed in these men and women — redemptive suffering and the transformation of human souls.