Does suffering deviate us from the road to Hell?

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I recently watched a video by a priest where he said we should be thankful for everything.
We should be specially grateful about our suffering, because suffering, when it CHANGES our lives and behaviors, is sent by God to save us from the path to Hell.
So sometimes suffering is God’s gift to save us.

Is it true?
 
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Suffering doesn’t cause us to avoid hell.
It depends upon our response to suffering.
If we become bitter or unloving, then of course suffering won’t lead us to heaven.

We must do our best to reasonably deal with the suffering, with taking the best possible care of our physical and mental health, our losses, our pain, and try to be good, kind, and loving.

We can unite our sufferings with the sufferings of Jesus in prayer for others’s souls.

What the priest meant was that suffering can jolt people repent any ungodly ways, to turn to God and to pray, and to offer their sufferings with Christ in prayer.
 
That’s why I wrote " when it CHANGES our lives and behaviors"

I know that if it wasn’t because of a misfortune I had, I would never have understood Christ’s message.
 
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Suffering is no more nor less than an unavoidable side-effect of living life as a human being.

It is not evil in itself, but neither is it per se admirable or meritorious.

If accepted in the spirit of penance, it might be worth something.

ICXC NIKA
 
“I had to pass through many trials before reaching the haven of peace, before tasting the delicious fruits of perfect love and of complete abandonment to God’s will.”

~ ST. THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX
 
Suffering is
  • a normal part of life
  • a learning experience
  • a consequence of man’s sins (not necessarily the sins of the person who is suffering)
  • sometimes a test from God
  • sometimes something to be offered up to God
  • what we make of it
  • something we likely don’t fully understand while on earth but will understand better in heaven
 
  1. Christ suffered throughout His ministry and particularly at the end.
  2. Christ’s atonement was made via suffering.
  3. Saint Paul filled up in his body what was lacking (or: ‘could be added to’) the sufferings of Christ.
  4. Through our baptism, we are members of Christ’s Body.
  5. We are guaranteed suffering, as that is the universal human experience.
  6. As members of Christ’s Body, there is purpose in our suffering.
  7. We may offer our suffering for others, just as Christ did. Each of us is Christ’s “mini me.”
  8. We are most Christ-like when we suffer, as we directly emulate Him - as long as we perceive the correct acceptaance and use of that suffering - and do not waste it.
  9. Look at what suffering produces:
“More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:3-5)
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The great Saints are great, very often because of their suffering. As did Peter and John, they enjoyed suffering for their love of God. We all suffer. We should endeavor to suffer well, and with holy purpose.
 
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Of course! but consider: fear of suffering is suffering! Why not put that to eternal use? He knows what we are made of. But, ultimately, we should fear neither suffering nor death.
 
Not all of the time. Sometimes, feeling sorry for ourselves causes us to become bitter and resentful and that can lead us to hell. You can offer your suffering up to God and we can try to think about it as positively as possible.
 
‘Learn, then, to suffer little things now that you may not have to suffer greater ones in eternity. Prove here what you can bear hereafter. If you can suffer only a little now, how will you be able to endure eternal torment? If a little suffering makes you impatient now, what will hell fire do? In truth, you cannot have two joys: you cannot taste the pleasures of this world and afterward reign with Christ.’ - The Imitation of Christ
 
Doing good things leads to suffering: taking your time to go to Church, helping the poor, giving up what you want to buy so you can buy it for your children.

Even things like getting punched in the face and not retaliating or refusing to drink too much or any alcohol. Sinful things that would make us feel good, we reject and suffer for the sake of God.

Salvation and Suffering go together.
 
Roma 8 :15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, “Abba! Father!”
16 it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
17 and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Col 1:24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,

1 Pet 2:20 For what credit is it, if when you do wrong and are beaten for it you take it patiently? But if when you do right and suffer for it you take it patiently, you have God’s approval.
21For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.

1 Pet 1:6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer various trials,
7 so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold which though perishable is tested by fire, may redound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

We join our suffering to the cross, most importantly seen in Romans and why i placed it first. Our suffering joined to the cross unites us with that salvific sacrifice for the benefit of others whether we see it or not.

Peace and God Bless
Nicene
 
Suffering is part of the whole of human existence. None of us will avoid it. It’s the denial of suffering that is the problem.
Experiences of joy and happiness can detour us from hell also, if we don’t take them for granted or demand them as our “right”.

We should be thankful for it all, in a Eucharistic sense, offering our whole lives to God for his praise and for the salvation of others.
 
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St. Thomas More, from his “Dialogue of Comfort in a Time of Tribulation”
If we lay first, for a sure ground, a very fast faith, whereby we believe to be true all that the scripture saith (understood truly, as the old holy doctors declare it and as the spirit of God instructeth his Catholic Church), then shall we consider tribulation as a gracious gift of God, a gift that he specially gave his special friends; a thing that in scripture is highly commended and praised; a thing of which the contrary, long continued, is perilous; a thing which, if God send it not, men have need to put upon themselves and seek by penance; a thing that helpeth to purge our past sins; a thing that preserveth us from sins that otherwise would come; a thing that causeth us to set less by the world; a thing that much diminisheth our pains in purgatory; a thing that much increaseth our final reward in heaven; the thing with which all his apostles followed him thither; the thing to which our Saviour exhorteth all men; the thing without which he saith we be not his disciples; the thing without which no man can get to heaven.
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See also Hebrews 12:6-11.
 
Put simply, yes, this is true. Some people won’t change anything until their lives are in tatters. Alcoholics and other addicts call it hitting rock bottom, and it’s frequently what has to happen before they are actually willing to change.
 
I actually was feeling really upset the other day and I offered it up for the Holy Souls and it stared to lift. I don’t mean to virtue signal but that really did seem to help and I pray that little bit of suffering was used by God to work some good elsewhere in the spiritual realm. Worth trying !
 
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