Need book recommendation about redemptive suffering

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EmeraldOak

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My father was a cradle Catholic but then as an adult left the church to become a non-denominational Evangelical, then is now a part of Jimmy Swaggert’s church. He is discouraged with the many health challenges that he has. I would like to talk to him about the value of his physical pain, but when I try to bring it up he disagrees that there is merit in “offering up” our pain to God. He believes that Jesus paid for our sins in full and that no pain we offer up can add to that. Any book recommendations to help understand this issue? Either I can read it and explain it to him or I can give him the book. Thank you!
 
St.John Paul II encyclical" Salvifici Doloris," on thevChristian meaning of Suffering.
Beautifully explains really the gift of Redemptive suffering,uniting to Christ through this action.👍
 
Jeanne, thanks.

Emerald, he is a man. He will understand suffering for others. He suffered for you and made sacrifices for you while you were growing up.

Jesus suffered for us. He offered his suffering to the Father as a sin offering for our separation through sin to the Father. The Father accepted. Jesus’ redemptive sufferings atoned for our sins.

Suggest to him that he can join his sufferings both physical and emotional to Jesus’ sufferings because Jesus’ sufferings spread throughout all time, even today, to purify our sins. He can offer his suffering to Jesus and ask him to apply those sufferings to a specific good for someone or some cause.

Have him try this:

“Jesus I offer this suffering for (a particular person) who (here he inserts the reason).”

or

“Jesus I offer to you this suffering today for the success of the pro-life movement (or for an end to war, or for any cause or circumstance.)”
 
He might find the first chapter or so of Catherine of Siena’s *Dialogues *thought-provoking, because it starts off confirming what he already thinks, but then takes things deeper.
Do you not know, my daughter, that all the sufferings the soul bears or can bear in this life are not enough to punish one smallest sin? For an offense against me, infinite Good, demands infinite satisfaction. So I want you to know that not all sufferings given in this life are given for punishment, but rather for correction, to chastise the child who offends. However, it is true that a soul’s desire, that is, true contrition and sorrow for sin, can make satisfaction. True contrition satisfies for sin and its penalty not by virtue of any finite suffering you may bear, but by virtue of your infinite desire. For God, who is infinite, would have infinite love and infinite sorrow.
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The infinite sorrow God wills is twofold: for the offense you yourself have committed against your Creator, and for the offense you see on your neighbors’ part. Because those who have such sorrow have infinite desire and are one with me in loving affection (which is why they grieve when they sin or see others sinning), every suffering they bear from any source at all, in spirit or in body, is of infinite worth, and so satisfies for the offense that deserved an infinite penalty. True, these are finite deeds in finite time. But because their virtue is practiced and their suffering borne with infinite desire and contrition and sorrow for sin, it has value.
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EmeraldOak said:
My father was a cradle Catholic but then as an adult left the church to become a non-denominational Evangelical, then is now a part of Jimmy Swaggert’s church. He is discouraged with the many health challenges that he has. I would like to talk to him about the value of his physical pain, but when I try to bring it up he disagrees that there is merit in “offering up” our pain to God. He believes that Jesus paid for our sins in full and that no pain we offer up can add to that. Any book recommendations to help understand this issue? Either I can read it and explain it to him or I can give him the book. Thank you!
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A LITTLE BOOK OF ETERNAL WISDOM

Blessed Henry Suso

(1295 - 1366) Dominican and German mystic

Excerpt :

The Servant.–O Lord, it is so easy to talk, but the reality is so difficult to endure, for it is so very painful.

Eternal Wisdom.–If suffering gave no pain, it could not becalled suffering. There is nothing more painful than suffering, and nothing more joyful than to have suffered.

Suffering is a short pain and a long joy. Suffering gives to the sufferer pain here and joy hereinafter. Suffering kills suffering. Suffering is ordained that the sufferer may not suffer eternally. Hadst thou so much spiritual sweetness and divine consolation and heavenly delight as, at all times, to overflow with the divine dew, it would not be for thee so very meritorious of itself, since, for all this together, I should not have to thank thee so much; it could not exculpate thee so much as an affectionate suffering or patience in adversity, in which thou sufferest for My sake.

Sooner will ten be perverted and ruined in the midst of a great delight and joyous sweetness than one in the midst of constant suffering and adversity. If thou hadst as much science as all the astronomers, if thou couldst discourse as ably of God as all the tongues of men and angels, and didst possess the treasures of knowledge of all the masters, not all this could avail to advance thee in a good life, so much as if thou didst give thyself up, and didst abandon thyself in all thy sufferings to God; for the former is common to the good and the bad, but the latter is proper to My elect alone. continue-
catholictreasury.info/books/eternal_wisdom/ew14.php
 
Victim souls.

The life of Bl. Alexandrina is a good start. I think the book is called ‘The Agony and the Glory.’ It is a profound work - very beautiful and theologically rich; yet, without being dense and technical.

Bl. Alexandrina was allegedly told by Our Lord: “Thousands have been saved by your terrible sufferings.”
 
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