Redemptive suffering/odd question

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Maragal

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Hi everyone - Ive been doing so much reading on redemptive suffering, and the forsaken Jesus. Really helpful stuff - from the saints, theologians, etc.

Heres where Im stuck: can, and how can, suffering be redemptive (and within Gods overall plan) for those who “dont know God” (maybe through no fault of their own) - or dont even understand the basics of redemptive suffering? The young child, the adult bitter about faith because of an abusive faith background, the lovely old protestant lady whose church never taught about it? And she ends up with, for example, cancer, but doesn’t “offer it up” because she simply doesnt understand it all!

I feel “blessed” that if Im caused to suffer (and I dont wish it on myself) I can at least “use it well”. Where is the “point” for those who simply dont and never will hear about or understand offering up? Whats Gods purpose in THEIR suffering?

Thanks for any ruminations!
 
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I don’t know that people necessarily have to be aware of the concept, in order to practice it. Moved by grace I think people may well do right things, as the Good Samaritan did, spontaneously. Always better to know the game plans but I think the game is often played without them anyway. And God is still pleased.
 
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Ven. Fulton Sheen taught that if people didn’t offer up their suffering, it was wasted.

Having said that, I’m pretty sure there are ways for people to offer up suffering even if they aren’t Catholic or even if they aren’t Christian.

As for God’s purpose in giving people suffering, we don’t know all of God’s purposes; one explanation might be that it’s a form of a soul doing its purgatory on earth, even if the person doesn’t believe in Purgatory or doesn’t know what it is. A lot of religious belief systems have some idea of suffering being an atonement or a purification or a way of being forced to more deeply contemplate their lives and their spirituality.
 
Maragal said:
… can, and how can, suffering be redemptive (and within Gods overall plan) for those who “dont know God” (maybe through no fault of their own) - or dont even understand the basics of redemptive suffering? … Whats Gods purpose in THEIR suffering? …
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The Holy Trinity wishes to save all (“salvation is offered to all through Christ”), yet some are not saved due to non-cooperation with grace. There are a few meanings of suffering, at least 1) from the limitation of nature (so called metaphysical evil), 2) from the loss of original justice (moral evil, physical evil), and 3) redemptive suffering.

Catechism
385 God is infinitely good and all his works are good. Yet no one can escape the experience of suffering or the evils in nature which seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures: and above all to the question of moral evil. …

389 The doctrine of original sin is, so to speak, the “reverse side” of the Good News that Jesus is the Savior of all men, that all need salvation and that salvation is offered to all through Christ. The Church, which has the mind of Christ,263 knows very well that we cannot tamper with the revelation of original sin without undermining the mystery of Christ.

616 It is love "to the end"446 that confers on Christ’s sacrifice its value as redemption and reparation, as atonement and satisfaction. He knew and loved us all when he offered his life.447 Now "the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died."448 No man, not even the holiest, was ever able to take on himself the sins of all men and offer himself as a sacrifice for all. The existence in Christ of the divine person of the Son, who at once surpasses and embraces all human persons, and constitutes himself as the Head of all mankind, makes possible his redemptive sacrifice for all.

1521 Union with the passion of Christ. By the grace of this sacrament the sick person receives the strength and the gift of uniting himself more closely to Christ’s Passion: in a certain way he is consecrated to bear fruit by configuration to the Savior’s redemptive Passion. Suffering, a consequence of original sin, acquires a new meaning; it becomes a participation in the saving work of Jesus.
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Thanks everyone for your replies. I like this idea that people are participating in it, even if they dont know it explicitly. “They are playing the game without knowing the game plan”. And yes, people doing their purgatory on earth (without knowing it). And, ofcourse, how suffering sometimes changes us for the better- I think of Michael J Fox’s autobiography and how his illness made him confront the areas in his life that needed confronting. And while I dont remember him speaking of God “explicitly” (I cant quite remember) in his own fashion he was reaching spiritual truths.

What made me think about this - the friends I have going through some pretty extreme suffering right now, and they don’t know about offering up. I was reading Edith Stein and her harrowing experiences, in the most extreme situation, the evil done to her and the Jewish people. And through all of her very real suffering, her ability to align it to Jesus’s - she made some sort of comment about having to do so (connect it with Jesus) even for all the people she was suffering with, who didnt understand it as part of the Cross. And it got me wondering- what about these poor souls, God rest them all, who had to suffer through it, and didnt have the belief/understanding about the Cross? (Iam confident they are now with God).

Really appreciate this discussion!
 
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Edith Stein is a saint, so her spiritual understanding of what she was experiencing would have been way beyond the average person’s.

The Jewish people are no strangers to suffering - it’s all through the Old Testament. Although they don’t relate it to Christ or a redemptive Messiah, they have their own religious constructs for understanding it as part of God’s plan and as some kind of atonement.
 
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