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II B.25 Suffering: A Chance to Love the Persecutors and to Imitate Jesus (Diary, # 1454)
(Diary, # 1454): Sr. Faustina wrote in her Diary that on New Year’s Day in 1938, when
night fell, her physical sufferings, along with her moral sufferings increased. The somber silence
of the night made it possible for her to suffer at liberty, without prying souls around her. She
usually stretched her body on the wood of the cross and struggled in “terrible pain” until eleven
o’clock at night. She then went “in spirit” to the Tabernacle, opened the ciborium, and rested her
head on its rim, with copious tears flowing quietly towards the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He alone
truly understood the depths of human pain and suffering. He also let her experience the mystery
of suffering from persecution for the sake of Christ - the “sweetness of this suffering” that even
made her want “this sweet agony.” Sr. Faustina would not exchange her sufferings for any
wealth in this world. For the Lord also gave her the “strength of spirit” as well as “love for those
through whom these sufferings came.”
In Salvifici Doloris, Pope/St. John Paul II teaches that the “Gospel of Suffering” is a call
to endure suffering like Christ and to unite one’s sufferings with Christ. 169 There is also a hidden,
interior grace from being persecuted for Christ sake. Not only is one d