Many years ago I had been struck by some words spoken by a fictional priest in a Maurice Baring novel that the acceptance of suffering was the secret of life. This one phrase seemed to encapsulate so much. Since we are all doomed to suffer it is not suffering but its acceptance that makes the difference.

Later, during my time with Fr Ho Lung and Missionaries of the Poor in Jamaica, I came to see that sanctity required more than merely the acceptance of suffering. Holiness meant moving beyond the acceptance of suffering to its joyful embrace. This deeper understanding was encapsulated in the motto of the Missionaries of the Poor: “Joyful Suffering with Christ on the Cross”. The key word in this phrase, the word that literally unlocks the deepest meaning of the motto, is not the magisterial “Christ” or the crucial “Cross”, nor is it “joyful” or “suffering”. The key word is the humble preposition “with”. Holiness is not contemplation of the joyful suffering of Christ on the Cross, it is the act of joyful suffering with Christ on the Cross.   

This level of sanctity was achieved to an astonishing degree by Chiara Corbella, a young Italian who died in 2012 at the age of only twenty-eight. She died so that her child might live. I have prayed to her often.

Those wishing to know more about this holy and inspiring woman should read on:     

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2014/chiara-corbella-a-witness-to-joy