The purpose of suffering is to teach us that, in the last resort, we have nothing to hope for apart from God, to force us to place all our desires in him. When pain is prolonged beyond the point at which nothing can distract us from it, becomes so intense that our whole attention is absorbed; then we must lose consciousness or go temporarily mad or master it by charity. Our Lord's method was the last. His whole sensibility outraged, deserted by his friends and deprived of all earthly consolation, he sent forth his spirit in longing towards the Father in the supreme act of love whereby we are redeemed.
"Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit".
This was the heart of redemption, of the sacrifice of the cross. Not pain, not individual suffering offered up to God as a sort of gift--as if we could give anything to God which is not already his, or as if (which is equally unthinkable) he could take pleasure in human anguish. The blood and wounds of Calvary are tokens of an immortal love. Through them Christ demonstrated to the world how close was his union with the Father. In this way, he proposed himself as the model, and gave countenance to the universal and only significant meaning of sacrifice to God: inner dedication of spirit. Whatever is offered to God in order to raise man's spirit to him may be called a sacrifice.
Dom Alfred Graham-
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