ARE YOU SUFFERING?
You can become a member of the Apostolate of the Suffering by simply making a daily offering of your sufferings and prayers for an increase in vocations to the priesthood in our diocese. We have provided a Morning Offering prayer to be prayed daily. Also, that if it be God's will to take you home and in His time to bring you in union with Him, you would continue to offer prayers and intercessions for vocations to the priesthood for our diocese from heaven. "Today our little Sister Maria Goretti went to our Lord . . . Now she is with Jesus - the first M.C. in heaven. . . Now with Sister in heaven we shall get many vocations." - Mother Theresa.
One of the most precious gifts God has given us in the ability to unite our suffering to Jesus Christ's. Far from being a burden to society, a suffering person can be a source of great blessing to himself and to others by suffering for God well.
Has from all eternity beheld the cross
He bestows upon you -
His precious gift
from His heart.
He contemplated this cross
With His all-knowing eye
Before bestowing it upon you.
He pondered over it
With his divine mind;
He examined it
With His all-wise justice;
With his loving mercy
He warmed it through and through
And with both His hands
He weighed it
To determine if it be
One ounce too heavy for you.
He blessed it with His all-holy Name.
With his grace He anointed it.
And with His consolation He perfumed it.
And then once more
He considered you
And your courage.
Finally, it come from heaven
As a special message of God
To you; an alms
Of the all-merciful love of God for you.
- St. Francis de Sales
"Follow the Divine Master up the steep slope of Calvary, loaded with the cross and when it pleases Him to place us on the cross by confining us to a bed of pain, let us thank Him and consider ourselves lucky to be honored in this way, aware that to be on the cross with Jesus is infinitely more perfect than merely contemplating Him on the cross." -St. Padre Pio.