We Are Not Used to Suffering: Sowing in the Night, Trusting in the Light: July 28, 2025

We are not used to suffering. “The Word of God today speaks to us of fragility and uncertainty, but also of abandonment into God’s hands, because the seed germinates and grows without knowing how. How encouraging these words of Jesus are in these difficult times, for those who are trying to live their faith in a context of rejection, if not contempt or persecution.”

We Are Not Used to Suffering: Sowing in the Night, Trusting in the Light

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the Kingdom.”
(Luke 12:32)

I’d like to comment on God’s word by first recalling an event that happened to me when I was 29… I had undergone knee surgery. On my third night of hospitalization, while the pain was still acute, the nurse informed me that I was no longer entitled to the painkiller, since I was supposed to have exceeded the critical pain threshold. Compassionate in the face of my suffering, the nurse nonetheless agreed to give me a pass, and as she handed me my medication, she said: “It’s just that you’re not used to suffering”. I found her very wise, and I’ve always been convinced that [in this] I learned a great lesson about life. This lesson concerns us all.

For many of the old-timers among us, including myself, we come from a Catholicism that grew up in the cozy, well framed, well regimented, by force or by will, in school, church and family, where it was easy to believe. A time when there was a Church or convent on almost every street corner in my province of Canada. But times have changed, and feeling like strangers in our own society is something new for many Christians around the world. We are not used to this suffering, this hurt. As the author of the Letter to the Hebrews 12:4 says: “You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood…”

The Word of God today speaks to us of fragility and uncertainty, but also of abandonment into God’s hands, because the seed germinates and grows without knowing how. How encouraging these words of Jesus are in these difficult times, for those who are trying to live their faith in a context of rejection, if not contempt or persecution.

When I hear the horror stories from the Middle East, surrounding the oppression of Christian minorities, to name but a few, I wonder how we would react if we had to endure such persecution, which is not the case for most of us?

I recall the testimony from a Christian in Mosul, Iraq, a city then occupied by the Islamic State, who commented as follows on the situation of Christians in his city: “We are confident in the Lord. He continues to whisper in our ear: Do not be afraid.”

There’s a lot to be concerned about in some of our provinces and vicariates. The lack of priests, the scarcity of vocations, the closure of our churches and monasteries, the spiritual emptiness that seems to be gradually submerging our societies, the total lack of understanding of our Christian roots among the younger generations…

Because we’re not used to suffering like this for our Church, we run the risk of despairing, but the Lord says to us too: “Don’t be afraid”. Look how tiny the seed of the Kingdom is, cast into the earth, crushed and suffocated by the damp earth that covers it, plunged into total darkness, and yet, in due course, bursting forth and bearing fruit. This parable speaks to us not only of Christ and His life given, but also of our work in this world, which Jesus compares to that of a gardener.

The Word of God on this day speaks to us of fragility, a fragility that refers us to the weakness of our means, to our powerlessness in the face of certain situations, to the small scope of our actions, which are often no more than a drop of water in this desert where so many men and women are thirsting for the absolute and for happiness, and yet Jesus compares our presence in the world to that of a seed, a tiny mustard seed, capable of producing an immense tree, where all the birds of the air come to nest.

One day, a king wondered what language the children would speak if they were taught none. So he had the children isolated for a few years, leaving them to their own devices, without them hearing a single word during those years. One day, he brought them before him to hear them speak. But to his astonishment, the king found that the children could neither walk, nor speak, nor understand what was said to them. They had become “wolf-children.”

And just as with children, so it is with our world. If the seed of the Gospel is not planted in the ground, it cannot bear fruit. As disciples of Christ, we are asked to sow—to sow to the four winds, without doubting the power of our acts of love, and the power of that love to transform the world one heart at a time.

We believe that Christ transfigures our every action in the secret communion of saints that unites us with our brothers and sisters in humanity. Not one action, not one word spoken in the name of Christ, in the name of this charity that grips us, is without consequence for the course of events in this world. Jesus invites us to enter into this holiness of everyday life, which every day presents us with its share of opportunities to do good.

It’s about being good where God calls us to be good, charitable where God calls us to be charitable, patient, merciful, thirsty for justice, where God calls us… To do this, we need to listen to the Gospel, and hear through the cry of the poor and the little ones, the cry of God Himself.

It’s up to us, then, to cast the seed widely and not hesitate… As for its destination, its growth and its future, that belongs to the secret [ways of] God, and to His mysterious action at the heart of the life of the Church and of our world, He who never ceases to whisper in our ear: “Don’t be afraid. Trust that I am with you! Amen.

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