Romans 5: 3-5 (A Priceless Gift)
Romans 5:3-5
What can Romans 5: 3-5 teach us about the best way to offer our suffering?
A Priceless Gift
Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Romans 5:3-5
When we give a gift to someone, and we complain about our difficulties in shopping for it, and so on, the person receiving it will not feel comfortable or happy. But if we give it with a joyful heart, they can see beyond the details of the gift to the love we put into it.
Our gifts to God work the same way. When we offer up our suffering* for the souls in Purgatory, for example, its value depends on grace and our efforts. If we complain the entire time, it becomes a gift of little value. It is priceless when we do two things: pray for the grace to bear it well and give it our best effort. (September 25, 2022)
*We can pray for our suffering to be over, but when it isn’t, we can offer it up.
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CREDITS
The LOGO image of Our Lady of Grace is original artwork by Martin Lariviere in 2009. We have the artist’s permission (my son). It is our exclusive trademark logo image.
Raphael painted The Sistine Madonna circa (1513-1514). We made circular cut-outs from the original image.
Bible verses are from the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.
Photos
A beautifully photographed sky by Donald Tong inspired the website’s colour scheme. Cropped portions of it are the background for the footer Bible verse. He shared it as a free download on pexels.com.
The stormy shore photo is by dimitrisvetsikas1969 at Pixabay.
For those interested in using the Bible image, we are sharing it as a free, public-domain image. To download the full size, we linked it here: Cathopic is an online source for free Catholic images. Once you create an account with them, you can use their photos (no credit needed) as part of a free trial. There are only a few restrictions, outlined in their Terms of Use.
Credits for linked images are on their respective pages.
IN REVIEW
When we offer up our (unavoidable) suffering for the souls in Purgatory, for example, its value depends on two things. It is priceless when we pray for the grace to bear it well and give it our best effort. It has less value when we complain about it.