Vigils Reading – Bl Martyrs of Rochefort

A reading from the encyclical “Salvifici Doloris” by

POPE ST JOHN PAUL II

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The Cross of Christ throws salvific light, in a most penetrating way, on

man’s life and in particular on his suffering. For through faith the Cross reaches

man together with the Resurrection: the mystery of the Passion is contained in

the Paschal Mystery. The witnesses of Christ’s Passion are at the same time

witnesses of his Resurrection. Paul writes: “That I may know him (Christ) and

the power of his Resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him

in his death, that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead”. Truly,

the Apostle first experienced the “power of the Resurrection” of Christ, on the

road to Damascus, and only later, in this paschal light, reached that ” sharing in

his sufferings”…

The witnesses of the Cross and Resurrection were convinced that

“through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God”… Thus to share

in the sufferings of Christ is, at the same time, to suffer for the Kingdom of God.

In the eyes of the just God, before his judgment, those who share in the suffering

of Christ become worthy of this Kingdom. Through their sufferings…they repay

the infinite price of the Passion and death of Christ, which became the price of

our Redemption: at this price the Kingdom of God has been consolidated anew

in human history, becoming the definitive prospect of man’s earthly existence.

Christ has led us into this Kingdom through his suffering… To the prospect of

the Kingdom of God is linked hope in that glory which has its beginning in the

Cross of Christ…

If, in fact, the Cross was to human eyes Christ’s emptying of himself, at

the same time it was in the eyes of God his being lifted up. On the Cross, Christ

attained and fully accomplished his mission: by fulfilling the will of the Father,

he at the same time fully realized himself. In weakness he manifested

his power, and in humiliation he manifested all his messianic greatness. Are

not all the words he uttered during his agony on Golgotha a proof of this

greatness, and especially his words concerning the perpetrators of his

crucifixion: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”? To those

who share in Christ’s sufferings these words present themselves with the power

of a supreme example…

In the Paschal Mystery Christ began the union with man in the

community of the Church. The mystery of the Church is expressed in this: that

already in the act of Baptism, which brings about a configuration with Christ,

and then through his Sacrifice — sacramentally through the Eucharist—the

Church is continually being built up spiritually as the Body of Christ. In this

Body, Christ wishes to be united with every individual, and in a special way he is

united with those who suffer… Christ has in a sense opened his own redemptive

suffering to all human suffering. In so far as man becomes a sharer in Christ’s

sufferings—in any part of the world and at any time in history—to that extent he

in his own way completes the suffering through which Christ accomplished the

Redemption of the world… Only within this radius and dimension of the Church

as the Body of Christ, which continually develops in space and time, can one

think and speak of “what is lacking” in the sufferings of Christ.