Belen Jesuit Preparatory School

To the Band of Brothers: November 8, 2024

Fr. Willie, S.J. '87 | President
Good morning,

Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J. (1907-1991), former General of the Society of Jesus, wrote a beautiful prayer he titled “In the Hands of God.” He wrote it after suffering a debilitating stroke that forced him to step down as General Superior and confined him to his bed. Just imagine how a man who had been elected by his peers and approved by his Pope to lead one of the largest, most storied missionary orders in the Catholic Church must have felt lying helplessly in a bed, confined to his room. 

The prayer goes like this:

“More than ever, I find myself in the hands of God.
This is what I have wanted all my life from my youth.
But now there is a difference;
the initiative is entirely with God.
It is indeed a profound spiritual experience
to know and feel myself so totally in the hands of God.”

There is something to be said about suffering. While our natural instinct is to avoid it at all costs, there are times in our lives when suffering is inescapable and will most assuredly come. Some of it is self-inflicted, and we have no one to blame but ourselves. Some of it is not, and we wonder who to blame and why God would allow it. Still, one fact remains:we all suffer.

And why not? Why would we be exempt from one of the aspects of human life that has been present from what seems like the beginning? If we look at the Old Testament, we read that the chosen people of God understood suffering to have been introduced when man first sinned. What that sin was, we don’t know exactly (some manifestation of pride, I am sure). What we do know is at one point, after God created men and women in His image and likeness, they decided to turn their backs on God. That is when the suffering began.

And again, why not? Didn’t Jesus, the Son of God, the second person of the most holy Trinity, the Alpha and Omega, the one who walked on water, cleansed the lepers, healed the sick, and multiplied the loaves,  also suffer? He suffered in heaven as he saw his brothers and sisters’ sins and struggles. He suffered by lowering himself from his divine nature and taking on our human nature with all its inconveniences. He suffered persecution, insults, betrayal, slaps on the face, crucifixion, and death. If Jesus was exposed to suffering, why wouldn’t we? 

But suffering has its benefits. The pain we sometimes experience can lead to moments of great consolation because we are driven to surrender ourselves completely to God. Oftentimes, our successes and achievements can lead us to declare ourselves independent and self-sustaining. “I have no need of God,” one might say. “I got this,” another might boast. We can forget about God because we allow ourselves to be distracted by the success.

Suffering grounds us. It awakens in us a sense of vulnerability and reminds us we are powerless at times in the face of great adversity. Like a child who runs to his mother’s arms for comfort and safety when they are in pain or afraid, suffering can lead us to run to the arms of God and experience His embrace, comfort and safety.

Why God allows us to suffer is a great question and one that may ultimately not have an answer (or at least not one that completely satisfies, especially the sufferer). I definitely don’t know exactly what the answer is, but I do know it is exactly in those moments of suffering, when I am rendered powerless and without answers, that I take great comfort in simply surrendering to God. That’s exactly where I need to be.
Trust me, I wish it could be different. I wish surrender could come without the price of suffering. But our pride and extreme self-reliance get in the way. If God allows me to suffer, it is not because He takes great joy in it, but He does take great joy in knowing that in the midst of the suffering, we turn to Him and allow ourselves to be embraced, sustained, and loved.

Auspice Maria,

Fr. Willie ‘87
Back
BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School was founded in 1854 in Havana, Cuba by Queen Isabel II of Spain.  The task of educating students was assigned to the priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), whose teaching tradition is synonymous with academic excellence and spiritual discipline.  In 1961, the new political regime of Cuba confiscated the School property and expelled the Jesuit faculty.  The School was re-established in Miami the same year, and over the next decade, continued to grow.  Today, Belen Jesuit sits on a 30-acre site in western Dade County, only minutes away from downtown Miami.