In addition to the physical pain that suffering brings, suffering is a nuisance that
blocks us from what we really want to do for ourselves, our families and friends
and keeps us from our own work. Suffering wastes our time. Rather than helping
others, we need to receive care ourselves. It is hard to see anything positive in
suffering.
The second reading for this Sunday, from the Letter to the Colossians 1:24-28,
takes a different view of suffering: “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake” (Col
1:24). What possible benefit could one person’s sufferings be for anyone else?
Christ’s sufferings were for His body but a new idea arises in this passage: we
are so closely united with other believers that our sufferings also affect others
through grace. Paul asserts: “In my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the
afflictions of Christ on behalf of His body which is the Church” (Col 1:24).
Paul understood the Christian community as a body, of which Christ was the
head. Thomas Aquinas describes this relationship: “We should understand that
Christ and the Church are one mystical person, whose head is Christ, and whose
body is all the just, for every just person is a member of this head: ‘individually
members’” (1 Cor. 12:27) (Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Letter of Paul to
the Colossians, 61).
Does this passage mean that something is missing from Christ’s salvific self-
offering. St. Thomas Aquinas assures us of the power of Jesus’ sufferings: “The
blood of Christ is sufficient to redeem many worlds” (Commentary on Colossians,
61).
The First Letter of John states: “He is the expiation for our sins and not for ours
only but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 Jn 2:2). If Christ has already
made full expiation, how can we “make up what is lacking”?
According to Thomas, believers are so joined to Christ that, spiritually, we are
one person. Through this union with Christ, our sufferings are given salvific value
for others.
We might object, Christ’s sufferings were His gift to His Father as His Son, from
whom grace has been poured forth upon us. Jesus is the holy one from whose
actions grace flows. But this is certainly not true of us. We often bear our
sufferings, in a begrudged way.
It is true that our actions don’t cause grace for ourselves or others simply as our
actions alone. However, when our actions are united with Christ, those actions
are the effect of grace. Thomas explains in his Summa Theologiae: “This
movement is not the cause of grace, but the effect; hence the whole operation
pertains to grace” (1a.2ae. 111, 2, ad 2). This is similar to the way that we pray
for others not because we are so holy that we deserve to be heard in ourselves
but through our union with Jesus.

Our sufferings have value not principally because of us but because we are
joined with Christ. Through our union with Christ, our stories are the continuation
of His story. He lives with us in our story and our sufferings are joined with His.
Thomas explains: “… for what was lacking was that, just as Christ had suffered in
His own body, so He should also suffer in Paul, His member, and in similar ways
in others” (Commentary on Colossians, 61).
Just as Christ’s sufferings were for our sake, our sufferings are, as Thomas
explains, “for the sake of His body, which is the Church that was to be redeemed
by Christ.”
In one way, the sufferings of good people help others through their example, as
Thomas grants: “All the saints suffer for the Church, which receives strength from
their example” (Commentary on Colossians, 61). In another sense, the holy ones
even “merit” for us by the grace of God: “For while the merits of Christ, the head,
are infinite, each saint displays some merits in a limited degree” (Commentary on
Colossians, 61).
Paul often brought sufferings upon himself through his ministry: “For this I toil,
striving with all the energy which He mightily inspires in me” (Col 1:29). The
Second Letter to Timothy alludes to sufferings in ministry: “Take your share of
suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus” (2 Tim 2:3); and “I have fought the
good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim 4.7).
Paul was convinced that his ministry had been given to him by God: “I am a
minister in accordance with God’s stewardship given to me to bring to completion
for you the word of God, the mystery hidden from ages past and generations
past” (Col 1:25).
According to Paul, this “mystery” was previously “hidden” but now God desired
that it be announced. The Letter to the Ephesians also speaks of “the plan of the
mystery hidden for ages in God” (Eph 3:9).
The “mystery” was not so much a secret idea as a presence. The Son of God
taking our flesh opened up the “mystery,” the plan originally “hidden.” Paul
announces, “But now it has been manifested to His holy ones, to whom God
chose to make known the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles;
it is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col 1:26-27).
Thomas proposes that Paul could say: “I am to show that the word of God has
been fulfilled, that is, God’s dispensation and plan and promise concerning the
Incarnation of the Word of God” (Commentary on Colossians, 65).
Why does Thomas single out the Incarnation when the death and Resurrection of
Jesus are essential elements in God’s plan? The Incarnation is the breakthrough
that changes God’s way of relating to us: in His Son’s taking our own flesh, God
is with us.
The idea that God would be manifested in our flesh was entirely unheard of by
the prophets and was entirely contrary to prevailing philosophy. Thomas recalls

St. Augustine’s observation, that although the works of Plato indicate some
things about the Word in a philosophical sense, “yet none could know that the
Word was made flesh.” For the philosophers, the “Logos” or “Word,” was entirely
spiritual and unrelated to human material existence (Commentary on Colossians,
66).
Thomas describes this revelation as “this time of grace,” noting Paul’s words:
“Behold now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2). By
analogy, every time the Word is proclaimed is a “time of grace.”
Why did God manifest the mystery to some as a “grace” or gift? All of God’s
interventions in our lives are gifts: The Gospel of John declares: ““All that I have
heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I
chose you” (Jn 15:15).
Every insight that draws us to God is a gift from God. We do not deserve God’s
gift more than others. Every time our hearts are moved by God, it is a gift. God
gives His grace because He is generous. God continues “to make known … the
riches of this mystery.”
Thomas declares: “This mystery, which is Christ, i.e., which we obtain through
Christ, is the hope of glory.” Paul declared, “Him, we proclaim…” (Col 1:28).
Jesus charged His disciples: ““Teach all nations” (Mt 28:19). The author of the
First Letter of John states: “That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also
to you” (1 Jn 1:1).
Thomas remarks that Paul’s method was “to teach the truth and to refute what is
false… that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Col 1:28). Jesus
declared, “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”
(Mt 5:48). Thomas recognizes that all are not “perfect,” however, “it should be the
goal of the preacher” (Commentary on Colossians, 72).
Thomas considers two stages of perfection. The first is that “one not allow into
his heart anything opposed to God”: “You shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Mt 22:37). The second
stage is “to give up even those things that are lawful; and this kind of perfection
goes beyond what is required” (Commentary on Colossians, 72).
Thomas reflects: “Paul does this with all the energy, ‘the grace of God is with me’
(1 Cor. 15:10), which he inspires within me, because God does this in me
mightily, i.e., that is, by giving me the might or power” (Commentary on
Colossians, 73). Jesus promised His disciples that they would be “clothed with
power from on high” (Lk 24:49).

Denis Vincent Wiseman, O.P.

The quotations from St. Thomas’ Commentary on the Letter to the Colossians is can be
found in The Works of St. Thomas Aquinas, volume 40, translated by F.R. Larcher,

O.P., edited by J. Mortensen and E. Alarcón, available through the Aquinas Institute,
Lander Wyoming.