Suffering with or without him? That is the question
By Marta Gomez-Cortes
Special to the CS&T
I am the kind of person who doesn’t take well to suffering, much less embrace it. For me, in the past, suffering was nothing more than an inconvenience, a nuisance, or even a punishment for sins that had to be endured.
So, when the cross has gotten heavy, my initial attitude has been to look at the crucifix and mumble, “Oh, no, not again.” Of course, an act of faith usually follows, in which I embrace the cross and offer myself as victim to the Father through the merits of Christ.
I’ve had my share of suffering in life, most especially my departure from Cuba because of communism when I was quite young, and the period of exile that followed. That loss of homeland is something with which I will never be totally reconciled because, like so many other Cubans, I am still dreaming of going back one day to kiss the soil on which I was given birth.
A few years ago, already in my middle age, I experienced the cross again in all its weight. It came as an unexpected, no-fault divorce, a most terrible rejection. Eventually, I realized that God can write with crooked lines and that it was His mercy that grabbed me by the hair and pulled me out of the abyss, to set me safe and sound upon solid rock. That is exactly what a subsequent annulment did for me. It saved me from misery and unhappiness.
But still, I had to start on my way to independence by learning how to drive. I had to look for jobs of all sorts, jobs in which I experienced more than one misunderstanding. I had to learn to pay my bills, to live on a budget and to understand taxes.
My daily support was always the Eucharist and my vocation as a secular Carmelite. What always pierced my heart was the effect that the divorce had on my adult children, who were truly aching. Their choices in life, so mistaken at times, their moments of crisis, and their lack of faith, would many times make me doubt God’s mercy. No mother likes to see her children suffer, not one of them.
Then, one day something happened. One of my daughters — the rebellious one, with or without cause — experienced the Lord in such a way, that almost overnight she became an intercessor with me for the whole family. Blessed be God.
Something else happened. One morning, I was busy reading through a theology book by a Carmelite nun, Elizabeth of the Trinity. I had just finished reading a passage in which she explained that her vocation was to live up to her name, which in Hebrew meant, “house of God.”
That day I had been doubting, asking myself, with psychological guilt, what had I done to deserve a divorce. Suddenly I felt moved to contemplate my baptismal name, Marta-María.
An invisible curtain was lifted from my eyes as I heard the voice of the Lord within me speaking: “My child, can’t you understand the order of your name? If I called you first to be Martha, the wife, housewife and mother, it was because I wanted next to get to the Mary in you. You are now Mary, My María — the one I have called to contemplate Me. You are finally Mine.”
Now I felt that everything was being revealed to me. For the first time in my life, I felt at ease. I was finally His. Suffering could not frighten me any longer. I finally realized God’s designs are intended to give us peace.
Marta Gomez-Cortes is a member of St. John Bosco Parish in Hatboro.