“The night after the earthquake, Haitians who had lost their homes, or who feared that their houses might collapse, slept outdoors  in the streets and parks of Port-au-Prince . . . in the suburb of Pétionville, hundreds of people lay under the sky . . . many sang hymns: ‘God, you are the one who gave me life. Why are we suffering?’ ” (New Yorker magazine)

Since then, disaster has continued to strike – as always – again and again.

Chile . . . . Fiji . . . . Tomorrow, somewhere else . . . .

Why?

* * *

Blessed Mary MacKillop suffered unceasingly throughout life.

Racked with chronic painful illness. Betrayed repeatedly by those who owed her support. Struck down and paralysed by a stroke.

Here is one of her prayers:

 “I RESOLVE, with the help of God’s grace to die any kind of death, or to suffer any kind of pain, either of mind or body, or any other affliction that can befall me, sooner than for one moment to commit a deliberate and known sin against God’s love, and the claims he has upon my duty and service. 

“HITHERTO I have sadly forgotten my great end . . .  I will come back to thee my Eternal Father . . .  Let me not prove a coward in thy service. 

“LET ME love to be humiliated and persecuted, so that I may, during the remainder of this short life, remain as near to thee, my Jesus, in the thickest of the strife, as in thy Divine Wisdom thou art pleased to permit.”

* * *

Blessed Mary did not write these words thinking that you and I might read them later, or that she would ever be famous.

She used them because the belief underlying them is what made her tick.

Her response to suffering was a practical one — suffering helped her, rather than hindered her, in her love for God.

These are wonderful words and we could benefit from using them ourselves, in good times and bad.