If in Fact

A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, May 26th, 2024:
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

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Romans
8.14-17

​Brothers and sisters: All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons and daughters of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption to sonship. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ — if in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

Have you ever read a passage that you’ve heard before, many times even, and suddenly been struck anew by something in it? This happened to me when reading this passage in which Paul addresses the Romans. He speaks of belonging. Great! But then he hits us between the eyes with “if in fact” – a figurative sucker punch to the nose. At least it was for me. In my humanness I hear in this small phrase an implication, a prerequisite to our belonging, to our being heirs: 

“if in fact … we suffer with him ….” 

Hold on. What do you mean I have to suffer? 

Scholars say this letter was written approximately 25 years after Christ’s resurrection, so Romans reading this would have either heard firsthand or been told the story of Christ’s gruesome death. Had I been a Roman at that time I would have been a little concerned about listening to, let alone following, Paul – formerly Saul the Persecutor by the way! Who wants to voluntarily suffer, especially the way Jesus suffered? 

However, “if in fact … we suffer with him,” Paul goes on to say, we will share in Christ’s glory. 

Belonging comes at a price. And why shouldn’t it? Belonging has value. 

Most of this passage strongly clarifies a sense of belonging. I belong to God, and because of that I am part of something bigger, something beyond me. And it’s not as if one day I am a part of God’s family and the next day I’m not. I just am. We are. Just as God is. 

At work I’ve received requests from people wanting to renounce their Catholicity.  In the early days of my ministry, I wondered, “Do we actually have a process for that?” I was quite quickly, yet pastorally, told no. Catholics can be non-practising, lapsed, or actively against Catholic teaching. We can identify as a member of another religion or no religion at all, but we cannot undo our baptism. A colleague said to me, “Once you’re baptized, you’re baptized. You’re a part of the family, and you can’t not be a part of the family anymore.” And in families, at least in mine, there is both belonging and suffering. I can only imagine that the renouncement requests come from a place of hurt, confusion, pain – a place of suffering. 

Yet, Christ’s suffering restored my relationship with God. And, as in any relationship, there will be days when I cry out to my heavenly Father in joy or pain or sorrow or uncertainty, and there will be days where I choose to suffer and to get stuck in my suffering (like getting stuck on a small phrase in a passage of scripture). But I cannot stay there. If in fact I recognize the suffering, I must also recognize that it is a part, but certainly not the end, of the story. ​



Aurea Sadi

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