Dear Fr. Ray

© 2022 Hector Viveros Lee

 

March 7, 2022

 

Dear Fr. Ray:

 

I am sorry to hear the surgery did not go as planned and that you are in the ICU now. Perhaps you take the long view, knowing you are in God’s hands and argue that the surgery did go as planned.

 

I am haunted by the conversation we had last Monday when I went to visit you at Bellarmine. I was questioning the reason for suffering, maintaining that Jesus was caught up in the envy of the Jewish authorities and the desire of the Romans to exert their power.

 

You countered that Jesus suffered and died for love.

 

I am processing that premise. That the only and best thing we can do in our brief life is to love, a premise that seems facile and few would take issue with. The caveat, you maintain, is that love comes with a price—the price of suffering, of sacrifice, of pain and loss—and for many that price is too high. So we look for cheap love—a love that does not demand.

 

But no one—not even the most comfortable and rich—is exempt from suffering. So if we can’t escape suffering, why not douse its sting by allowing it to be the price for love.

 

There you are in the ICU with pain and discomfort trying to be what Jesus wants you to be: his Beloved.

 

Lord, the one you love is sick. Be with him.

 

Love,

 

Hector