Catholic Radio Dramas

The Suffering of Christ

From a Sermon by Saint Augustine, Bishop (354-430) on the Feast day of Saint Nereus and Achilleus

Saints Nereus and Achilleus were at first enrolled in the military tribunal, but both left the military once they had converted to the faith. For this faith they were condemned to death, probably during the reign of Diocletian. Their sepulcher is preserved in the cemetery on the Ardeatine Way, where a basilica has been constructed in their honor.

The Sufferings of Christ are Not in Christ Alone

Jesus Christ is one man with head and body, the Savior of the body and the members of the body, two in one flesh, in one voice, in one passion, and, when wickedness has passed away, in one state of rest. The sufferings of Christ are therefore not in Christ alone; yes, but the sufferings of Christ are only in Christ.

If by Christ you mean both head and body, the sufferings of Christ are only in Christ. But if by Christ you mean only the head, then the sufferings of Christ are not in Christ alone. For if the sufferings of Christ are in Christ alone, how can the apostle Paul, as a member of Christ, say this: That I may fill up in my flesh what is lacking of the sufferings of Christ?

If then you are among the members of Christ, whatever human being you are, whoever you are that hears this, whoever you are that does not hear this (but if you are among the members of Christ you do hear this), whatever you suffer at the hands of those who are not among the members of Christ was lacking to the sufferings of Christ.

Your sufferings are added because they were lacking. You fill up a measure, you do not pour something that overflows. You suffer as much as needed to be added from your sufferings to the total suffering of Christ, who suffered as our head, and suffers in his members, that is, in ourselves.

Each one of us in his own measure pays his debt to what may be called this commonwealth of ours. In proportion to our store of strength we contribute as it were a tax of suffering. The final reckoning of all suffering will not take place until the world has come to an end.

Do not then imagine, brethren, that all the just who suffered persecution at the hands of the wicked, even those who were sent to foretell the coming of the Lord before he came, did not belong to the members of Christ. God forbid that one who belongs to the city which has Christ for king should not belong to the members of Christ.

In the blood of Abel, the just one, the whole city speaks, and so on until the blood of Zechariah. From then, it is the same city that goes on speaking in the blood of John, in the blood of the apostles, in the blood of the martyrs, in the blood of Christ’s faithful people.

Source: The Liturgy of the Hours – Office of Readings

Abel Mourned - Liss, 1628	Beheading of John by Fabritius	Martyr Peter - Caravaggio, 1600	Martyrdom Matthew - Caravaggio
Martyr Andrew - Murillo, 1682	Saint John the Evangelist by Le Brun	Bartholomew by Tiepolo	Phillip by Ribera, 1639

Saint Augustine was born at Tagaste in northern Africa, the son of Patricius, a pagan Roman official and Monica, a Christian. At 17, Augustine went to the university at Carthage to study rhetoric and literary pursuits. He became interested in philosophy and accepted the heresy of Manichaeism. He taught at Tagaste and Carthage for ten years then left for Rome in 373 and opened a school of rhetoric but left the following year to teach in Milan. His mother, St. Monica, had prayed relentlessly for his conversion for seventeen years. Then, in Milan, Augustine was so impressed by the Sermons of St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, he embraced the Christian faith with zeal. He was baptized by Ambrose on Easter Eve in 387.

He abandoned his secular interests and began a community life of prayer and meditation pouring over the Scriptures and completely reformed his life. Later in 387, he started back to Africa, and on the way, his mother Monica died at Ostia. The following year he established a religious community at Tagaste and began to preach with phenomenal success. He was made Bishop of Hippo in 396. During the next thirty four years Augustine wrote profusely, completing some two hundred treatises, three hundred letters, four hundred sermons and major works in theology and philosophy evidencing a towering intellect which molded the thought of Western Christianity for a thousand years after his death.

St. Augustine died on August 28 during Genseric’s siege of Hippo in 430. Among his best known works are his Confessions, one of the great spiritual classics of all time; City of God, another classic presentation of Christian philosophy and history. He is one of the greatest of the Early Church Fathers and Doctors of the Church. He is considered one of the greatest single intellects the Catholic Church has ever produced.