Redemptive Suffering

'Redemptive suffering' is the personal sacrifices that Christians unite with Christ's sacrifice He made of Himself to the Father. Crosses carried by members of Christ's mystical body have redemptive value to atone for sin and to call down God's blessings on humanity.

Suffering has a whole new meaning and Catechism provides us a better understanding of it:

Union with the passion of Christ. By the grace of this sacrament the sick person receives the strength and the gift of uniting himself more closely to Christ's Passion: in a certain way he is consecrated to bear fruit by configuration to the Savior's redemptive Passion. Suffering, a consequence of original sin, acquires a new meaning; it becomes a participation in the saving work of Jesus.

(CCC 1521)

St Faustina wrote several testimonies n her diary about suffering.

I thirst. I thirst for the salvation of souls. Help Me, My daughter, to save souls. Join your sufferings to My Passion and offer them to the heavenly Father for sinners. (Diary #1032)

..Sufferings, adversities, humiliations, failures and suspicions that have come my way are splinters that keep alive the fire of my love for You, O Jesus.

My desires are mad and unattainable. I wish to conceal from You that I suffer. I want never to be rewarded for my efforts and my good actions. You yourself, Jesus, are my only reward; You are enough, O Treasure of my heart! I want to share compassionately in the sufferings of my neighbors and to conceal my own sufferings, not only from them, but also from You, Jesus.

Suffering is a great grace; through suffering the soul becomes like the Savior; in suffering love becomes crystallized; the greater the suffering, the purer the love. (Diary #57)

"My daughter, I want to instruct you on how you are to rescue souls through sacrifice and prayer. You will save more souls through prayer and suffering than will a missionary through his teachings and sermons alone. I want to see you as a sacrifice of living love, which only then carries weight before Me." (Diary #1767)

If the angels were capable of envy, they would envy u for two things: one is the receiving of Holy Communion and the other is suffering. (Diary #1804)

Fr John Hardon also wrote a good teaching about suffering:

  The Value of Suffering in the Life of Christian Perfection  

Embrace suffering.. Waste no suffering... Whether suffering physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, unite it with Jesus' suffering... 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++