Dilexit Nos §157

¹⁵⁷ We see, then, the unity of the paschal mystery in these two inseparable and mutually enriching aspects. The one mystery, present by grace in both these dimensions, ensures that whenever we offer some suffering of our own to Christ for his consolation, that suffering is illuminated and transfigured in the paschal light of his love. We share in this mystery in our own life because Christ himself first chose to share in that life. He wished to experience first, as Head, what he would then experience in his Body, the Church: both our wounds and our consolations. When we live in God’s grace, this mutual sharing becomes for us a spiritual experience. In a word, the risen Lord, by the working of his grace, mysteriously unites us to his passion. The hearts of the faithful, who experience the joy of the resurrection, yet at the same time desire to share in the Lord’s passion, understand this. They desire to share in his sufferings by offering him the sufferings, the struggles, the disappointments and the fears that are part of their own lives. Nor do they experience this as isolated individuals, since their sufferings are also a participation in the suffering of the mystical Body of Christ, the holy pilgrim People of God, which shares in the passion of Christ in every time and place. The devotion of consolation, then, is in no way ahistorical or abstract; it becomes flesh and blood in the Church’s pilgrimage through history.