How Suffering Can Make Us Full of Grace

June 19, 2025

In this life, we encounter innumerable struggles. They can range from struggles against sin to serious illnesses and even persecutions for the Faith. Many, if not most, of these struggles cause us to suffer. Thankfully, God’s grace gives our struggles and sufferings meaning and gives us countless opportunities to grow in grace.

When we embrace our struggles with courage, humility, and love of God, we use the grace God gives us to grow in even more grace. This article will take a closer look at how this happens. Before proceeding, however, we should read some edifying insights that both the Catechism and Scripture provide on this topic.

(For a related article on how we merit grace to become full of grace, please click here.)

The Catechism on Suffering

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that suffering can make us more like Jesus, increase our blessedness, and be an acceptable sacrifice to God (all emphases mine):

By his passion and death on the cross, Christ has given a new meaning to suffering: it can henceforth configure us to him and unite us with his redemptive Passion. (par. 1505)

[Penance] can consist of prayer, an offering, works of mercy, service of neighbor, voluntary self-denial, sacrifices, and above all the patient acceptance of the cross we must bear. Such penances help configure us to Christ, who alone expiated our sins once for all. They allow us to become co-heirs with the risen Christ, “provided we suffer with him.” (par. 1460)

It is right to offer sacrifice to God as a sign of adoration and gratitude, supplication and communion: “Every action done so as to cling to God in communion of holiness, and thus achieve blessedness, is a true sacrifice.” (par. 2099)

Outward sacrifice, to be genuine, must be the expression of spiritual sacrifice: “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit. . . .” By uniting ourselves with [Jesus’s] sacrifice we can make our lives a sacrifice to God. (par. 2100)

“Hence the laity, dedicated as they are to Christ and anointed by the Holy Spirit, are marvelously called and prepared so that even richer fruits of the Spirit maybe produced in them. For all their works, prayers, and apostolic undertakings, family and married life, daily work, relaxation of mind and body, if they are accomplished in the Spirit—indeed even the hardships of life if patiently born—all these become spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (par. 901)

Scripture on Suffering

In 1 Corinthians 12:7-10 (RSV-CE), Jesus tells St. Paul that suffering produces strength. Jesus says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” St. Paul then writes, “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” Suffering helps us to recognize our own weaknesses and provides us with opportunities to rely on grace.

Philippians 3:7-11 states, “For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ . . . that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in his death, that, if possible, I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” So, by our sufferings, we can share in Christ’s sufferings, be content with our sufferings for His sake, and become like Him.

Again, Paul writes, “. . . we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom. 5:3-5). Accordingly, suffering produces endurance, character, and hope because God pours His love into us through the Holy Spirit.

Romans 8:15b-17: “When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.” This is a big one for meriting grace through suffering. This verse tells us that by suffering with grace and faith, God will glorify us.

St. James writes, “Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing (Jas. 1:2-4). Thus, suffering produces spiritual perfection. By persistently cooperating with grace (“steadfastness”), we can become “perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect” (See Mt. 5:48).

Finally, St. Paul once again gives us wise words about our spiritual sacrifices. He writes, “I appeal to you, brethren, by the mercies of God, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:1). This is a beautiful verse because it tells us that our bodies, our sufferings, our good works, and our struggles mean something when we respond to God’s calls in a state of grace. By Jesus’s sufferings and sacrifices, He pours His grace into us, thereby making our sufferings and sacrifices worthwhile. In fact, through Him, they become our spiritual worship.

Suffering and Growing in Grace

So, how does suffering help us to grow in grace? How does it contribute to our moral perfection? When we offer our sufferings to God and sacrifice ourselves for Him and for others, we establish the habit of doing these things. As the habit develops, it becomes virtuous.

By establishing the virtue of offering our sufferings to God with joy, we replace the vices of complaining, despair, and persistent avoidance because we come to see that our sufferings are opportunities to imitate Christ. In this way, the disease becomes the cure.

Jesus can take our sufferings and cure us of sinful attachments. As these attachments dissipate, grace fills the voids that they leave behind. Consequently, our sufferings and sacrifices become virtues that are meritorious. Suffering humbles us, helps us to rely on God and others, gives us opportunities to reflect Christ in His sufferings, and allows us to lovingly help others as Jesus did.

Knowing that we would sin, God eternally chose to assume a human nature that would suffer and die for us as a remedy for our sins. And God creates us in His image and likeness. Therefore, choosing to suffer for others, and offering that suffering to God makes us more like Him. We simply need to ask God to accept our struggles and sufferings as sacrifices.

Offering Our Sufferings

We can form the habit of offering our sufferings to God daily by praying the Morning Offering. It’s a short prayer, but it contains all the necessary elements for a solid and humble appeal to God.

O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer you my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day for all the intentions of your Sacred Heart in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, for the salvation of souls, the reparation of sins, the reunion of all Christians, and in particular for the intentions of the Holy Father this month. Amen.

Author’s Note: The Holy Father’s monthly prayer intentions can be found at the USCCB website by clicking here.