The grace and mercy of Christ enable us, in turn, to bear witness, even if only by accepting the “cup” we cannot avoid. For the Eucharist will transform our suffering into sacrifice. It isn’t the case that Jesus suffered and died so that we wouldn’t have to. It’s not a purely substitutionary matter. It’s a representative and participatory mystery. He suffered and died in order to endow our sufferings with a redemptive value, something they would never have possessed on their own. He suffered and died in order to invest his love with us. He did this so that our love, while not diminishing our
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