One Of Mother Angelica's Visions

A viewer called in during Mother Angelica's live program in 1999 [1] and told Mother that she was spending more time in than out of the hospital, and that she was often visited by a sister (not certain if she is a sister-nun or sister-relative) who questioned God as to why people had to suffer.  Mother responded by recalling an earlier time when she was starting ETWN, when she was sick, when the broadcasting business was losing money, when she went to pray in a chapel, asking, "Why me?" since she did not know anything about broadcasting and had no interest in it.  She asked "why" many times.  Then she said she heard a quiet voice that said to her after a sigh: "Why me?"  After she heard that, conjuring up images of Christ's suffering, His crucifixion and His resurrection, she said she never asked that question again.

Without a doubt in my mind, that was an encounter with Christ.

On the question of why there is suffering, the Blessed Virgin Mary of Kibeho had this to say [2]:

5. The suffering that saves:
This subject is among the most important among the revelations in Kibeho, particularly for Natalie Mukamazimpaka. Suffering, which is unavoidable in this life, is necessary for Christians to attain eternal glory. On May 15, 1982, Mary said to her visionaries, especially to Natalie, "No one will reach heaven without suffering," or, "A child of Mary does not reject suffering." Suffering is both a means of compensating for the sins of the world and participating in Jesus' and Mary's sufferings for the salvation of the world. The visionaries were invited through this address to live very specifically, accepting suffering through faith in love, mortifying themselves and denying themselves pleasures for the conversion of the world. Thus, Kibeho is a reminder of the role of the cross in the life of a Christian and the Church. 

I had asked a priest when I was still a teenager, a priest who later accused me of something I did not do, who refused to accept the truth of the matter by drawing his own conclusion based on what he thought the truth was, a variation of the same question: When you are in pain, do you pray to God to take away the pain?  His answer was to ask God to help you endure the pain.  His name was Fr. Andrew.  He died from a heart attack one afternoon many years later when he was rushing to Vespers, I think.  He collapsed right before he entered the room.  When I asked Fr. Andrew the question, I was thinking only of physical pain.  What he accused me of doing gave me pain that was not physical.  I can still recall that pain today, whenever I recall the episode, although it is much attenuated by the passage of time.  The memory of this pain never left me because I never prayed to God to help me endure it.  I was determined to face it on my own.



[1] A recording of Mother Angelica's Classic that was re-broadcasted today on EWTN.
[2] http://www.kibeho.org/en/mary.php