Jesuit Journeys
Winter 2006

Winter antidote –- offer it up!

By Fr. Jim Kubicki, SJ

I used to really dislike autumn. It meant the freedom and long days of summer were over. It meant “back to school.” Worst of all, it meant winter was around the corner. Winter – the season of cold and colds, ice and snow, a time to be cooped up inside.

But I’ve come to look forward to winter now. Why the change?

I’ve come to appreciate the beauty of winter. When the harsh city streets are covered by fresh snow, the entire urban landscape is softened and becomes magical. When snow covers a barren field and a few standing stalks poke up through it, I’m reminded of the stark and simple beauty of a Japanese painting. And when skeletal trees are silhouetted against an early sunset, I think of them as the hands of Nature reaching up to the Creator in prayer and praise. Moreover, having taken up cross-country skiing, I look forward to the cold and snow that allow me to enjoy this sport. I have a reason to get out of the house and enjoy the purifying freshness and beauty of winter.

But what about the inevitable traffic jams whether one inch of snow falls or 12? What about scraping the windshield with numbed fingers? And the time it takes in an overly crowded schedule to bundle oneself up against the cold only to have the wind’s icy fingers pinch any exposed skin or cut though the layers I thought would protect me? And the bleak days, the weakened sun obscured by a gray cloud cover? Isn’t winter, in the end, just one big pain?

Yes, pain is part of it. It’s an inevitable part of it. But when faced with pain we have a choice. We can let it bring us down or we can lift it up.

The Lakota Sioux have a purification ritual called the “Inipi.” One enters a sweat lodge to endure painful and stifling heat. The discomfort and pain are offered up as a prayer which is made more powerful by this physical suffering. One prays not only with one’s mind, but with one’s body.

“Offer it up!” In my Catholic grade school days, we often heard this advice. Whenever we encountered frustration, inconvenience, or pain, we were told to “offer it up.” There is a deep spiritual instinct that crosses all religious traditions to offer our pain as a prayer. The Apostleship of Prayer encourages people to pray a “Morning Offering” in which we offer to God all our “prayers, works, joys, and sufferings” of the day. The first three are relatively easy to offer. Sufferings are not. I generally avoid them, and when they inevitably come my way I tend to ask God to take them away. I forget to use them as a prayer, to offer them up in union with that offering on a Cross by which the world was saved.

Does this mean I now look forward to the pain of a Wisconsin winter? No. But it has lost some of its negative dimension. It gives me an opportunity to take the pain and offer it as a prayer for others. And there’s something else about the purifying pain of winter. Spring means a lot more to me.

When spring finally comes I find myself echoing the words of the poet Theodore Roethke: “I rejoice in the spring, as though no spring ever had been.”