Archbishop Rodi: Lent Is Springtime of the Soul, Even in Suffering

By Terry Dickson

PASCAGOULA — With the easy humor of a man newly adjusted to retirement, Archbishop-emeritus Thomas J. Rodi opened his Lenten reflection Feb. 25 at Our Lady of Victories Church with a confession.

“Last September, when I retired, it just so happened that I also discovered I needed to start wearing glasses,” he told the congregation with a smile. “So if I seem to be looking around for you, it’s because I finally can see you.”

The lighthearted beginning quickly gave way to a profound meditation on suffering, trust and spiritual renewal as the former shepherd of the Archdiocese of Mobile and second bishop of the Diocese of Biloxi delivered a talk titled “Uniting Our Crosses with God.” The reflection was part of the parish’s Lenten observances and was hosted by its pastor, Father Adam, whom the archbishop-emeritus warmly thanked — joking about the priest’s youth and expressing his joy at greeting him face-to-face.

The season of Lent, he said, is often misunderstood — even among Christians.

“We are in that time of year when we focus in a particular way on the suffering, the Passion and the death of our Lord, Jesus Christ,” he said. “Some of our neighbors in other Christian denominations — certainly not all — find Lent difficult to understand, perhaps even unnecessary. They prefer to go straight to Easter.”

Those Christians emphasize the Resurrection, saying, “The Lord is risen. We don’t dwell on His suffering; we focus on His victory,” he noted.

But Lent, he insisted, is not negative.

“The word ‘Lent’ comes from an old English word meaning ‘springtime,’” Archbishop Rodi explained. “Just as nature begins to come back to life in spring — leaves budding, flowers blooming — the Church invites us to come back to life spiritually.”

The season poses searching questions: Where do we need to bloom? Where do we need to blossom? Where do we need to come back to life?

“That’s a very positive thing,” he said.

Still, the temptation remains to bypass suffering. People would rather avoid the Good Fridays of their lives and hurry toward Easter Sunday. But that is not how life works — nor is it how Christ taught.

Quoting Jesus’ call to discipleship — to deny oneself, take up one’s cross and follow Him — the archbishop-emeritus reminded the faithful that earthly pilgrimage includes trial. “Eternal bliss is not found in this life,” he said.

Rather than seeing suffering as meaningless, he suggested that God uses the crosses people encounter to detach them from the world and shape them into holiness.

“Those little crosses in life give us self-knowledge,” he said. “In adversity, we discover who we truly are.”

He shared a memory from 2005, when he was serving as bishop of Biloxi during one of the darkest chapters in the Mississippi Gulf Coast’s history. After a devastating hurricane, he spoke with a man who had lost everything — his home, his job, his sense of stability. The man told him his family was at the breaking point.

“But then he said, ‘I don’t know how we would have gotten through this without my teenage son,’” Archbishop Rodi recounted. The boy had become the family’s strength, encouraging them when they felt like giving up.

The father concluded, “Adversity builds character.”

Archbishop Rodi gently offered a different perspective.

“That may be true,” he told the man. “But I think it is more accurate to say adversity reveals character.”

The strength the teenager displayed had not suddenly materialized in the storm, he explained. It had been formed over years — through his parents’ example and his own developing virtues. The hurricane simply revealed what was already present.

“So it is with us,” the archbishop-emeritus told the congregation. “When we go through the crosses of life, we discover who we are.”

Lent’s traditional practices — prayer, fasting and almsgiving — are not gloomy exercises, he said, but ways of focusing on God and on who believers are becoming. The season invites growth into the person each Christian is meant to be.

Yet suffering remains a mystery.

“Why is there suffering in the world? I don’t know,” he said candidly. “No one can give a complete answer. If there is a loving God, why do we suffer? Why do you suffer? Why do I suffer?”

He turned to the Old Testament’s most searching exploration of that question: the Book of Job.

Job, a righteous man, loses everything — wealth, children, health — not as punishment, but as part of a test recounted in the scriptural narrative. Covered in sores and urged even by his wife to curse God, Job instead demands an explanation.

“He stands before God and asks the one-word question every believer eventually asks: ‘Why?’” Archbishop Rodi said.

God’s response does not provide a tidy answer. Instead, the Lord questions Job about the foundations of the earth, the boundaries of the sea and the ordering of the stars — underscoring the vast gulf between divine wisdom and human understanding.

In the end, Job bows in trust.

“Even if You explained it, I could not understand,” the archbishop-emeritus summarized. “Your wisdom is greater than mine. But this I will do — I will trust You.”

To illustrate that trust, he recalled volunteering as a seminarian at a health clinic where small children received vaccinations. Some would scream in fear and, after the shot, turn tearfully on their parents: “You’re not my friend anymore.”

“How do you explain viruses and immunity to a three-year-old?” he asked. The loving parent, possessing greater understanding, could only hold the child close.

“Perhaps when we go through our crosses and cry out to God, He holds us in much the same way,” he said. “We may not understand, but He has not abandoned us.”

Even Christ, hanging on the cross, cried out in anguish before entrusting Himself to the Father. The challenge for believers, Archbishop Rodi said, is whether they, too, will choose trust.

Sometimes the fruits of suffering are visible. Sometimes they are not.

As a young priest, he visited a dying parishioner named Margaret three days before her death from cancer. Struggling to speak, she made a startling declaration: “Cancer is my friend.”

Archbishop Rodi said he was stunned.

Margaret explained that through her illness she had grown closer to God than ever before. Her family had become stronger and more loving. Words of affection long unspoken were finally said.

“None of this would have happened without cancer,” she told him.

“When we place our suffering into God’s hands, He can transform even the worst into the best,” Archbishop Rodi said.

He pointed to Calvary as the ultimate example. The betrayal and crucifixion of the Son of God — the worst act in human history — became the means of humanity’s salvation.

Drawing from the Psalms, particularly Psalm 61’s cry, “From the ends of the earth I cry out to You,” he reflected on prayer as the voice of believers lifted to God. Unlike much of Scripture, which proclaims God’s word to humanity, the Psalms give language to human longing and lament.

And Christians, he emphasized, never suffer alone.

Recalling the conversion of Paul the Apostle on the road to Damascus, he noted that the risen Jesus asked, “Why do you persecute me?” — not “my followers.” Whatever is done to Christ’s people is done to Him.

“He is with us in everything,” the archbishop-emeritus said.

That conviction helps explain a distinctly Catholic symbol, he added. While some Christians display an empty cross, Catholics often pray before a crucifix bearing the body of Christ. The empty cross rightly proclaims the Resurrection. The crucifix, however, emphasizes that Jesus remains present in human suffering.

“Yes, He is risen. We believe that,” he said. “But He is also present with us in our crosses.”

In a particular way, that presence is encountered in the Eucharist. When John the Baptist identifies Jesus as the Lamb of God, the title recalls the Passover lamb sacrificed before the Israelites’ deliverance from Egypt. Marking their doorposts with its blood spared them from death and led to freedom.

Christ, Archbishop Rodi said, is the true Passover Lamb — whose sacrifice frees humanity not from political oppression, but from sin and death. Each time Catholics hear at Mass, “Behold the Lamb of God,” they are reminded that the One who suffered, died and rose is still with them.

As Lent unfolds, he urged the faithful to reflect honestly on their own crosses and to entrust them to God. The season is not about morbid introspection, but about renewal — about blooming spiritually in the springtime of grace.

“We may not understand,” he said. “We may cry out, ‘Why?’ But like Job, like Margaret, like Jesus Himself, may we say, ‘Into Your hands I commend my spirit.’”

And in that surrender, he concluded, believers discover a consoling truth: even in suffering, they are never alone.