By Fr. Thomas Kuffel
Nike, the shoe company, not the ancient Greek goddess, famously said: “Just Do It” (Just Do It). But why is the company called “Nike” and what does that word mean? Nike is the Greek goddess of victory in war… and in life. Battles bring victory, and she gave victory to Zeus, supporting him in his wars. Taking note of this, Nike became the shoe company that brings victory to athletes.
St. Paul also noticed this mythology and reordered it in terms of Christ: “In all these things we are more than conquerors (hyper-nikomen) through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37-38). Victory is ours because Christ intercedes, not Nike. Jesus is the one true God. He does not give us victory in mythical battles, but in real and spiritual struggles against the Principalities and Powers, the evil spirits that try to conquer us through temptation and suffering.
Suffering is a profound problem that breaks a great many people. Those who suffer become weak, and in their weakness they abandon the fullness of life. They give in to temptations, trials, and tragedy. In the abyss of suffering, despair arises, and sin stifles hope. Yet St. Paul, a man who suffered intensely while living and preaching the Gospel, responds: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?” (Romans 8:35).
Moses warned about these seven tribulations when he told the Israelites that if they broke the covenant with God, these curses would come—not as condemnation but as correction. Corrections cause suffering, but sufferings are healing, not harmful. Even so, many see suffering as something vengeful and criticize God, saying that He causes suffering and therefore cannot be infinitely good or infinitely loving.
By contrast, the wise see suffering as the way God uses to prevent people from sinning and losing life. Sin destroys us. It separates us from Christ, as St. Paul tells us: “I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:21).
What things? “Fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like” (Galatians 5:19-21).
It is sin, not suffering, that separates us from God. Being separated from Him, the spiritual battle is lost (though the overall war is not yet over). Sin prevents the Holy Spirit from acting in our lives. God, however, intervenes and sends His Son. In His death (ironically) and resurrection, Jesus is victorious. He defeats the Powers and Principalities, and restores us to life by His grace.
Grace, by making us sharers in the life of God, transforms sins into victory and sufferings into triumph. Every victory has a cost. It involves suffering, but the suffering we endure has a purpose; it is not without value. In fact, James tells us: “Blessed is the man who endures trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him” (James 1:12).
Yet many people see their sufferings as meaningless. They live in the here and now, not in the eternity of the hereafter. St. John Paul II knew this. In his great work Salvifici doloris, he wrote:
Suffering seems to belong to man’s transcendence; it is one of those points in which man is in some way “destined” to go beyond himself, and he is called to this in a mysterious way. (n. 2)
That call asks us to go beyond our present being and discover the great experience of encountering God. Through suffering, the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ come alive in us. And through our own cross, we conform our will to the Father’s, just as Jesus did. In other words, suffering embraced with faith saves.
Instead of seeing suffering as a path to God’s victory, many reject the divine will, thinking that to suffer is foolishness. Christ dismisses that thought and asks us to take up our cross each day and follow Him.
Following Jesus, at first, leads us into the desert. Alone, hungry, and disoriented, Jesus speaks to us. He gives Himself to us not only in words and miracles—the ones many went out to see while He was still on earth—but the wonder Jesus wanted to give us was communion with Him: giving us His body, blood, soul, and divinity. In the Breaking of the Bread we enter into communion with Him and obtain true victory.
Hunger is a longing not only for food, but also for life. Knowing our struggles against sin and death, Jesus feeds us with the Living Bread, which is Himself. He does not perish, but offers eternal life. In the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, Jesus takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to the people. During the Last Supper He does the same: takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to His disciples, declaring: “This is my body and my blood of the New Covenant.”
What He did at the Last Supper is the same as what we do at Mass. We enter into communion with the divine to be freed from sins and from their cause: Satan, the Principalities, and the Powers. It is there that we obtain victory over both.
Pope Benedict XVI affirmed this in Sacramentum caritatis:
The institution of the Eucharist shows how Jesus’ death, with all its violence and absurdity, has been transformed in Him into a supreme act of love and the definitive liberation of humanity from evil.
The love of Christ is radical. It destroys the powers of evil, Lucifer and his fallen comrades. It conquers sin through forgiveness and overcomes death by the offering of His own life.
Therefore, Jesus is truly the God who triumphs. He destroys death and restores life in a single act, which is His greatest miracle. All His other miracles were a foreshadowing of this one, which reveals that Jesus is not a false goddess like Nike, but the true God of heaven and earth, who brings us total victory: “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us” (Ephesians 1:7-8).
About the Author
Fr. Thomas Kuffel was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, ordained a priest in 1989, and served for about 25 years in the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska. He then served for six years as a missionary priest in Fairbanks, Alaska. After that mission, he requested to work in the Archdiocese of Denver and currently serves in a rural area of Colorado, in charge of two parishes.