I’ve always cringed when I hear the expression “offer it up.” While the phrase actually refers to something called redemptive suffering—the idea that our suffering can unite with Christ’s on the cross and, in doing so, can take on redemptive power for ourselves and others—redemption isn’t what comes to mind when I hear someone (usually an older woman or a Catholic mommy blogger) use the expression.

For me it conjures images of wives from past generations stoically accepting the mistreatment of their husbands because their parish priest suggested that forbearance was the pathway to sanctification. Or women in the workplace gritting their teeth and resignedly tolerating the harassment of their coworkers and bosses because that’s what holy women are supposed to do. Or people of color silently bearing slurs, discriminatory acts, and microaggressions, again and again throughout history, because they’ve been led to believe that those forms of suffering are their crosses to bear and that good will come of them.