If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you

"In fact, all who want to live religiously in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
But wicked people and charlatans will go from bad to worse, deceivers and deceived.
But you, remain faithful to what you have learned and believed, because you know from whom you learned it"  (2 Timothy 3: 12 - 14)

The idea of trials, persecutions and suffering being part and parcel of our Christian vocation is not surprising to anybody who is familiar with the scriptures.  This idea is as prevalent in the Old Testament as it is in the New.  Examples from the Old Testament are Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, David and the prophets.  In the New Testament, the principal example is Jesus Christ Himself.  He asks anyone who wants to follow Him, to pick up his cross and come along.  The Church of the Pentecost understood immediately that what was true for Jesus in His earthly journey would be true of the early Church and down through the centuries to our day.  This is as inevitable as the divine necessity for the Messiah Himself:
"And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!  Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?"

Why then does the persecution that comes with the Christian calling always a surprise to us?  Our surprise is in inverse proportion to our understanding of Sacred Scripture.  The more of Sacred Scripture we understand, the less we are surprised at the mystery of suffering.  The less Sacred Scripture we understand, the more we are surprised at the sufferings in the world including the big suffering in the life of  disciples of Jesus.
"Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.  And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me."  (John 15: 20 21)

Lord Jesus, open our minds to understand the mystery of suffering.