On Pain

For my first post, I suppose I will share a reflection I wrote for my students last year on the Problem of Pain and Suffering, Theodicy, and the Christian answer. Here it is:

ON PAIN
Why does God allow suffering? We all experience it in our lives, in many different ways: the loss of a loved one, stress and anxiety, illness, physical pain, disabilities, addictions, broken relationships, problems and catastrophes that are personal, familial, local, and global. On the one hand, suffering is a complicated and perplexing mystery that we will never fully comprehend while still bound by this mortal coil. On the other, the theological answer is simple enough: all suffering is a result of Original Sin. It is a result of the fallen condition of our world and, as such, it is, of itself, an evil thing. God did not create suffering nor does he will it for its own sake. Still, we know that everything that happens to us is either part of God’s ordained or his permitted will. So we are back to the first question: why does God allow suffering, an inherent evil, into our lives?
God can always bring good out of evil— if you doubt that, just look at the cross. Jesus’ own suffering and dying led to the conquering of sin and death. Think of that! The greatest good that ever happened came out of terrible suffering. God allows us to suffer for our own sanctification. Suffering can make us holy. If we handle suffering with anger and self-pity, it drives a wedge between us and God, and can even destroy our faith. If we accept suffering with love, it can unite us with the cross of Christ. If we become embittered by our suffering, it proves that our love for God was insincere and shallow; it was conditional, based only upon “what’s in it for me.” If we accept our crosses with patience and a peaceful spirit, then our suffering proves and purifies our love.
If this was the only life, then the God who loves us would indeed solve all of our problems. But this is not the only life. Our experience on this earth is a brief moment in time, preparing us for eternity. And the point of this life IS happiness (both now and forever)... but happiness is not a matter of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. Happiness is a matter of love! It is a matter of learning how to love more deeply with each passing moment and in whatever situation we find ourselves. Happiness is to finally learn, in imitation of our crucified Savior, to pour ourselves out in love for one another and for God. Only in true love do we find true peace and true joy! On the wings of this love we ascend to the heights of eternity, where there shall be no more sighs, nor mourning, nor pain, nor weeping, for every tear will be wiped away, and we shall delight in our communion of love with God and one another forever. Did Padre Pio suffer? Yes. (He suffered the painful stigmata for 50 years.) Did he allow it to destroy his faith? No! Did Mother Teresa suffer? Yes. (She experienced a spiritual “dark night of the soul” for decades.) Did she allow it to destroy her faith? No! Did Blessed Damien of Molokai suffer? Yes. (He died from leprosy, which he contracted from the people he lovingly served.) Did he allow it to destroy his faith? No! Did St. Maximilian Kolbe suffer? Yes. (He was tormented by the Nazis at Auschwitz, and voluntarily died in a starvation bunker in place of another condemned prisoner who had a wife and children.) Did he allow it to destroy his faith? No! They grew, they brimmed over, they flourished in love! And it was this very decision to love, this act of their wills, which made them totally available to be saved by Jesus’ death on the cross, and swept away into the bliss of Heaven. Have you ever suffered? Have you allowed it to destroy your faith, or has it helped you to dig deeper...
Biblically, the question of suffering is answered in the Old Testament Book of Job, whose love was proved and purified by his suffering. In the New Testament it is answered in the Gospel of Luke, in the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Lazarus, that meek and lowly soul who was covered with sores, who was alone in this world with only dogs to comfort him, literally starved to death on the doorsteps of a rich man’s feast. He now rejoices eternally, clean and healthy, bright and warm, radiant and glorious. He will never suffer anymore. And now whose problem does Lazarus’ suffering become? The Rich Man’s! And what was the Rich Man’s fatal error? One that has been repeated so often, sad to say. He mistook the point of life. He misinterpreted the source of happiness. He was wrong about what it meant to be fully alive and fully human. He turned in on himself when he could have “shone forth and run like sparks through the stubble” of this world. How easy it would have been to scurry down those steps, to fling open that door, to embrace and scoop up his brother Lazarus, to make a place for him at his table, and in his heart.
God’s grace is transformative. Don’t go looking for crosses for enough will come to you on their own (don’t you worry!) in this fallen world. Just gently thank the Lord for the next cross when it arrives. Our Lord, who turned water into wine, sickness into health, and death into life knows what he is doing and will never abandon you. The next time a cross is laid on your shoulders, then, say these words of St. Josemaria Escriva (words he repeated at the bedside of many who were in intense pain or at the point of death in hospitals): “Blessed be pain, loved be pain, sanctified be pain, glorified be pain!”