Suffering

For the world: Death, illness, human brokenness, ugliness, failures, sinfulness,... all have to be hidden from our sight because they keep us from the happiness for which we strive. They are obstructions on our way to the goal of life.

Eugenics strives towards a better life, a better quality of life, but by eliminating undesirable traits in our genes. Disorders and disabilities, aging, and all are seen as undesirable. Eugenics and more broadly genetic engineering strives to do away with suffering.

However, we humans suffer a lot. Much, if not most, of our deep suffering comes from our relationships with those who love us. Not from the terrible events I read about in the newspapers or those that I see on television, but from the relationships with the people with whom I share my daily life.

Community life can be painful. Besides the joys, there can be many pains and demands attached to our day to day living out of our common life.

Our pain, deep as it is, is connected with specific circumstances. We do not suffer in the abstract. We suffer because someone hurts us at a specific time and in a specific place. Our feelings of rejection, abandonment, and uselessness are rooted in the most concrete events.

Still, as long as we keep pointing to the specifics, we will miss the full meaning of our pain. We will deceive ourselves into believing that if the people, circumstances, and events had been different, our pain would not exist. “My suffering would have been less, if there were a different catechist, a different prefect, a different staff member, different companions, and so on.” This might be partly true, but the deeper truth is that the situation which brought about our pain was simply the form in which we came in touch with the human condition of suffering. Our pain is the concrete way in which we participate in the pain of humanity.

Paradoxically, therefore, healing means moving from our pain to the pain. When we keep focusing on the specific circumstances of our pain, we easily become angry, resentful, and even vindictive – even seek revenge. We can learn from Mary: healing means moving from our pain to the pain. She stands at the foot of the cross, she stands in communion with Jesus’ suffering. But she is not alone, she stands along with Mary Magdalene, other women, also the beloved disciple of Jesus. She stands in communion with other humans too. She takes her suffering out of isolation, and places it in the context of the cross, Jesus’ cross. She takes her pain out of isolation, and shares it with her fellow-sufferers, fellow-believers.

May we too have the same courage and wisdom like Mary, let us imitate her and find new strength and hope in our suffering, because suffering is salvific. I repeat, suffering is salvific.

References: Henri Nouwen, Here and Now, and Inner Voice of Love.

(Homily of 15 September, Memoria of Our Lady of Sorrows)