(Photo Credit Unsplash)
By Ken Rolheiser
A man goes to the doctor complaining about back pain, and the doctor notices the man’s terrible posture. “Do you have any idea why you have such awful posture?” asks the doctor. “Well”, replies the man, “I’ve got a hunch.”
When it comes to pain and suffering, we as Christians have more than a hunch. We are armed with good news.
Viktor Frankl related a story about a young woman in Auschwitz facing continuous horror and suffering. Death was in the very near future, but she was always smiling and cheerful.
He asked her: “How, how do you hold your countenance to be so wonderful in the midst of such suffering and pain?” She said, “In my loneliness, the only thing I have is that tree I can spy through this tiny window, and I talk to it.”
He was rather confused and asked, “Does it talk back?” She said, “Yes.” “What does it say to you?” She said, “The tree says to me, ‘I am here. I am here. And I am alive. I am eternally alive.'”
As Christians believing in the Resurrection, we can look at the Tree of the Cross, and we can say, “I shall not be conquered. I believe in eternal life.” We can look suffering and death in the eye and say, “I am alive. I am eternally alive.”
As a young writer, I wrote an article on “The Joy of Dying.” Even Catholic editors did not want to have any part of it. With age, I am less afraid to write about final things. Pain and suffering! Death and mourning! This column will address pain and suffering.
Constance C. Hull shares the story of her friend whose husband underwent treatment for cancer and then developed complications, among them many pulmonary embolisms (blood clots) in his lungs, which made breathing painfully difficult.
Hull told her that she will come out of this stronger. That the Lord will use it to make her and her husband holier. This illness will be for God’s greater glory, which we were reminded of with the raising of Lazarus.
In “The Paschal Mystery Reveals How Christ Transforms Suffering,” Hull relates: “I have slept in the intensive care unit next to my sick husband wondering if he was going to die. I know the agony of losing five babies. A grief that every time cut me so deeply, I didn’t think I’d recover.
“My husband and I both are thankful for his illness. That may sound strange, but it changed our lives. The Lord used it to draw us closer to Himself, to cleanse us of certain sins, and to transform us… We wouldn’t be where we are today if we hadn’t suffered as much as we have in our nearly fourteen years of marriage.”
Wow! We shall end with gratitude and joy, though we start with Adam’s sentence, “…with the sweat of your brow you shall eat your bread…and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis)
So we live with our human nature, our original sin history, and we struggle with the suffering and death that have been present since Adam and Eve. But we also live with the knowledge of redemption by the ongoing work of Christ, ever combating the effects of original sin in our world.
Out of love for us, Jesus re-created innocence and hope. He took us from our darkness and the grizzly fear of death into light and resurrection.
Ken Rolheiser is an author of six books and a spiritual column PAUSE FOR REFLECTION since 1998. A lay minister in St Joseph’s Parish and an occasional speaker, Ken has been involved in the Canora Ministerial Association and the Archdiocesan Stewardship Committee (as well as others). For details see www.kenrolheiser.com.
