The Meaning of Suffering: A Christian Perspective

The following are my speaking notes for an address I delivered on October 7th to the Catholic Women's league of Edmonton. It is lengthy as my presentation took the better part of an hour. It is built upon Pope JohnPaul II's 1984 Apolstic Letter SALVIFICI DOLORIS - the Gospel of Suffering. I am available to address the issue of a Christian perspective on suffering and can be contacted through my email MarkPickup@shaw.ca

The Meaning of Suffering: A Christian Perspective

On October 22nd 1978, Pope John Paul II gave his inaugural Papal homily: It contained these words: “Be not afraid! Open up, no: swing wide the gates to Christ. … Be not afraid.” These three words are, of course, words of Jesus.[1] Throughout his long papacy -- the third longest in the long history of the Catholic Church – Pope John Paul II lived the reality of Christ’s words. Whether it was his prayerful influence in the fall of communism or other vast geopolitical impacts for the great cause of human freedom and liberty, his constant call to the peoples of the world to reconciliation and faith, or his witness for a culture of life, Pope John Paul was a splendid chief vicar of Christ.

His entire Papacy gave meaning to Jesus exhortation, “Be not afraid.” Pope John Paul II’s courageous and very public journey through the serious disability of Parkinson’s disease seemed to express solidarity with disabled people like me.

In the spring of 2005, the Pope made his last public appearance at the balcony of the papal apartment above Saint Peter’s Square; He tried but could not speak. For a few agonizing moments (which seemed like an eternity) he struggling to say something to the expectant and adoring crowd – but he could not. The Pontiff was wheeled back into his apartment. It was clear that Pope John Paul II was near death. To me, it was his most eloquent moment, yet he didn’t say a word I could understand.

John Paul’s cardio-respiratory system and kidneys were failing, he was racked with infection and high fever and his blood pressure was unstable. Yet to the end he showed by his example that Christ is always near, especially in what may seem like hopeless circumstances. The chronically ill and disabled people of the world took notice. I know I sure did.

The Pope proclaimed solidarity of the Church with the world’s disabled. His final witness was for a culture of life and inclusion – and that blessed witness continued to the last hours of his life. This message that Christ and His Church stand in union with the world’s disabled, the chronically and terminally ill was (and is) of profound importance to us.

In that last journey, Pope John Paul illustrated with poignant clarity that no matter how desperate life’s circumstances may become, no matter how close we may be to death’s door, Christ and His Mother are there. The Mother of God prays with us even at the hour of our death. This is what we pray it in the Rosary: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.” Her son, Jesus Christ, is the path to authentic personal freedom, the source of love and joy despite our physical circumstances. He waits for us at the end of that hour, as we step across the threshold from this world to the next.

At Pope John Paul II’s funeral Mass, Cardinal Joseph Ratsinger – now Pope Benedict – gave the homily. He said, in part,

“The Holy Father was a priest to the last, for he offered his life to God for his flock and for the entire human family, in a daily self-oblation for the service of the Church, especially amid the sufferings of his final months. And in this way he became one with Christ, the Good Shepherd who loves his sheep.”

The Cardinal said that Pope John Paul showed us that by “abiding in the love of Christ, we learn, at the school of Christ, the art of true love.”

Suffering and humanity

The true love of Christ and that of His Mother: Is there anything so sweet to the human soul? Their love has existed beside a crimson thread of suffering that can be traced throughout the course of human history for the last 2,000 years. Suffering seems to be inextricably linked with the essence of the nature of humanity. Therefore, we are ultimately drawn to ask a fundamental question: What is the meaning of suffering?

If there is no God, then there is no purpose to suffering. The logical response to suffering is suicide. If there is a bad God, then the response of Job’s wife is reasonable: “Curse God, and die.”[2] If, however, there is a good God then there must be is a redeeming value to human suffering, for no good God could possibly permit it were there were not. For close to 25 years, I have contemplated and meditated upon the meaning of suffering, from a Christian perspective.

People suffer in different ways. Suffering encompasses more than physical sickness. There is a distinction to be made between physical suffering and emotional or moral suffering. The differences are rooted between man’s bodily and spiritual elements. Physical suffering can torment the soul, as we see with Job who, in the midst of physical suffering, cursed the day he was born[3] -- but not God.

In many ways physical pain is the easiest to treat through modern pain medications and techniques. Emotional, psychological, or moral suffering can cut to the soul; they are more excruciating and more difficult to reach and treat.

Emotional, psychological or moral suffering can be manifested in physical symptoms such as elevated blood pressure, heart attack, ulcers and digestive disorders, insomnia, weight gain or loss. These are physical ways that moral, emotion and psychological suffering can surface.

Moral suffering can also be manifested in sadness, disappointment, or even despair. That activity of physical and spiritual suffering often overlaps, affecting the entire human condition. I have suffered physical, emotional, and spiritual pain. It has been my experience and opinion is that spiritual pain is the most excruciating.

Suffering and suicide

Protracted human suffering of any kind creates its own world for the individual. That world evokes a sensation of internal exile in which the individual suffering from disease or sickness feels cut off from his community, his friends and even those he loves most. His suffering is highly personal, his deepest agony is inexpressible and so he feels isolation. It intensifies his agony. This is a dangerous state because it can spawn despair of life that can not be expressed adequately. One can even find a perverse solace with his despair of life. Despair can masquerade as destiny. It is a twisted distortion, granted, but it is dangerous because in this state, death becomes preferable to life. Fait accompli.

Suicide is seen as deliverance from physical torment, or a way of stopping psychological or emotional agony.

A third and lower level of despair exists. It is a rare but terrible state that the medical and psychiatric professions have referred to as chronic melancholia. People in this horrible form of mental illness cease to take an interest in their own existence, or the existence of the rest of humanity or anything in the world. They cannot be roused or moved to care. For these people the possibility of suicide is very real.

The brilliant Catholic apologist and author, G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) said suicide is not a sin, rather the sin – precisely for the reasons I just mentioned. He felt that suicide is an affront and defilement of all creation through the suicidal person’s sheer disinterest. Chesterton said that suicide insults everything on earth. He said this about the suicidal man: “There is not a tiny creature in the cosmos at whom his death is not a sneer.”[4] I am a fan of G.K. Chesterton, but on this point I think he was uncharitable and quite possibly erred in his harshness. He assumed that there is no despondency below a final sneer at existence. In fact, there is and it is the dreaded state I referred to as chronic melancholia. The individual is utterly defeated. He can not even a muster a passing sigh at existence. His despondency permeates every corner of his mind, every cell of his being. Regarding such rare cases we must strictly reserve comment and trust those people to the tender care and judgment of the Almighty.

However, to assist in their suicide (or any suicide) is to endorse the abyss with a cruel bon voyage. People who advocate or participate in assisted suicide act with the logic of darkness … they are brutes prowling and sniffing over the waiting graves of the defeated. Any civilized society must always condemn assisted suicide in the strongest terms and never legalize or permit it.

Sorrow of reflected suffering

The isolation of the sufferer is observable by others, especially his family, and it creates isolation for them too. They feel cut-off from their loved-one’s suffering. And this can be excruciating for them. How many times have you heard someone say, “I wish I could trade spots with him or her,” as they watched a loved one in pain? But they cannot trade spots. This creates a second agonizing emotional exile of the person helplessly observing the sufferer. It is impossible to transfer actual suffering. Loved ones of the sick can confuse the pain of their own internal sorrow and project their own suffering onto their perception of actual sufferer’s agony. The family of the sick or dying loved one can actually perceive agony where none exists or is much less that they perceive.

Let me illustrate with an example from my own life. Two years ago my mother was dying of bone cancer. Her physical pain was well controlled. Her suffering was of an emotional and spiritual nature. But overall her symptoms were well controlled, yet I heard friends and loved ones talking about her terrible pain. When I would rouse her and ask if she was in pain. She consistently said No. Friends and loved ones observed her dying through the lens of their own sorrow. Sorrow and grief can distort reality. She passed away without the agony of intractable physical pain, thanks to a skilled doctor who knew modern pain control techniques.

With my own degenerative multiple sclerosis creeping paralysis has been the main issue. I went from walking normally, to needing a cane, then two canes, then crutches, then a scooter, and now an electric wheelchair. My wheelchair accessible home is equipped with various disability gizmos. I know there is a good chance I may eventually be bed-ridden.

My wife once said “I think it is easy to be than to watch.” She was watching me be ravaged by countless MS attacks -- each one taking away my physical function from a being normal, healthy and athletic man into what you see today. She believed (and she still does) that her pain of observing my situation, unable to alleviate it, is as excruciating as mine. Perhaps she’s right. To imagine things being the other way around is too unbearable for me to contemplate.

Reflected pain

This is important to recognize because reflected or observed pain can create is own pain and contributes to families considering assisted suicide or euthanasia. And that is why I am restating it. It can create a vicious cycle of torment of observation for the observer and fear of being a burden for the actual victim of disease or disability.

Fortunately, I happen to be married to a woman who is utterly committed to the sanctity and value of every human life. To her love is a choice more than the product of unstable feelings and emotions. To LaRee, real love is as much an act of the will as the heart, and morality is a byproduct of intimacy.

For people with acquired and degenerative physical disabilities, life can be filled with terrifying twists and turns. I know what I am talking about when it comes to this area. Until the age of thirty, I was a healthy husband and father. The onset of multiple sclerosis in 1984 was sudden. At this point, I should give some explanation: Multiple sclerosis is a neurological disease of unknown cause. The fatty coating that insulates nerves, called myelin, becomes inflamed impeding or cutting of the brain’s electrical signals to various parts of body. Impairments tend to be intermittent but after time, with each attack the myelin begins to scar – thus the Latin word scler. It can occur erratically throughout the central nervous system making numerous scars – thus the word 'multiple.' Multiple sclerosis can take a benign course and cause very little disability or a catastrophic course causing profound disability. Multiple sclerosis is unpredictable, often chronic and incurable.

My experience with it began one morning when I awoke to find I had no sensation below my waist. I could walk just fine, but I could not distinguish hot from cold or sharp from blunt. Then, overnight I lost the use of my right arm and hand. It initiated years of terror as MS ravaged my body. It would attack taking away a function, then remit and return most, but not all, the previous function. I would go to bed at night not knowing what function I would wake up with, or without. It was like was like a wild, savage roller-coaster ride.

At about the 2-3 year point with MS, my grief was so profound and unimaginable, my sorrow so deep, my heartache so sharp, that my judgment was clouded. In 1991, I was forced into retirement from the Canadian civil service at the age of 38 years and sank into a clinical depression. My perspective became so skewed: I had to be able to safely grieve. I needed the freedom to safely cry out and say the most outrageous things, without be held to a death wish I might have expressed at my lowest point.

I found a certain solace and release for my suffering in the universal language of music. I still do. Music can come close to expressing my deepest agony, in ways words can not. In music, there is a an illusion of a connection between the composer, the performers and the listener.

For example, J.S Bach’s cantatas remind me of Christ’s love, Bach’s suites for solo cello can mark time in the dead of winter and reassure me of God’s order. Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, composed in complete deafness, symbolizes the human spirit overcoming adversity. Imagine such a cruel fate: The greatest composer of the Romantic era went stone deaf! Yet he rose above his predicament to reach unequaled human achievement. I keep a bust of Beethoven above my fireplace to remind me of the human capacity to overcome adversity. I owe a great debt to music. At times it has expressed what was so inexpressible in any other medium.

The right piece of music can touch my heart in ways words or visual arts can not. Still, when the last note dies away and the room is silent. I am left to wrestle with my grief.

Presence of Christ

Throughout my 24 year odyssey with catastrophic disease, there have been times when it was only Christ who kept me from sinking beneath the waves of my circumstances. In moments of deepest fear – not knowing where my disease will take me – it has been the real presence of Jesus Christ, the prayers of His Mother and the Most Holy Rosary that sustained me. The Blessed Virgin Mary -- Mother to the human family -- has consoled me through my Rosary. There were times, at my lowest points, when I went to sleep at night praying the Rosary, only to awaken the next morning still clutching the beads. It did my heart and soul good.

An atheist once told me that Christianity is a crutch for weak people. He sneered and referred to Jesus as my imaginary friend. Having aggressive multiple sclerosis I know a thing or two about weakness, crutches ... and wheelchairs too. Jesus is not my imaginary friend – his presence has come into clearer focus the sicker I become. He is truer and more faithful to me than I have ever been to him. His Mother continually advocates on my behalf. Like the wedding at Cana, the second Luminous Mystery, the Mother of Christ appeals to her son on my behalf as she does for everyone to who takes recourse to the Mother of the Church, of which I am a part. The Blessed Virgin Mary is the mother to mankind.[5]

I knew the power of prayer and divine intervention before my disease. Twenty-eight years ago, before the terror of MS began, Christ delivered me from alcoholism and put my feet on the Rock of His truth. My deliverance from alcoholism was nothing short of a miracle. There was a time when I could not make it through a week without drinking. I was trying anesthetize spiritual pain. I was not physically crippled: I was spiritual crippled.

Today, nearly three decades after my last drink it’s hard for my children and friends to imagine me as a drunk or that a miracle occurred to suddenly stop my addiction.

I was recently asked by another alcoholic struggling to overcome her addiction how it happened. I don’t know how it happened, just that it did happen. It happened with my Christian conversion and surrender of my addiction to God through his son, Jesus Christ. He cooled the fire of addiction for me in the early days of 1980 and restored me to sanity. In retrospect, I think that God intervened suddenly and abruptly to break the alcoholic cycle because within four years I would have something far greater to deal with: multiple sclerosis. And in time, I would come to understand the whys and wherefores.

I have always slept well. But a few years after I was diagnosed with MS, the attacks were so erratic and vicious, I found myself being awakened in the middle of the night by a presence. It was Him. His message was unstated but clear, “It is I, be not afraid,”[6] or more precisely, “I am. Be not afraid.”[7]

The Bible says,

“ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”[8]

The triune God is the creator of all reality, life, understanding, and the source of human illumination. I trusted that in my darkest moments Christ would somehow light the darkness of my fears and outright terror. And so with this belief, I began my search for meaning in my suffering.

Again, I got a hint for my search from John Paul II. He once said, “[I]n order to perceive the true answer to the “why” of suffering, we must look to the revelation of divine love, the ultimate source of meaning of everything that exists.”[9] He told us that love is the richest source of meaning of suffering and that it remains a mystery.

If God is love[10] then I must turn to him for illumination, and not turn away in the midst of my slow destruction. Pope John Paul said the answer to the ‘why’ of suffering would ultimately depend on the ability to comprehend the sublimity of divine love, beginning at the Cross of Christ.

The reason for Christ’s Passion and death on the Cross was to settle with God the problem of human sin and evil. Sin and evil kill goodness. We must not overlook or discount this truth. People suffer whenever they experience evil; the ultimate suffering is the loss of eternal life. The Bible says “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”[11] These are the words of Jesus. His atoning sacrifice, his suffering and crucifixion – offering himself in our place to pay the penalty of our sins – liberated from evil all who believe this. Notice how closely evil is bound to suffering – specifically the suffering of Jesus Christ. Salvation removes the ultimate suffering which the loss of eternal life. John the Baptist called Jesus the lamb of God[12] who takes away the sins of the world. [13] This, too, is inextricably linked to our response to the suffering of Christ at Calvary.

In my search for meaning of suffering, I found it necessary to try and understand the relationship of pain and suffering to evil. Taken in light of Christ’s Passion, death and Resurrection, it opens the possibility of rebuilding goodness in the person who suffers. (Remember I said sin and evil kill goodness?) It is a beginning of discerning the idea of divine mercy. The idea of undeserved divine mercy broke my heart because I was so undeserving of mercy. It called me anew to repentance. It introduced me to what our Lord meant in the blessing of being “poor in spirit.” This state of spirit poverty is the forerunner of internal transformation. I will come back to this in a few minutes.

It was important for me to resist the temptation to become bitter, not focus on my predicament, and simply surrender to that divine love of Christ. Through my Redeemer’s outstretched arms on the cross, he invited me to unite my suffering with his suffering. Imagine that! I was invited into Christ’s redemptive suffering. He suffered in my place and here I was invited to share in that redemptive act.

Accepting suffering

This marked a critical transition point in my acceptance of suffering and stop resisting what I could not control. It required that I relinquish to Him ownership of my pain. It required that a shift take place in my spiritual mindset in order to realize that in this earthly life it is more important to understand than to be understood. I was being called to set aside self-interest, and ego, and follow Christ with complete abandon. This is the complete antithesis of my egotistical and self-absorbed nature. But Christ was calling me, in my sorrow and pain, to transcend beyond myself by uniting my suffering with his at the Cross. (just he calls you to transcend yourself).

Bishop Fulton Sheen put it this way:

“But the problem involved in I-transcendence is not one of aesthetic approval -- the question is whether a man is willing to follow Him; and to follow Him means to be united with Him in the sacrifice of self, the taking up of a Cross for the complete perfection of personality through pain.”[14]

It is not easy to be willing to take up my cross but it is necessary, if truth means anything. Perhaps that is why our Lord said we must take up our cross daily.[15] It requires a daily recommitment to bear up the weight of my cross and follow Him. But follow Him where? In my weakness I have been so irrationally afraid to take up my cross and following Christ because I fear it might lead me to a Golgotha! Yet the logic of divine love assures me I can rest in his tender embrace as a child of God. I remember those words: “Be not afraid. I am with you.” But I am unable to become a child without divine intervention and Saint John said this at the beginning of his Gospel: “But to those who did accept him [Jesus Christ] he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God.”[16]

If I carry my cross of suffering in union with Christ’s redemptive suffering it does not lead to a Golgotha: It leads to the understanding that Christ has raised human suffering to the level of the Redemption – if we will accept it. Pope John Paul told us this when he said, “Thus each man, in his suffering, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ.” And then, “The eloquence of the Cross and death is however, completed by the eloquence of the Resurrection.”[17]

Suffering in unison with Christ helped me see Resurrection in a new light. My hope in, and anticipation of, the Resurrection helps me go through my dark days of humiliations, my agonies, my doubts and my fears.

The Apostle Paul wrote:

“For as Christ’s sufferings overflow to us, so through Christ  does our encouragement also overflow.”[18]

Perhaps this ties into the Apostle’s exhortation “to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.”[19] When I did this, strangely yet wonderfully, I realized I was given the privilege of sharing in Christ’s suffering. This is not unique to me. Throughout the ages Christ has opened his sufferings to humanity. We can, through faith, discover that Christ’s redemptive suffering gives us insights and meaning in our own suffering.

I am convinced it what Saint Paul meant when he wrote,

“I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me.”[20]

Suffering in union with Christ produces endurance. Endurance produces character. Character which produces true hope, … not false hope. It is rooted in God’s love that He gives to the suffering human heart through the Holy Spirit.[21]

Transcendence and transformation

A flood of hope rooted in divine love produces in the sufferer the marvelous realization that he is mysteriously being transformed to be fit for heaven. If we are open in our suffering to Christ’s love it will inevitable begin a spiritual transformation.

Throughout the ages, it has been observed that suffering has the concealed power to draw the sufferer toward Christ, if the sufferer allows it. I have discovered that Christ grants a special grace that transcends my suffering. Suffering carries the capacity to strip aware all things extraneous to life, leaving only that which is essential.[22]

Suffering taught me that at the center of existence rests a heartrending and beautiful mystery. Once that mystery is glimpsed, everything else becomes an irrelevance, a diversion. That mystery is the light of Christ. Suffering can create a renewed quality of conversion, so-to-speak. Many people throughout history have discovered this truth, including Saint Francis of Assisi, John Milton, John Donne and millions of ordinary people.

Last month, the Russian writer and dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn died at the age of 89 years. In 1945, he was sentenced to eight years in a Russian labor-camp because of his criticism of the Soviet government. He chronicled his experiences in prison in a series of writings including a trilogy entitled Gulag Archipelago.

Solzhenitsyn described an illumination that came to him while languishing in prison. This illumination enabled him to begin comprehending the glorious, transforming liberty of the children of God, regardless of their physical circumstances. Saint Paul referred to this liberty in his second letter to the Corinthians:

“…but whenever a person turns to the Lord the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image of glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit.”[23]

This was the spiritual liberty revealed to Solzhenitsyn despite his miserable, stinking prison cell. In any human context he possessed no liberty whatsoever! But out of Solzhenitsyn’s wretched surroundings came salvation and Joy. It was lying on the jail’s rotting straw that he discovered union with Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection. Into the inky darkness shone a great light.

Different kinds of prisons

Solzhenitsyn’s prison was made of concrete and steel. My prison is my own body. My prison gets smaller each year as my body slowly turns into a living carcass. Despite this ugly reality, I, too, have discovered a great light shining into my prison.

Prisons may have barred windows or be paralysis and wheelchairs. They can take the form of crippling fears and phobias, broken bodies or broken hearts, or addictions. The worst prisons are not made of concrete, with bars and locked metal doors, they are found in human hearts and minds.

The good news is that no matter what makes up a person’s prison, the truth and liberation of Jesus Christ’s light and truth can penetrate through their walls and darkness. Christ’s truth can (and does) set people free, even today. He said:

“If you hold to my teachings, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”[24]

Crucial questions

But what sort of freedom did Christ mean? Jesus expanded what He meant in John 8.34-35. He was speaking about freedom from the bondage of sin and condemnation. And for those of us who are acutely aware of our sins, this means everything. Like King David, our sins are always before us.[25]

What is the truth? Jesus was speaking of truth that leads to salvation: In other words, Jesus is truth.[26] I find it ironic that Pilate posed this very question as he was looking at truth square in the face.[27]

What is the light? Jesus is the light of the world.[28]

The light came into the world but the world did not comprehend it.[29] Still, the light of Christ shines despite drastic or dire earthly circumstances. The light and truth of Christ has both confounded and illuminated the hearts and minds of men and women living from the 1st to the 21st Century. Suffering has the capacity to draw the sufferer closer to Christ as their interior Guide and Master. This beautiful interchange points to the center of mystery of Redemption. Suffering itself is an experience of evil but Jesus made suffering the ultimate good of eternal salvation at the Cross.

To those who unite their suffering with the Redeemer, new horizons of the Kingdom of God are slowly revealed, through their suffering. That Kingdom is built of the redemptive power of divine love.

The light still shines

How can people comprehend the light? I’m not sure human beings are capable of comprehending the light without utterly and completely surrendering themselves to the Light (Jesus Christ). They must submit to the will of God—content to accept whatever that may be.

Now I know that the words “surrender” and “submission” represent particularly repugnant concepts to a vain, spoilt and stiff-necked generation like the ‘boomers (of which I am a part). Submission to anything is unthinkable to most of us. But the option is to stubbornly remain in soul-darkness, stumbling or suffering without meaning. That ends in the greatest human poverty: spiritual despair. I believe that is why depression is so common. In a culture with everything—the highest standard of life, the lowest levels of infant mortality, the greatest comforts and the least wants, why is depression so rampant?

I’m not referring to depression caused by grieving or mourning loss. I’m talking about unfocused depression. Could it be attributable to the level of Christ’s light we shut out or allow to be shut out of our inner selves?

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”[30] Light shines brighter the darker it gets.
I believe that’s why the light of Christ is so evident in suffering. It is in the ‘dark night of the soul’ that Christ’s light is most evident. Christ acts within suffering by the power his consoling Spirit of truth. That is why sorrow of affliction and the Joy of Christ can exist simultaneously.

And like a sweet celestial violin, the Mother of God continues to offer petitions to her Son on the sufferer’s behalf. Tears prompted by grief or pain and tears of Joy and contentment flow together. Only in surrender to Christ can humanity experience true liberty.

Pushing back the darkness

Those who finally choose to surrender everything to Christ (usually after all other possible options have been exhausted) will eventually begin to detect the first rays of a great light pushing back their internal darkness. That’s when that a striking irony becomes heartrendingly apparent. It is only in real surrender that we find real liberty.

Like Mary of Bethany, all we need to do is sit quietly at the feet of Jesus, basking in the warmth of his light, willingly to be taught the Truth about interdependent love and Joy, which are our eternal possessions in Christ.

Jesus referred to this in his passage about being the vine while we (his followers) are the branches.[31] He said,

“As my Father has loved me, so have I loved you. If you obey my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”[32]

All humanity longs for belonging. Our belonging is in our surrender and resting in the light of Christ. That is all I really know: In my suffering I have received a glimpse of the Truth and it is setting me free. Not even this wheelchair can take that freedom from me. Christ’s light has driven back my darkness. I live in His light and liberty.

The Blessed Virgin Mary smiles to see me finally surrendered, content and at peace at last to understand it was divine love that gave meaning to my suffering. The answer to our suffering was given by God in the Cross of Jesus Christ.[33] We can sit at his feet that still bear the scars of his pain. Our lesser sufferings have been absorbed.

It will be God himself who will wipe away every tear we have shed; there will be no more death, or sorrow, nor crying; and there shall be no more pain, for the former things will have passed away.[34] The Bible says He will make all things new. God has promised “He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall My son.”[35]

My search for some purpose to my pain only discovered divine love in his Christ’s pain. My search for meaning of my suffering calls me continually to draw nearer to Him and unite my suffering with his suffering. The answer has not come in a thunder clap of revelation rather a breeze that whispers: “Be not afraid, I am with you.”

These are the words I began with in quoting Pope John Paul at the beginning of his pontificate. For this evening’s presentation, I have leaned heavily on his Gospel of Suffering published in 1984 – the same year I was diagnosed with MS. It has proved invaluable to me throughout the years. I want to end with Pope John Paul’s words from that Apostolic Letter that’s so fitting for this evening on the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary:

“The divine Redeemer wishes to penetrate the soul of every sufferer through the heart of his holy Mother, the first and most exalted of all the redeemed. … [T]he dying Christ conferred upon the ever Virgin Mary a new kind of motherhood – spiritual and universal – toward all human beings, so that every individual, during the pilgrimage of faith, might remain with her, closely united to him unto the Cross, and so that every form of suffering, … should become no longer the weakness of man but the power of God.”

Thank you and good evening.

Mark Pickup

7 October 2008

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FOOTNOTES
[1] Matthew 14.27, 17.7, 28.10, Mark 5.36, John 6.20
[2] Job 2.9.
[3] Job 2.13-3.3.
[4] Gilbert K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (New York, Image Books, 2001) p. 72.
[5] Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 968-970.
[6] John 6.20.
[7] Exodus 3.14. “I am” is God as the absolute and necessary Being -- the Source of all created beings. Jesus “I am”s include The Messiah (Jn 4.25-26), The Bread of Life (Jn.6.35), from above (Jn 8.23), The Eternal One (Jn 8.58), the Light of the World (Jn 9.5), The Gate (Jn 10.7&9), The Good Shepherd ( Jn 10.11,14), The Son of God (Jn 10.36), The Resurrection and the Life (Jn 111.25), The Lord and Master (Jn 13.13), The Way, Truth, and Life (Jn 14.6),The True Vine (Jn 15.1), The Alpha and Omega (Rev.1.18). 
[8] John 1.1-5.
[9] SALVIFIC DOLORIS, OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF JOHN PAUL II TO THE BISHOPS, TO THEPRIESTS, TO THE RELIGIOUS FAMILIES AND TO THE FAITHFUL OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON THE CHRISTIAN MEANING OF SUFFERING, 1984, See (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_11021984_salvifici-doloris_en.html )
[10] 1 John 4.16b.
[11] John 3.16.
[12]Some biblical scholars think the background of the Lamb of God may be the victorious apocalyptic lamb that destroys evil in the world (Rev 5–7; 17:14); another is the paschal lamb, whose blood saved Israel (Exodus 12); and/or the suffering servant led like a lamb to slaughter as a sin-offering (Isaiah 53:7,10).
[13]John 1.29.
[14] Fulton J. Sheen, Lift Up Your Heart (Boston, McGraw-Hill, 1975) Large print ed., p.301.
[15] Luke 9.23.
[16] John 1.12-13.
[17] Gospel of Suffering.
[18] 2 Corinthians 1.5.
[19] Romans 12.1.
[20] Galatians 2.19b-20.
[21] See Romans 5.3-5.
[22] Gospel of Suffering (1984). See http://www.mariancatechist.com/html/spiritualdevelopment/wayofthecross/gospelofsuffering.htm
[23] 2Corinthians 3.16-18.
[24] John 8.31b-32. Also see Galatians 5.1.
[25] Psalm 51.3.
[26]John 14.6.
[27] John 18.38
[28] John 8.12.
[29] John 1.5.
[30] John 8.12. Also see John 1.4.
[31] John 15.5.
[32] John 15.9-12.
[33] Gospel of Suffering.
[34] Rev.21.4-5.
[35] 21.7.