Understanding and Resolving Suffering
Paul Chaloux, PhD(c) in moral theology, Catholic University of America
In most situations, it can be hard for a person who is undergoing a painful death to see the meaning in it. It can be even more painful and difficult to understand for loved ones who witness this terminal suffering, particularly when the sufferer is an innocent child. And yet, if John Paul II is to be believed, every experience of suffering conceals a blessing to be found that can lead one to salvation and if Eric Cassell is correct, this knowledge will end the suffering.
In The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine, Cassell observes that pain only rises to the level of suffering if it is perceived as a threat to a person’s existence, not merely to one’s life but to one’s integrity as a person. This is a tremendously important insight because it means that suffering ends when the person’s integrity is no longer in question or the existential threat ceases, even if the pain remains. As Cassell notes, when a person can find meaning in his suffering, he can ignore the pain and may even feel exhilaration, offering Nathan Hale’s patriotic last words, “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country” as evidence that personal agony can be overcome when it allows the person to retain and honor his sense of self.
Pope John Paul II goes even further in his Apostolic Letter, Salvifici doloris, insisting that concealed within suffering is a particular power that draws a person interiorly close to Christ, a special grace to which he attributes the profound conversion of such saints as Francis of Assisi and Ignatius of Loyola. In saying that “all suffering must serve for conversion, a rebuilding of goodness in the subject, who can recognize the divine mercy in this call for repentance,” the Pope asserts that suffering can be a blessing and not a curse: a part of the divine plan that leads to salvation. In this way, all suffering can have meaning and thus, can be overcome by those who can perceive its salvific benefits.
This paper will explore the kinds of blessings one might find in an experience of suffering as intense as that of the terminal illness of child and to answer anticipated objections using the Pope’s theological insights from Salvifici doloris, recognizing that the inter-relational dynamics are too complex for even those intimately involved to understand all the implications of a given person’s suffering. Without a doubt, finding these blessings in the painful death of an innocent child requires a fundamental change of perspective for most people and paradoxically, it is suffering that can provide the necessary impetus for that change in viewpoint. Indeed, if such suffering is considered only in temporal terms, it cannot be understood as anything but cruelty. It is only by looking beyond our earthly existence that we can see how suffering drives us to pursue the good we are missing and provides the grace to obtain it.
In The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine, Cassell observes that pain only rises to the level of suffering if it is perceived as a threat to a person’s existence, not merely to one’s life but to one’s integrity as a person. This is a tremendously important insight because it means that suffering ends when the person’s integrity is no longer in question or the existential threat ceases, even if the pain remains. As Cassell notes, when a person can find meaning in his suffering, he can ignore the pain and may even feel exhilaration, offering Nathan Hale’s patriotic last words, “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country” as evidence that personal agony can be overcome when it allows the person to retain and honor his sense of self.
Pope John Paul II goes even further in his Apostolic Letter, Salvifici doloris, insisting that concealed within suffering is a particular power that draws a person interiorly close to Christ, a special grace to which he attributes the profound conversion of such saints as Francis of Assisi and Ignatius of Loyola. In saying that “all suffering must serve for conversion, a rebuilding of goodness in the subject, who can recognize the divine mercy in this call for repentance,” the Pope asserts that suffering can be a blessing and not a curse: a part of the divine plan that leads to salvation. In this way, all suffering can have meaning and thus, can be overcome by those who can perceive its salvific benefits.
This paper will explore the kinds of blessings one might find in an experience of suffering as intense as that of the terminal illness of child and to answer anticipated objections using the Pope’s theological insights from Salvifici doloris, recognizing that the inter-relational dynamics are too complex for even those intimately involved to understand all the implications of a given person’s suffering. Without a doubt, finding these blessings in the painful death of an innocent child requires a fundamental change of perspective for most people and paradoxically, it is suffering that can provide the necessary impetus for that change in viewpoint. Indeed, if such suffering is considered only in temporal terms, it cannot be understood as anything but cruelty. It is only by looking beyond our earthly existence that we can see how suffering drives us to pursue the good we are missing and provides the grace to obtain it.