Apostolic
Letter to the Bishops, to the Priests, to the Religious Families, and to the
Faithful
of the
Catholic Church on the Christian Meaning of Suffering
11 February 1984
Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate and dear
brothers and sisters in Christ,
I. Introduction
1. Declaring the power of salvific suffering,
the Apostle Paul says: "In my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's
afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church"(1).
These words
seem to be found at the end of the long road that winds through the suffering
which forms part of the history of man and which is illuminated by the Word of
God. These words have as it were the value of a final discovery, which is
accompanied by joy. For this reason Saint Paul writes: "Now I rejoice in
my sufferings for your sake"(2). The joy comes from the discovery of the
meaning of suffering, and this discovery, even if it is most personally shared
in by Paul of Tarsus who wrote these words, is at the same time valid for others.
The Apostle shares his own discovery and rejoices in it because of all those
whom it can help—just as it helped him—to understand the salvific meaning of suffering.
2. The theme of suffering-precisely under the
aspect of this salvific meaning-seems to fit profoundly into the context of the
Holy Year of the Redemption as an extraordinary Jubilee of the Church. And this
circumstance too clearly favours the attention it deserves during this period.
Independently of this fact, it is a universal theme that accompanies man at
every point on earth: in a certain sense it co-exists with him in the world,
and thus demands to be constantly reconsidered.
Even though Paul, in the Letter to the Romans,
wrote that "the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until
now"(3), even though man knows and is close to the sufferings of the
animal world, nevertheless what we express by the word "suffering"
seems to be particularly essential to the
nature of man. It is as deep as man himself, precisely because it manifests
in its own way that depth which is proper to man, and in its own way surpasses
it. Suffering seems to belong to man's transcendence: it is one of those points
in which man is in a certain sense "destined" to go beyond himself,
and he is called to this in a mysterious way.
3. The theme of suffering in a special way
demands to be faced in the context of the Holy Year of the Redemption, and this
is so, in the first place, because the Redemption
was accomplished through the Cross of
Christ, that is, through his
suffering. And at the same time, during the Holy Year of the Redemption we
recall the truth expressed in the Encyclical Redemptor Hominis: in Christ "every man becomes the way for
the Church"(4). It can be said that man in a special fashion becomes the
way for the Church when suffering enters his life. This happens, as we know, at
different moments in life, it takes place in different ways, it assumes
different dimensions; nevertheless, in whatever form, suffering seems to be,
and is, almost inseparable from man's
earthly existence.
Assuming then that throughout his earthly life
man walks in one manner or another on the long path of suffering, it is
precisely on this path that the Church at all times-and perhaps especially
during the Holy Year of the Redemption-should meet man. Born of the mystery of
Redemption in the Cross of Christ, the Church has to try to meet man in a special way on the path of his suffering.
In this meeting man "becomes the way for the Church", and this way is
one of the most important ones.
4. This is the origin also of the present
reflection, precisely in the Year of the Redemption: a meditation on suffering.
Human suffering evokes compassion; it
also evokes respect, and in its own
way it intimidates. For in suffering
is contained the greatness of a specific mystery. This special respect for
every form of human suffering must be set at the beginning of what will be
expressed here later by the deepest need
of the heart, and also by the deep imperative
of faith. About the theme of suffering these two reasons seem to draw
particularly close to each other and to become one: the need of the heart
commands us to overcome fear, and the imperative of faith—formulated, for
example, in the words of Saint Paul quoted at the beginning—provides the
content, in the name of which and by virtue of which we dare to touch what
appears in every man so intangible: for man, in his suffering, remains an
intangible mystery.
II. The world of human suffering
5. Even though in its subjective dimension, as
a personal fact contained within man's concrete and unrepeatable interior,
suffering seems almost inexpressible and not transferable, perhaps at the same
time nothing else requires as much as does suffering, in its "objective reality", to be dealt with, meditated
upon, and conceived as an explicit problem; and that therefore basic questions
be asked about it and the answers sought. It is evident that it is not a
question here merely of giving a description of suffering. There are other
criteria which go beyond the sphere of description, and which we must introduce
when we wish to penetrate the world of human suffering.
Medicine, as the science and also the art of healing,
discovers in the vast field of human sufferings the best known area, the one identified with greater precision and
relatively more counterbalanced by the methods of "reaction" (that
is, the methods of therapy). Nonetheless, this is only one area.
The field of human suffering is much wider,
more varied, and multi-dimensional. Man suffers in different ways, ways not
always considered by medicine, not even in its
most advanced specializations. Suffering is something which is still wider than sickness, more complex
and at the same time still more deeply rooted in humanity itself. A certain
idea of this problem comes to us from the distinction between physical
suffering and moral suffering. This distinction is based upon the double
dimension of the human being and indicates the bodily and spiritual element as
the immediate or direct subject of suffering. Insofar as the words
"suffering" and "pain", can, up to a certain degree, be
used as synonyms, physical suffering is present
when "the body is hurting" in some way, whereas moral suffering is "pain of the soul". In fact, it is a
question of pain of a spiritual
nature, and not only of the "psychological" dimension of pain which
accompanies both moral and physical suffering The vastness and the many forms
of moral suffering are certainly no less in number than the forms of physical
suffering. But at the same time, moral suffering seems as it were less
identified and less reachable by therapy.
6. Sacred Scripture is a great book about suffering. Let us quote from the books of the Old
Testament a few examples of situations which bear the signs of suffering, and
above all moral suffering: the danger of death(5), the death of one's own
children(6) and, especially, the death of the firstborn and only son(7); and
then too: the lack of offspring(8), nostalgia for the homeland(9), persecution
and hostility of the environment(10), mockery and scorn of the one who
suffers(11), loneliness and abandonment(12); and again: the remorse of
conscience(13), the difficulty of understanding why the wicked prosper and the
just suffer(14), the unfaithfulness and ingratitude of friends and
neighbours(15); and finally: the misfortunes of one's own nation(16).
In treating
the human person as a psychological and
physical "whole", the Old Testament often links "moral"
sufferings with the pain of specific parts of the body: the bones(17),
kidneys(18), liver(19), viscera(20), heart(21). In fact one cannot deny that
moral sufferings have a "physical" or somatic element, and that they
are often reflected in the state of the entire organism.
7. As we see from the examples quoted, we find
in Sacred Scripture an extensive list of variously painful situations for man.
This varied list certainly does not exhaust all that has been said and
constantly repeated on the theme of suffering by the book of the history of man (this is rather an "unwritten
book"), and even more by the book of the history of humanity, read through
the history of every human individual.
It can be said that man suffers whenever he experiences any kind of evil. In the
vocabulary of the Old Testament,
suffering and evil are identified with each other. In fact, that vocabulary did
not have a specific word to indicate "suffering". Thus it defined as
" evil" everything that was suffering(22). Only the Greek language,
and together with it the New Testament (and the Greek translations of the Old
Testament), use the verb * = "I am affected by .... I experience a
feeling, I suffer"; and, thanks to this verb, suffering is no longer
directly identifiable with (objective) evil, but expresses a situation in which
man experiences evil and in doing so becomes the subject of suffering.
Suffering has indeed both a subjective
and a passive character (from "patior"). Even when man brings
suffering on himself, when he is its cause, this suffering remains something
passive in its metaphysical essence.
This does not however mean that suffering in
the psychological sense is not marked by a specific
"activity". This is in fact that multiple and subjectively
differentiated "activity" of pain, sadness, disappointment,
discouragement or even despair, according to the intensity of the suffering
subject and his or her specific sensitivity. In the midst of what constitutes
the psychological form of suffering there is always an experience of evil, which causes the individual to suffer.
Thus the reality of suffering prompts the
question about the essence of evil: what is evil?
This questions seems, in a certain sense,
inseparable from the theme of suffering. The Christian response to it is
different, for example, from the one given by certain cultural and religious
traditions which hold that existence is an evil from which one needs to be
liberated.
Christianity proclaims the essential good of existence and the good of that
which exists, acknowledges the goodness of the Creator and proclaims the good
of creatures. Man suffers on account of evil, which is a certain lack,
limitation or distortion of good. We could say that man suffers because of a good in which he does not
share, from which in a certain sense he is cut off, or of which he has deprived
himself. He particularly suffers when he a ought"—in the normal order of
things—to have a share in this good and does not have it.
Thus, in the Christian view, the reality of
suffering is explained through evil, which always, in some way, refers to a good.
8. In itself human suffering constitutes as it
were a specific "world" which
exists together with man, which appears in him and passes, and sometimes does
not pass, but which consolidates itself and becomes deeply rooted in him. This
world of suffering, divided into many, very many subjects, exists as it were "in dispersion". Every
individual, through personal suffering, constitutes not only a small part of
that a world", but at the same time" that world" is present in
him as a finite and unrepeatable entity. Parallel with this, however, is the
interhuman and social dimension. The world of suffering possesses as it were
its own solidarity. People who suffer
become similar to one another through the analogy of their situation, the trial
of their destiny, or through their need for understanding and care, and perhaps
above all through the persistent question of the meaning of suffering. Thus,
although the world of suffering exists "in dispersion", at the same
time it contains within itself a. singular challenge to communion and solidarity. We shall also try to follow this
appeal in the present reflection.
Considering the world of suffering in its
personal and at the same time collective meaning, one cannot fail to notice the
fact that this world, at some periods of time and in some eras of human
existence, as it were becomes
particularly concentrated. This happens, for example, in cases of natural
disasters, epidemics, catastrophes, upheavals and various social scourges: one
thinks, for example, of a bad harvest and connected with it-or with various
other causes- the scourge of famine.
One thinks, finally, of war. I speak of this in
a particular way. I speak of the last two World Wars, the second of which
brought with it a much greater harvest of death and a much heavier burden of
human sufferings. The second half of our century, in its turn, brings with it—as
though in proportion to the mistakes and transgressions of our contemporary
civilization—such a horrible threat of nuclear war that we cannot think of this
period except in terms of an incomparable
accumulation of sufferings, even to the possible self-destruction of
humanity. In this way, that world of suffering which in brief has its subject
in each human being, seems in our age to be transformed—perhaps more than at
any other moment—into a special "world": the world which as never
before has been transformed by progress through man's work and, at the same
time, is as never before in danger because of man's mistakes and offences.
III. The
quest for an answer to the question of the meaning of suffering
9. Within each form of suffering endured by
man, and at the same time at the basis of the whole world of suffering, there
inevitably arises the question: why? It
is a question about the cause, the reason, and equally, about the purpose of
suffering, and, in brief, a question about its meaning. Not only does it
accompany human suffering, but it seems even to determine its human content,
what makes suffering precisely human suffering.
It is obvious that pain, especially physical
pain, is widespread in the animal world. But only the suffering human being
knows that he is suffering and wonders why; and he suffers in a humanly
speaking still deeper way if he does not find a satisfactory answer. This is a difficult question, just as is a
question closely akin to it, the question of evil. Why does evil exist? Why is
there evil in the world? When we put the question in this way, we are always,
at least to a certain extent, asking a question about suffering too.
Both questions are difficult, when an
individual puts them to another individual, when people put them to other
people, as also when man puts them to
God. For man does not put this question to the world, even though it is
from the world that suffering often comes to him, but he puts it to God as the
Creator and Lord of the world. And it is well known that concerning this
question there not only arise many frustrations and conflicts in the relations
of man with God, but it also happens that people reach the point of actually denying God. For, whereas the existence
of the world opens as it were the eyes of the human soul to the existence of
God, to his wisdom, power and greatness, evil and suffering seem to obscure
this image, sometimes in a radical way, especially in the daily drama of so
many cases of undeserved suffering and of so many faults without proper
punishment. So this circumstance shows—perhaps more than any other—the
importance of the question of the meaning
of suffering; it also shows how much care must be taken both in dealing
with the question itself and with all possible answers to it.
10. Man can put this question to God with all
the emotion of his heart and with his mind full of dismay and anxiety; and God
expects the question and listens to it, as we see in the Revelation of the Old
Testament. In the Book of Job the question has found its most vivid expression.
The story of this just man, who without any
fault of his own is tried by innumerable sufferings, is well known. He loses
his possessions, his sons and daughters, and finally he himself is afflicted by
a grave sickness. In this horrible situation three old acquaintances come to
his house, and each one in his own way tries to convince him that since he has
been struck down by such varied and terrible sufferings, he must have done something seriously wrong. For suffering—they
say—always strikes a man as punishment for a crime; it is sent by the
absolutely just God and finds its reason in the order of justice. It can be
said that Job's old friends wish not only to convince him of the moral justice of the evil, but in a certain
sense they attempt to justify to
themselves the moral meaning of suffering. In their eyes suffering can have a
meaning only as a punishment for sin, therefore only on the level of God's
justice, who repays good with good and evil with evil.
The point of reference in this case is the
doctrine expressed in other Old Testament writings which show us suffering as
punishment inflicted by God for human sins. The God of Revelation is the Lawgiver and Judge to a degree that no
temporal authority can see. For the God of Revelation is first of all the
Creator, from whom comes, together with existence, the essential good of
creation.
Therefore, the conscious and free violation of
this good by man is not only a transgression of the law but at the same time an
offence against the Creator, who is the first Lawgiver. Such a transgression
has the character of sin, according to the exact meaning of this word, namely
the biblical and theological one. Corresponding
to the moral evil of sin is punishment, which guarantees the moral order in
the same transcendent sense in which this order is laid down by the will of the
Creator and Supreme Lawgiver. From this there also derives one of the
fundamental truths of religious faith, equally based upon Revelation, namely
that God is a just judge, who rewards good and punishes evil: "For thou
art just in all that thou hast done to us, and all thy works are true and thy
ways right, and all thy judgments are truth. Thou hast executed true judgments
in all that thou hast brought upon us... for in truth and justice thou hast
brought all this upon us because of our sins"(23).
The opinion expressed by Job's friends
manifests a conviction also found in the moral conscience of humanity: the
objective moral order demands punishment for transgression, sin and crime. From
this point of view, suffering appears as a "justified evil". The
conviction of those who explain suffering as a punishment for sin finds support
in the order of justice, and this corresponds to the conviction expressed by
one of Job's friends: "As I have seen, those who plough iniquity and sow
trouble reap the same"(24).
11. Job however challenges the truth of the
principle that identifies suffering with punishment for sin. And he does this
on the basis of his own opinion. For he is aware that he has not deserved such
punishment, and in fact he speaks of the good that he has done during his life.
In the end, God himself reproves Job's friends for their accusations and
recognizes that Job is not guilty. His suffering is the suffering of someone
who is innocent and it must be accepted as a mystery, which the individual is
unable to penetrate completely by his own intelligence.
The Book of Job does not violate the
foundations of the transcendent moral order, based upon justice, as they are
set forth by the whole of Revelation, in both the Old and the New Covenants. At
the same time, however, this Book shows with all firmness that the principles
of this order cannot be applied in an exclusive and superficial way. While it
is true that suffering has a meaning as punishment, when it is connected with a
fault, it is not true that all suffering is a consequence of a fault
and has the nature of a punishment. The figure of the just man Job is a
special proof of this in the Old Testament. Revelation, which is the word of
God himself, with complete frankness presents the problem of the suffering of
an innocent man: suffering without guilt. Job has not been punished, there was
no reason for inflicting a punishment on him, even if he has been subjected to
a grievous trial. From the introduction of the Book it is apparent that God
permitted this testing as a result of Satan's provocation. For Satan had
challenged before the Lord the righteousness of Job: "Does Job fear God
for nought? ... Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions
have increased in the land. But put forth thy hand now, and touch all that he
has, and he will curse thee to thy face"(25). And if the Lord consents to
test Job with suffering, he does it to
demonstrate the latter's righteousness. The suffering has the nature of a
test.
The Book of Job is not the last word on this
subject in Revelation. In a certain way it is a foretelling of the Passion of
Christ. But already in itself it is sufficient
argument why the answer to the question about the meaning of suffering is
not to be unreservedly linked to the moral order, based on justice alone. While
such an answer has a fundamental and transcendent reason and validity, at the
same time it is seen to be not only unsatisfactory in cases similar to the
suffering of the just man Job, but it even seems to trivialize and impoverish the concept of justice which we
encounter in Revelation.
12. The Book of Job poses in an extremely acute
way the question of the "why" of suffering; it also shows that
suffering strikes the innocent, but it does not yet give the solution to the
problem.
Already in
the Old Testament we note an orientation that begins to go beyond the concept
according to which suffering has a meaning only as a punishment for sin,
insofar as it emphasizes at the same time the educational value of suffering as
a punishment. Thus in the sufferings inflicted by God upon the Chosen People
there is included an invitation of his mercy, which corrects in order to lead
to conversion: "... these punishments were designed not to destroy but to
discipline our people"(26).
Thus the personal dimension of punishment is
affirmed. According to this dimension, punishment has a meaning not only
because it serves to repay the
objective evil of the transgression with another evil, but first and foremost
because it creates the possibility of rebuilding goodness in the subject who
suffers.
This is an extremely important aspect of
suffering. It is profoundly rooted in the entire Revelation of the Old and
above all the New Covenant. Suffering must serve for conversion, that is, for
the rebuilding of goodness in the subject, who can recognize the divine
mercy in this call to repentance. The purpose of penance is to overcome evil,
which under different forms lies dormant in man. Its purpose is also to
strengthen goodness both in man himself and in his relationships with others
and especially with God.
13. But in order to perceive the true answer to
the "why" of suffering, we must look to the revelation of divine
love, the ultimate source of the meaning of everything that exists. Love is
also the richest source of the meaning of suffering, which always remains a
mystery: we are conscious of the insufficiency and inadequacy of our
explanations. Christ causes us to enter into the mystery and to discover the
"why" of suffering, as far as we are capable of grasping the
sublimity of divine love.
In order to discover the profound meaning of
suffering, following the revealed word of God, we must open ourselves wide to
the human subject in his manifold potentiality. We must above all accept the
light of Revelation not only insofar as it expresses the transcendent order of
justice but also insofar as it illuminates this order with Love, as the
definitive source of everything that exists.
Love is also the fullest source of the answer
to the question of the meaning of suffering. This answer has been given by God
to man in the Cross of Jesus Christ.
IV. Jesus Christ suffering
conquered by love
14. "For God so loved the world that he
gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have
eternal life"(27). These words, spoken by Christ in his conversation with
Nicodemus, introduce us into the very heart of God's salvific work. They also express the very essence of
Christian soteriology, that is, of the theology of salvation. Salvation means
liberation from evil, and for this reason it is closely bound up with the problem
of suffering. According to the words spoken to Nicodemus, God gives his Son to
"the world" to free man from evil, which bears within itself the
definitive and absolute perspective on suffering. At the same time, the very word "gives" ("gave")
indicates that this liberation must be achieved by the only-begotten Son
through his own suffering. And in this, love is manifested, the infinite love
both of that only-begotten Son and of the Father who for this reason
"gives" his Son. This is love for man, love for the
"world": it is salvific love.
We here find ourselves—and we must clearly
realize this in our shared reflection on this problem—faced with a completely
new dimension of our theme. It is a different dimension from the one which was
determined and, in a certain sense, concluded the search for the meaning of
suffering within the limit of justice. This is
the dimension of Redemption, to which in the Old Testament, at least in the
Vulgate text, the words of the just man Job already seem to refer: "For I
know that my Redeemer lives, and at last... I shall see God..."(28).
Whereas our consideration has so far concentrated primarily and in a certain
sense exclusively on suffering in its multiple temporal dimension (as also the
sufferings of the just man Job), the words quoted above from Jesus'
conversation with Nicodemus refer to suffering
in its fundamental and definitive meaning. God gives his only-begotten Son
so that man "should not perish" and the meaning of these words "
should not perish" is precisely specified by the words that follow:
"but have eternal life".
Man " perishes" when he loses
"eternal life". The opposite of salvation is not, therefore, only
temporal suffering, any kind of suffering, but the definitive suffering: the
loss of eternal life, being rejected by God, damnation. The only-begotten Son
was given to humanity primarily to protect man against this definitive evil and
against definitive suffering. In his
salvific mission, the Son must therefore strike evil right at its
transcendental roots from which it develops in human history. These
transcendental roots of evil are grounded in sin and death: for they are at the
basis of the loss of eternal life. The mission of the only-begotten Son
consists in conquering sin and death. He
conquers sin by his obedience unto death, and he overcomes death by his
Resurrection.
15. When one says that Christ by his mission
strikes at evil at its very roots, we have in mind not only evil and
definitive, eschatological suffering (so that man "should not perish, but
have eternal life"), but also—at least indirectly toil and suffering in their temporal
and historical dimension. For evil remains bound to sin and death. And even
if we must use great caution in judging man's suffering as a consequence of
concrete sins (this is shown precisely by the example of the just man Job),
nevertheless suffering cannot be divorced from the sin of the beginnings, from
what Saint John calls "the sin of the world"(29), from the sinful background of the
personal actions and social processes in human history. Though it is not licit
to apply here the narrow criterion of direct dependance (as Job's three friends
did), it is equally true that one cannot reject the criterion that, at the
basis of human suffering, there is a complex involvement with sin.
It is the same when we deal with death. It is often awaited even as a
liberation from the suffering of this life. At the same time, it is not
possible to ignore the fact that it constitutes as it were a definitive
summing-up of the destructive work both in the bodily organism and in the
psyche. But death primarily involves the
dissolution of the entire psychophysical personality of man. The soul
survives and subsists separated from the body, while the body is subjected to
gradual decomposition according to the words of the Lord God, pronounced after
the sin committed by man at the beginning of his earthly history: "You are
dust and to dust you shall return"(30). Therefore, even if death is not a
form of suffering in the temporal sense of the word, even if in a certain way it is beyond all forms of suffering, at the same time the evil which the
human being experiences in death has a definitive and total character. By his
salvific work, the only-begotten Son liberates man from sin and death. First of
all he blots out from human history the dominion of sin, which took root
under the influence of the evil Spirit, beginning with Original Sin, and then
he gives man the possibility of living in Sanctifying Grace. In the wake of his
victory over sin, he also takes away the dominion of death, by his Resurrection beginning the process of the future
resurrection of the body.
Both are essential conditions of "eternal
life", that is of man's definitive happiness in union with God; this
means, for the saved, that in the eschatological perspective suffering is
totally blotted out.
As a result of Christ's salvific work, man
exists on earth with the hope of
eternal life and holiness. And even though the victory over sin and death
achieved by Christ in his Cross and Resurrection does not abolish temporal
suffering from human life, nor free from suffering the whole historical
dimension of human existence, it nevertheless throws a new light upon this dimension and upon every suffering:
the light of salvation. This is the light of the Gospel, that is, of the Good
News. At the heart of this light is the truth expounded in the conversation
with Nicodemus: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only
Son"(31). This truth radically changes the picture of man's history and
his earthly situation: in spite of the sin that took root in this history both
as an original inheritance and as the "sin of the world" and as the
sum of personal sins, God the Father has loved the only-begotten Son, that is,
he loves him in a lasting way; and then in time, precisely through this
allsurpassing love, he "gives" this Son, that he may strike at the
very roots of human evil and thus draw close in a salvific way to the whole
world of suffering in which man shares.
16. In his messianic activity in the midst of
Israel, Christ drew increasingly closer to
the world of human suffering. "He went about doing good"(32), and
his actions concerned primarily those who were suffering and seeking help. He
healed the sick, consoled the afflicted, fed the hungry, freed people from
deafness, from blindness, from leprosy, from the devil and from various
physical disabilities, three times he restored the dead to life. He was
sensitive to every human suffering, whether of the body or of the soul. And at
the same time he taught, and at the heart of his teaching there are the eight beatitudes, which are
addressed to people tried by various sufferings in their temporal life. These
are "the poor in spirit" and "the afflicted" and
"those who hunger and thirst for justice" and those who are
"persecuted for justice sake", when they insult them, persecute them
and speak falsely every kind of evil against them for the sake of
Christ...(33). Thus according to Matthew; Luke mentions explicitly those "who
hunger now"(34).
At any rate, Christ drew close above all to the
world of human suffering through the fact of having taken this suffering upon his very self. During his public activity, he
experienced not only fatigue, homelessness, misunderstanding even on the part
of those closest to him, but, more than anything, he became progressively more
and more isolated and encircled by hostility and the preparations for putting
him to death. Christ is aware of this, and often speaks to his disciples of the
sufferings and death that await him: "Behold, we are going up to
Jerusalem; and the Son of man will be
delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him
to death and deliver him to the Gentiles; and they will mock him, and spit upon
him, and scourge him, and kill him; and after three days he will
rise"(35). Christ goes towards his Passion and death with full awareness
of the mission that he has to fulfil precisely in this way. Precisely by means of this suffering he must bring
it about "that man should not perish, but have eternal life".
Precisely by means of his Cross he must strike at the roots of evil, planted in
the history of man and in human souls. Precisely by means of his Cross he must
accomplish the work of salvation. This
work, in the plan of eternal Love, has a redemptive character.
And therefore Christ severely reproves Peter
when the latter wants to make him abandon the thoughts of suffering and of
death on the Cross(36). And when, during his arrest in Gethsemane, the same
Peter tries to defend him with the sword, Christ says, " Put your sword
back into its place...
But how then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?(37)".
And he also says, "Shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given me?"(38). This response, like
others that reappear in different points of the Gospel, shows how profoundly
Christ was imbued by the thought that he had already expressed in the
conversation with Nicodemus: "For God so loved the world that he gave his
only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal
life"(39). Christ goes toward his own suffering, aware of its saving
power; he goes forward in obedience to the Father, but primarily he is united to the Father in this love with
which he has loved the world and man in the world. And for this reason Saint
Paul will write of Christ: "He loved me and gave himself for me"(40).
17. The Scriptures had to be fulfilled. There
were many messianic texts in the Old Testament which foreshadowed the
sufferings of the future Anointed One of God. Among all these, particularly
touching is the one which is commonly called the Fourth Song of the Suffering Servant, in the Book of Isaiah. The
Prophet, who has rightly been called "the Fifth Evangelist", presents
in this Song an image of the sufferings of the Servant with a realism as acute
as if he were seeing them with his own eyes: the eyes of the body and of the
spirit. In the light of the verses of Isaiah, the Passion of Christ becomes
almost more expressive and touching than in the descriptions of the Evangelists
themselves. Behold, the true Man of Sorrows presents himself before us:
"He
had no form or comeliness that we should look
at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with
grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that made us whole,
and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray
we have turned every one to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity
of us all"(41).
The Song of the Suffering Servant contains a
description in which it is possible, in a certain sense, to identify the stages
of Christ's Passion in their various details: the arrest, the humiliation, the
blows, the spitting, the contempt for the prisoner, the unjust sentence, and
then the scourging, the crowning with thorns and the mocking, the carrying of
the Cross, the crucifixion and the agony.
Even more than this description of the Passion,
what strikes us in the words of the Prophet is
the depth of Christ's sacrifice. Behold, He, though innocent, takes upon
himself the sufferings of all people, because he takes upon himself the sins of
all. "The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all": all human sin in its breadth and depth
becomes the true cause of the Redeemer's suffering. If the suffering "is
measured" by the evil suffered, then the words of the Prophet enable us to
understand the extent of this evil and
suffering with which Christ burdened himself. It can be said that this is
"substitutive" suffering; but above all it is "redemptive".
The Man of Sorrows of that prophecy is truly that "Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world"(42). In his suffering, sins are cancelled out
precisely because he alone as the only-begotten Son could take them upon
himself, accept them with that love for
the Father which overcomes the evil of every sin; in a certain sense he
annihilates this evil in the spiritual space of the relationship between God
and humanity, and fills this space with good.
Here we touch upon the duality of nature of a
single personal subject of redemptive suffering.
He who by his Passion and death on the Cross
brings about the Redemption is the only-begotten Son whom God "gave".
And at the same time this Son who is
consubstantial with the Father suffers as a man. His suffering has human
dimensions; it also has unique in the history of humanity—a depth and intensity
which, while being human, can also be an incomparable depth and intensity of
suffering, insofar as the man who suffers is in person the only-begotten Son
himself: " God from God". Therefore, only he—the only-begotten Son—is
capable of embracing the measure of evil contained in the sin of man: in every
sin and in "total" sin, according to the dimensions of the historical
existence of humanity on earth.
18. It can be said that the above
considerations now brings us directly to Gethsemane and Golgotha, where the
Song of the Suffering Servant, contained in the Book of Isaiah, was fulfilled.
But before going there, let us read the next verses of the Song, which give a
prophetic anticipation of the Passion at Gethsemane and Golgotha. The Suffering
Servant—and this in its turn is essential for an analysis of Christ's Passion—takes on himself those sufferings which
were spoken of, in a totally voluntary
way:
"He
was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb,
so he opened not his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered that
he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth"(43).
Christ suffers
voluntarily and suffers innocently. With his suffering he accepts that question
which—posed by people many times—has been expressed, in a certain sense, in a
radical way by the Book of Job. Christ, however, not only carries with himself
the same question (and this in an even more radical way, for he is not only a
man like Job but the only-begotten Son of God), but he also carries the greatest possible answer to this
question. One can say that this answer emerges from the very master of
which the question is made up. Christ gives the answer to the question about
suffering and the meaning of suffering not only by his teaching, that is by the
Good News, but most of all by his own suffering, which is integrated with this
teaching of the Good News in an organic and indissoluble way. And this is the final, definitive word of this teaching: "the word of the
Cross", as Saint Paul one day will say(44).
This "word of the Cross" completes
with a definitive reality the image of the ancient prophecy. Many episodes,
many discourses during Christ's public teaching bear witness to the way in
which from the beginning he accepts this suffering which is the will of the
Father for the salvation of the world. However, the prayer in Gethsemane becomes a definitive point here. The
words: "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me;
nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt"(45), and later: "My
Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, thy will be done"(46), have
a manifold eloquence. They prove the truth of that love which the only-begotten
Son gives to the Father in his obedience. At the same time, they attest to the
truth of his suffering. The words of that prayer of Christ in Gethsemane prove the truth of love through the truth of
suffering. Christ's words confirm with all simplicity this human truth of
suffering, to its very depths: suffering is the undergoing of evil before which
man shudders. He says: let it pass from me", just as Christ says in
Gethsemane.
His words also attest to this unique and
incomparable depth and intensity of suffering which only the man who is the
only-begotten Son could experience; they attest to that depth and intensity which the prophetic words quoted above in their
own way help us to understand. Not of course completely (for this we would have
to penetrate the divine-human mystery of the subject), but at least they help
us to understand that difference (and at the same time the similarity) which
exists between every possible form of human suffering and the suffering of the
Godman. Gethsemane is the place where precisely this suffering, in all the
truth expressed by the Prophet concerning the evil experienced in it, is revealed as it were definitively before
the eyes of Christ's soul.
After the words in Gethsemane come the words
uttered on Golgotha, words which bear witness to this depth—unique in the
history of the world—of the evil of the suffering experienced.
When Christ says: "My God, My God, why
have you abandoned me?", his words are not only an expression of that
abandonment which many times found expression in the Old Testament, especially
in the Psalms and in particular in that Psalm 22 [21] from which come the words
quoted(47). One can say that these words on abandonment are born at the level
of that inseparable union of the Son with the Father, and are born because the
Father "laid on him the iniquity of us all"(48). They also foreshadow
the words of Saint Paul: "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no
sin"(49). Together with this horrible weight, encompassing the "entire" evil of the turning away from God which is contained in sin,
Christ, through the divine depth of his filial union with the Father, perceives
in a humanly inexpressible way this suffering
which is the separation, the rejection by
the Father, the estrangement from God. But precisely through this suffering
he accomplishes the Redemption, and can say as he breathes his last: "It
is finished"(50).
One can also say that the Scripture has been
fulfilled, that these words of the Song of the Suffering Servant have been
definitively accomplished: "it was the will of the Lord to bruise
him"(51). Human suffering has reached its culmination in the Passion of
Christ. And at the same time it has entered into a completely new dimension and
a new order: it has been linked to love, to
that love of which Christ spoke to Nicodemus, to that love which creates good,
drawing it out by means of suffering, just as the supreme good of the
Redemption of the world was drawn from the Cross of Christ, and from that Cross
constantly takes its beginning. The Cross of Christ has become a source from
which flow rivers of living water(52). In it we must also pose anew the
question about the meaning of suffering, and read in it, to its very depths,
the answer to this question.
V. Sharers in the suffering of
Christ
19. The same Song of the Suffering Servant in
the Book of Isaiah leads us, through the following verses, precisely in the
direction of this question and answer:
"When
he makes himself an offering for sin,
he shall see his offspring,
he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand;
he shall see the fruit of the travail of
his soul
and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant.
make many to be accounted righteous;
and he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
because he poured out his soul to death,
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors".
One can say that with the Passion of Christ all
human suffering has found itself in a new situation. And it is as though Job
has foreseen this when he said: "I know that my Redeemer lives ...",
and as though he had directed towards it his own suffering, which without the
Redemption could not have revealed to him the fullness of its meaning.
In the Cross of Christ not only is the
Redemption accomplished through suffering, but also human suffering itself has been redeemed,. Christ, - without
any fault of his own - took on himself "the total evil of sin". The
experience of this evil determined the incomparable extent of Christ's
suffering, which became the price of the
Redemption. The Song of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah speaks of this. In
later times, the witnesses of the New Covenant, sealed in the Blood of Christ,
will speak of this.
These are the words of the Apostle Peter in his
First Letter: "You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways
inherited from your fathers, not with the perishable things such as silver or
gold, but with the precious blood of
Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot".
And the Apostle Paul in the Letter to the Galatians
will say: "He gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present
evil age"(56), and in the First Letter to the Corinthians: "You were
bought with a price. So glorify God in your body "(57).
With these and similar words the witnesses of
the New Covenant speak of the greatness of the Redemption, accomplished through
the suffering of Christ. The Redeemer suffered in place of man and for man.
Every man has his own share in the
Redemption. Each one is also called
to share in that suffering through which the Redemption was accomplished.
He is called to share in that suffering through which all human suffering has
also been redeemed. In bringing about the Redemption through suffering, Christ has also raised human suffering to the level of the Redemption. Thus each
man, in his suffering, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of
Christ.
20. The texts of the New Testament express this
concept in many places. In the Second Letter to the Corinthians the Apostle
writes: "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but
not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not
destroyed; always carrying in the body
the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our
bodies. For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be
manifested in our mortal flesh .... knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus
will raise us also with Jesus"(58).
Saint Paul speaks of various sufferings and, in
particular, of those in which the first Christians became sharers "for the
sake of Christ ". These sufferings enable the recipients of that Letter to
share in the work of the Redemption, accomplished through the suffering and
death of the Redeemer. The eloquence of
the Cross and death is, however, completed by the eloquence of the Resurrection. Man finds in the Resurrection a
completely new light, which helps him to go forward through the thick darkness
of humiliations, doubts, hopelessness and persecution. Therefore the Apostle
will also write in the Second Letter to the Corinthians: "For as we share abundantly in Christ's
sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too"(59).
Elsewhere he addresses to his recipients words of encouragement: "May the
Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of
Christ"(60). And in the Letter to the Romans he writes: "I appeal to you therefore,
brethren, by the mercies of God, to
present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God,
which is your spiritual worship"(61).
The very participation in Christ's suffering
finds, in these apostolic expressions, as it were a twofold dimension. If one
becomes a sharer in the sufferings of Christ, this happens because Christ has opened his suffering to man, because
he himself in his redemptive suffering has become, in a certain sense, a sharer
in all human sufferings. Man, discovering through faith the redemptive
suffering of Christ, also discovers in it his own sufferings; he rediscovers them, through faith, enriched
with a new content and new meaning.
This discovery caused Saint Paul to write
particularly strong words in the Letter to the Galatians: "I have been
crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me:
and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who
loved me and gave himself for me"(62). Faith enables the author of these
words to know that love which led Christ to the Cross. And if he loved us in
this way, suffering and dying, then with this suffering and death of his he lives in the one whom he loved in this way; he
lives in the man: in Paul. And living in him-to the degree that Paul, conscious
of this through faith, responds to his love with love-Christ also becomes in a
particular way united to the man, to
Paul, through the Cross. This union
caused Paul to write, in the same Letter to the Galatians, other words as well,
no less strong: "But far be it from me to glory except in the Cross of
our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to
the world"(63).
21. The Cross of Christ throws salvific light,
in a most penetrating way, on man's life and in particular on his suffering.
For through faith the Cross reaches man together
with the Resurrection: the mystery of the Passion is contained in the
Paschal Mystery. The witnesses of Christ's Passion are at the same time
witnesses of his Resurrection. Paul writes: "That I may know him (Christ)
and the power of his Resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like
him in his death, that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the
dead"(64). Truly, the Apostle first experienced the "power of the
Resurrection" of Christ, on the road to Damascus, and only later, in this
paschal light, reached that " sharing in his sufferings" of which he
speaks, for example, in the Letter to the Galatians. The path of Paul is clearly paschal: sharing in the Cross of Christ comes
about through the experience of the Risen
One, therefore through a special sharing in the Resurrection. Thus, even in
the Apostle's expressions on the subject of suffering there so often appears
the motif of glory, which finds its beginning in Christ's Cross.
The witnesses of the Cross and Resurrection
were convinced that "through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom
of God"(65). And Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, says this: "We
ourselves boast of you... for your steadfastness and faith in all your
persecutions and in the afflictions which you are enduring. This is evidence of
the righteous judgment of God, that you may be made worthy of the Kingdom of God, for which you are
suffering"(66). Thus to share in the sufferings of Christ is, at the same
time, to suffer for the Kingdom of God. In the eyes of the just God, before his
judgment, those who share in the suffering of Christ become worthy of this
Kingdom. Through their sufferings, in a certain sense they repay the infinite
price of the Passion and death of Christ, which became the price of our
Redemption: at this price the Kingdom of God has been consolidated anew in
human history, becoming the definitive prospect of man's earthly existence.
Christ has led us into this Kingdom through his suffering. And also through
suffering those surrounded by the mystery of Christ's Redemption become mature enough to enter this
Kingdom.
22. To the prospect of the Kingdom of God is
linked hope in that glory which has its beginning in the Cross of Christ. The
Resurrection revealed this glory—eschatological glory—which, in the Cross of
Christ, was completely obscured by the immensity of suffering. Those who share
in the sufferings of Christ are also called, through their own sufferings, to
share in glory. Paul expresses this
in various places. To the Romans he writes: " We are ... fellow heirs with
Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with
him. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth
comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us"(67). In the Second
Letter to the Corinthians we read: "For this slight momentary affliction
is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because
we look not to the things that are seen but to things that are
unseen"(68). The Apostle Peter will express this truth in the following
words of his First Letter: "But rejoice in so far as you share Christ's
sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed
"(69).
The motif of suffering and glory has a strictly evangelical characteristic,
which becomes clear by reference to the Cross and the Resurrection. The
Resurrection became, first of all, the manifestation of glory, which
corresponds to Christ's being lifted up through the Cross. If, in fact, the
Cross was to human eyes Christ's emptying
of himself, at the same time it was in the eyes of God his being lifted up. On the Cross, Christ attained and fully
accomplished his mission: by fulfilling the will of the Father, he at the same
time fully realized himself. In weakness he manifested his power, and in humiliation he manifested all his messianic greatness. Are not all the words he uttered during
his agony on Golgotha a proof of this greatness, and especially his words
concerning the perpetrators of his crucifixion: "Father, forgive them for
they know not what they do"(70)? To those who share in Christ's sufferings
these words present themselves with the power of a supreme example. Suffering
is also an invitation to manifest the moral greatness of man, his spiritual maturity. Proof of this has
been given, down through the generations, by the martyrs and confessors of
Christ, faithful to the words: "And do not fear those who kill the body,
but cannot kill the soul .
Christ's
Resurrection has revealed "the glory of the future age" and, at the
same time, has confirmed "the boast of the Cross": the glory that is hidden in the very suffering
of Christ and which has been and is often mirrored in human suffering, as
an expression of man's spiritual greatness. This glory must be acknowledged not
only in the martyrs for the faith but in many others also who, at times, even
without belief in Christ, suffer and give their lives for the truth and for a
just cause. In the sufferings of all of these people the great dignity of man
is strikingly confirmed.
23. Suffering, in fact, is always a trial—at times a very hard one—to
which humanity is subjected. The gospel paradox
of weakness and strength often speaks to us from the pages of the Letters
of Saint Paul, a paradox particularly experienced by the Apostle himself and
together with him experienced by all who share Christ's sufferings. Paul writes
in the Second Letter to the Corinthians: "I will all the more gladly boast
of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me"(72). In the
Second Letter to Timothy we read: "And therefore I suffer as I do. But I
am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed"(73). And in the Letter to
the Philippians he will even say: "I
can do all things in him who strengthens me"(74).
Those who share in Christ's sufferings have
before their eyes the Paschal Mystery of the Cross and Resurrection, in which
Christ descends, in a first phase, to the ultimate limits of human weakness and
impotence: indeed, he dies nailed to the Cross. But if at the same time in this
weakness there is accomplished his lifting
up, confirmed by the power of
the Resurrection, then this means that the weaknesses of all human sufferings
are capable of being infused with the same power of God manifested in Christ's
Cross. In such a concept, to suffer means
to become particularly susceptible, particularly
open to the working of the salvific
powers of God, offered to humanity in Christ. In him God has confirmed his
desire to act especially through suffering, which is man's weakness and
emptying of self, and he wishes to make his power known precisely in this
weakness and emptying of self. This also explains the exhortation in the First
Letter of Peter: "Yet if one suffers as a Christian, let him not be
ashamed, but under that name let him glorify God"(75).
In the Letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul
deals still more fully with the theme of this "birth of power in
weakness", this spiritual tempering of
man in the midst of trials and tribulations, which is the particular vocation
of those who share in Christ's sufferings. "More than that, we rejoice in
our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance
produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint
us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit
which has been given to us"(76). Suffering as it were contains a special call to the virtue which man must
exercise on his own part. And this is the virtue of perseverance in bearing
whatever disturbs and causes harm. In doing
this, the individual unleashes hope, which maintains in him the conviction
that suffering will not get the better of him, that it will not deprive him of
his dignity as a human being, a dignity linked to awareness of the meaning of
life. And indeed this meaning makes itself known together with the working of God's love, which is the
supreme gift of the Holy Spirit. The more he shares in this love, man
rediscovers himself more and more fully in suffering: he rediscovers the
"soul" which he thought he had "lost"(77) because of
suffering.
24. Nevertheless, the Apostle's experiences as
a sharer in the sufferings of Christ go even further. In the Letter to the
Colossians we read the words which constitute as it were the final stage of the
spiritual journey in relation to suffering: "Now I rejoice in my
sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete
what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is,
the Church"(78). And in another Letter he asks his readers: "Do you
not know that your bodies are members of Christ?"(79).
In the Paschal Mystery Christ began the union with man in the community of the
Church. The mystery of the Church is expressed in this: that already in the
act of Baptism, which brings about a configuration with Christ, and then
through his Sacrifice—sacramentally through the Eucharist—the Church is
continually being built up spiritually as the Body of Christ. In this Body,
Christ wishes to be united with every individual, and in a special way he is
united with those who suffer. The words quoted above from the Letter to the
Colossians bear witness to the exceptional nature of this union. For, whoever suffers in union with Christ—
just as the Apostle Paul bears his "tribulations" in union with
Christ— not only receives from Christ that strength already referred to but
also "completes" by his suffering "what is lacking in Christ's
afflictions". This evangelical outlook especially highlights the truth concerning the creative character of
suffering. The sufferings of Christ created the good of the world's redemption.
This good in itself is inexhaustible and infinite. No man can add anything to
it. But at the same time, in the mystery of the Church as his Body, Christ has
in a sense opened his own redemptive suffering to all human suffering. In so
far as man becomes a sharer in Christ's sufferings—in any part of the world and
at any time in history—to that extent he
in his own way completes the suffering through which Christ accomplished
the Redemption of the world.
Does this mean that the Redemption achieved by
Christ is not complete? No. It only means
that the Redemption, accomplished through satisfactory love, remains always open to all love expressed
in human suffering. In this
dimension—the dimension of love—the Redemption which has already been
completely accomplished is, in a certain sense, constantly being accomplished.
Christ achieved the Redemption completely and to the very limits but at the
same time he did not bring it to a close. In this redemptive suffering, through
which the Redemption of the world was accomplished, Christ opened himself from
the beginning to every human suffering and constantly does so. Yes, it seems to
be part of the very essence of Christ's
redemptive suffering that this suffering requires to be unceasingly
completed.
Thus, with this openness to every human
suffering, Christ has accomplished the world's Redemption through his own
suffering. For, at the same time, this Redemption, even though it was
completely achieved by Christ's suffering, lives on and in its own special way develops
in the history of man. It lives and develops as the body of Christ, the Church,
and in this dimension every human suffering, by reason of the loving union with
Christ, completes the suffering of Christ. It completes that suffering just as the Church completes the redemptive
work of Christ. The mystery of the Church—that body which completes in
itself also Christ's crucified and risen body—indicates at the same time the
space or context in which human sufferings complete the sufferings of Christ.
Only within this radius and dimension of the
Church as the Body of Christ, which continually develops in space and time, can
one think and speak of "what is lacking" in the sufferings of Christ.
The Apostle, in fact, makes this clear when he writes of "completing what
is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the
Church".
It is precisely the Church, which ceaselessly draws on the infinite resources of
the Redemption, introducing it into the life of humanity, which is the dimension in which the redemptive suffering of Christ
can be constantly completed by the suffering of man. This also highlights the
divine and human nature of the Church. Suffering seems in some way to share in
the characteristics of this nature. And for this reason suffering also has a
special value in the eyes of the Church. It is something good, before which the
Church bows down in reverence with all the depth of her faith in the
Redemption. She likewise bows down with all the depth of that faith with which
she embraces within herself the inexpressible mystery of the Body of Christ.
VI. The Gospel of Suffering
25. The witnesses of the Cross and Resurrection
of Christ have handed on to the Church and to mankind a specific Gospel of
suffering. The Redeemer himself wrote this Gospel, above all by his own
suffering accepted in love, so that man "should not perish but have
eternal life"(80). This suffering, together with the living word of his
teaching, became a rich source for all those who shared in Jesus' sufferings
among the first generation of his disciples and confessors and among those who
have come after them down the centuries.
It is especially consoling to note—and also
accurate in accordance with the Gospel and history—that at the side of Christ,
in the first and most exalted place, there is always his Mother through the
exemplary testimony that she bears by her
whole life to this particular Gospel of suffering. In her, the many and
intense sufferings were amassed in such an interconnected way that they were not
only a proof of her unshakeable faith but also a contribution to the redemption
of all.
In reality, from the time of her secret
conversation with the angel, she began to see in her mission as a mother her
"destiny" to share, in a singular and unrepeatable way, in the very
mission of her Son. And she very soon received a confirmation of this in the
events that accompanied the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, and in the solemn
words of the aged Simeon, when he spoke of a sharp sword that would pierce her
heart. Yet a further confirmation was in the anxieties and privations of the
hurried flight into Egypt, caused by the cruel decision of Herod.
And again, after the events of her Son's hidden
and public life, events which she must have shared with acute sensitivity, it
was on Calvary that Mary's suffering, beside the suffering of Jesus, reached an
intensity which can hardly be imagined from a human point of view but which was
mysterious and supernaturally fruitful for the redemption of the world. Her
ascent of Calvary and her standing at the foot of the Cross together with the
Beloved Disciple were a special sort of sharing in the redeeming death of her
Son. And the words which she heard from his lips were a kind of solemn
handing-over of this Gospel of suffering so that it could be proclaimed to the
whole community of believers.
As a witness to her Son's Passion by her presence,
and as a sharer in it by her compassion,
Mary offered a unique contribution to the Gospel of suffering, by embodying
in anticipation the expression of Saint Paul which was quoted at the beginning.
She truly has a special title to be able to claim that she "completes in
her flesh"—as already in her heart—"what is lacking in Christ's
afflictions ".
In the light of the unmatchable example of
Christ, reflected with singular clarity in the life of his Mother, the Gospel
of suffering, through the experience and words of the Apostles, becomes an inexhaustible source for the ever new
generations that succeed one another in the history of the Church. The
Gospel of suffering signifies not only the presence of suffering in the Gospel,
as one of the themes of the Good News, but also the revelation of the salvific power and salvific
significance of suffering in Christ's messianic mission and, subsequently,
in the mission and vocation of the Church.
Christ did
not conceal from his listeners the
need for suffering. He said very clearly: "If any man would come after
me... let him take up his cross daily ''(81), and before his disciples he
placed demands of a moral nature that can only be fulfilled on condition that
they should "deny themselves"(82). The way that leads to the Kingdom
of heaven is "hard and narrow", and Christ contrasts it to the
"wide and easy" way that "leads to destruction"(83). On
various occasions Christ also said that his disciples and confessors would meet with much persecution, something
which—as we know—happened not only in the first centuries of the Church's life
under the Roman Empire, but also came true in various historical periods and in
other parts of the world, and still does even in our own time.
Here are some of Christ's statements on this
subject: "They will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering
you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and
governors for my name's sake. This will be a time for you to bear testimony. Settle it therefore in your minds, not to
meditate beforehand how to answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom,
which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. You
will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and kinsmen and friends, and
some of you they will put to death; you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But not a hair of
your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives"(84).
The Gospel of suffering speaks first in various
places of suffering "for Christ", "for the sake of Christ",
and it does so with the words of Jesus himself or the words of his Apostles.
The Master does not conceal the prospect of suffering from his disciples and
followers. On the contrary, he reveals it with all frankness, indicating at the
same time the supernatural assistance that will accompany them in the midst of
persecutions and tribulations " for his name's sake". These persecutions
and tribulations will also be, as it were, a particular proof of likeness to Christ and union with him. "If
the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you...; but
because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore
the world hates you... A servant is not greater than his master. If they
persecuted me they will persecute you... But all this they will do to you on my
account, because they do not know him who sent me"(85). "I have said
this to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation;
but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world"(86).
This first chapter of the Gospel of suffering,
which speaks of persecutions, namely of tribulations experienced because of
Christ, contains in itself a special call
to courage and fortitude, sustained by the eloquence of the Resurrection.
Christ has overcome the world definitively by his Resurrection. Yet, because of
the relationship between the Resurrection and his Passion and death, he has at
the same time overcome the world by his suffering. Yes, suffering has been
singularly present in that victory over the world which was manifested in the
Resurrection. Christ retains in his risen body the marks of the wounds of the
Cross in his hands, feet and side. Through the Resurrection, he manifests the victorious power of suffering, and
he wishes to imbue with the conviction of this power the hearts of those whom
he chose as Apostles and those whom he continually chooses and sends forth. The
Apostle Paul will say: "All who desire to live a godly life in Christ
Jesus will be persecuted"(87).
26. While the first great chapter of the Gospel
of suffering is written down, as the generations pass, by those who suffer
persecutions for Christ's sake, simultaneously another great chapter of this
Gospel unfolds through the course of history. This chapter is written by all
those who suffer together with Christ, uniting
their human sufferings to his salvific suffering. In these people there is
fulfilled what the first witnesses of the Passion and Resurrection said and
wrote about sharing in the sufferings of Christ. Therefore in those people
there is fulfilled the Gospel of suffering, and, at the same time, each of them
continues in a certain sense to write it: they write it and proclaim it to the
world, they announce it to the world in which they live and to the people of
their time.
Down through the centuries and generations it
has been seen that in suffering there is
concealed a particular power that
draws a person interiorly close to Christ, a special grace. To this grace
many saints, such as Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Ignatius of Loyola and
others, owe their profound conversion. A result of such a conversion is not
only that the individual discovers the salvific meaning of suffering but above
all that he becomes a completely new person. He discovers a new dimension, as
it were, of his entire life and vocation.
This discovery is a particular confirmation of the spiritual greatness
which in man surpasses the body in a way that is completely beyond compare.
When this body is gravely ill, totally incapacitated, and the person is almost
incapable of living and acting, all the more do interior maturity and spiritual greatness become evident, constituting a
touching lesson to those who are healthy and normal.
This interior maturity and spiritual greatness
in suffering are certainly the result of
a particular conversion and
cooperation with the grace of the Crucified Redeemer. It is he himself who acts
at the heart of human sufferings through his Spirit of truth, through the
consoling Spirit. It is he who transforms, in a certain sense, the very
substance of the spiritual life, indicating for the person who suffers a place
close to himself. It is he—as the
interior Master and Guide—who reveals to
the suffering brother and sister this wonderful
interchange, situated at the very heart of the mystery of the Redemption.
Suffering is, in itself, an experience of evil. But Christ has made suffering
the firmest basis of the definitive good, namely the good of eternal salvation.
By his suffering on the Cross, Christ reached the very roots of evil, of sin
and death. He conquered the author of evil, Satan, and his permanent rebellion
against the Creator. To the suffering brother or sister Christ discloses and gradually reveals the horizons of the Kingdom of God: the
horizons of a world converted to the Creator, of a world free from sin, a world
being built on the saving power of love. And slowly but effectively, Christ
leads into this world, into this Kingdom of the Father, suffering man, in a
certain sense through the very heart of his suffering. For suffering cannot be transformed and changed by a grace from
outside, but from within. And Christ
through his own salvific suffering is very much present in every human
suffering, and can act from within that suffering by the powers of his Spirit
of truth, his consoling Spirit.
This is not all: the Divine Redeemer wishes to
penetrate the soul of every sufferer through the heart of his holy Mother, the
first and the most exalted of all the redeemed. As though by a continuation of
that motherhood which by the power of the Holy Spirit had given him life, the
dying Christ conferred upon the ever Virgin Mary a new kind of motherhood—spiritual and universal—towards all human
beings, so that every individual, during the pilgrimage of faith, might remain,
together with her, closely united to him unto the Cross, and so that every form
of suffering, given fresh life by the power of this Cross, should become no
longer the weakness of man but the power of God.
However, this interior process does not always
follow the same pattern. It often begins and is set in motion with great
difficulty. Even the very point of departure differs: people react to suffering
in different ways. But in general it can be said that almost always the
individual enters suffering with a typically
human protest and with the question
"why". He asks the meaning of his suffering and seeks an answer
to this question on the human level. Certainly he often puts this question to
God, and to Christ. Furthermore, he cannot help noticing that the one to whom
he puts the question is himself suffering and wishes to answer him from the Cross, from
the heart of his own suffering. Nevertheless, it often takes time, even a
long time, for this answer to begin to be interiorly perceived. For Christ does
not answer directly and he does not answer in the abstract this human
questioning about the meaning of suffering. Man hears Christ's saving answer as
he himself gradually becomes a sharer in the sufferings of Christ.
The answer which comes through this sharing, by
way of the interior encounter with the Master, is in itself something more than the mere abstract answer
to the question about the meaning of suffering. For it is above all a call.
It is a vocation. Christ does not explain in the abstract the reasons for
suffering, but before all else he says: "Follow me!". Come! Take part
through your suffering in this work of saving the world, a salvation achieved
through my suffering! Through my Cross. Gradually, as the individual takes up his cross, spiritually uniting himself
to the Cross of Christ, the salvific meaning of suffering is revealed before
him. He does not discover this meaning at his own human level, but at the level
of the suffering of Christ. At the same time, however, from this level of
Christ the salvific meaning of suffering descends
to man's level and becomes, in a sense, the individual's personal response.
It is then that man finds in his suffering interior peace and even spiritual
joy.
27. Saint Paul speaks of such joy in the Letter
to the Colossians: "I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake"(88). A
source of joy is found in the overcoming
of the sense of the uselessness of suffering, a feeling that is sometimes
very strongly rooted in human suffering. This feeling not only consumes the
person interiorly, but seems to make him a burden to others. The person feels
condemned to receive help and assistance from others, and at the same time seems
useless to himself. The discovery of the salvific meaning of suffering in union
with Christ transforms this
depressing feeling. Faith in sharing
in the suffering of Christ brings with it the interior certainty that the
suffering person "completes what is lacking in Christ's afflictions";
the certainty that in the spiritual dimension of the work of Redemption he is serving, like Christ, the salvation of his brothers and sisters. Therefore
he is carrying out an irreplaceable service. In the Body of Christ, which is
ceaselessly born of the Cross of the Redeemer, it is precisely suffering
permeated by the spirit of Christ's sacrifice that is the irreplaceable mediator and author of the good things which
are indispensable for the world's salvation. It is suffering, more than
anything else, which clears the way for the grace which transforms human souls.
Suffering, more than anything else, makes present in the history of humanity
the powers of the Redemption. In that "cosmic" struggle between the
spiritual powers of good and evil, spoken of in the Letter to the
Ephesians(89), human sufferings, united to the redemptive suffering of Christ, constitute a special support for the powers
of good, and open the way to the victory of these salvific powers.
And so the Church sees in all Christ's
suffering brothers and sisters as it were a multiple
subject of his supernatural power. How often is it precisely to them that
the pastors of the Church appeal, and precisely from them that they seek help
and support! The Gospel of suffering is being written unceasingly, and it
speaks unceasingly with the words of this strange paradox: the springs of
divine power gush forth precisely in the midst of human weakness. Those who
share in the sufferings of Christ preserve in their own sufferings a very
special particle of the infinite treasure of the world's Redemption,
and can share this treasure with others. The more a person is threatened by
sin, the heavier the structures of sin which today's world brings with it, the
greater is the eloquence which human suffering possesses in itself. And the
more the Church feels the need to have recourse to the value of human
sufferings for the salvation of the world.
VII. The Good Samaritan
28. To the Gospel of suffering there also
belongs—and in an organic way—the parable of the Good Samaritan. Through this
parable Christ wished to give an answer to the question: "Who is my
neighbour?"(90) For of the three travellers along the road from Jerusalem
to Jericho, on which there lay half-dead a man who had been stripped and beaten
by robbers, it was precisely the Samaritan who showed himself to be the real "neighbour" of the
victim: "neighbour" means also the person who carried out the
commandment of love of neighbour. Two other men were passing along the same
road; one was a priest and the other a Levite, but each of them " saw him
and passed by on the other side". The Samaritan, on the other hand,
"saw him and had compassion on him. He went to him, ... and bound up his
wounds ", then "brought him to an inn, and took care of
him"(91). And when he left, he solicitously entrusted the suffering man to
the care of the innkeeper, promising to meet any expenses.
The parable of the Good Samaritan belongs to
the Gospel of suffering. For it indicates what the relationship of each of us
must be towards our suffering neighbour. We are not allowed to "pass by on
the other side" indifferently; we must "stop" beside him. Everyone who stops beside the suffering of
another person, whatever form it may take, is a Good Samaritan. This
stopping does not mean curiosity but availability. It is like the opening of a
certain interior disposition of the heart, which also has an emotional
expression of its own. The name "Good Samaritan" fits every individual who is sensitive to the sufferings
of others, who "is moved" by the misfortune of another.
If Christ, who knows the interior of man,
emphasizes this compassion, this means that it is important for our whole
attitude to others' suffering. Therefore one must cultivate this sensitivity of
heart, which bears witness to compassion towards
a suffering person. Some times this compassion remains the only or principal
expression of our love for and solidarity with the sufferer.
Nevertheless, the Good Samaritan of Christ's
parable does not stop at sympathy and compassion alone. They become for him an
incentive to actions aimed at bringing help to the injured man. In a word,
then, a Good Samaritan is one who brings
help in suffering, whatever its nature may be. Help which is, as far as
possible, effective. He puts his whole heart into it, nor does he spare
material means. We can say that he gives himself, his very "I",
opening this "I" to the other person. Here we touch upon one of the
key-points of all Christian anthropology. Man cannot "fully find himself
except through a sincere gift of himself"(92). A Good Samaritan is the person capable of exactly such a gift of self.
29. Following the parable of the Gospel, we
could say that suffering, which is present under so many different forms in our
human world, is also present in order to
unleash love in the human person, that unselfish gift of one's
"I" on behalf of other people, especially those who suffer. The world
of human suffering unceasingly calls for, so to speak, another world: the world
of human love; and in a certain sense man owes to suffering that unselfish love
which stirs in his heart and actions. The person who is a "
neighbour" cannot indifferently pass by the suffering of another: this in
the name of fundamental human solidarity, still more in the name of love of
neighbour. He must "stop", "sympathize", just like the
Samaritan of the Gospel parable. The parable in itself expresses a deeply Christian truth, but one that
at the same time is very universally human. It is not without reason that, also
in ordinary speech, any activity on behalf of the suffering and needy is called
"Good Samaritan" work.
In the course of the centuries, this activity assumes organized institutional forms and constitutes a
field of work in the respective professions.
How much there is of "the Good Samaritan" in the profession of
the doctor, or the nurse, or others similar! Considering its
"evangelical" content, we are inclined to think here of a vocation
rather than simply a profession. And the institutions which from generation to
generation have performed " Good Samaritan" service have developed
and specialized even further in our times. This undoubtedly proves that people
today pay ever greater and closer attention to the sufferings of their neighbour,
seek to understand those sufferings and deal with them with ever greater skill.
They also have an ever greater capacity and specialization in this area. In
view of all this, we can say that the parable of the Samaritan of the Gospel
has become one of the essential elements
of moral culture and universally human civilization. And thinking of all
those who by their knowledge and ability provide many kinds of service to their
suffering neighbour, we cannot but offer them words of thanks and gratitude.
These words are directed to all those who exercise their own service to their suffering neighbour in an unselfish way, freely undertaking to provide "Good Samaritan" help, and devoting to this cause all the time and energy at their disposal outside their professional work. This kind of voluntary "Good Samaritan" or charitable activity can be called social work; it can also be called an apostolate, when it is undertaken for clearly evangelical motives, especially if this is in connection with the Church or another Christian Communion. Voluntary "Good Samaritan" work is carried out in appropriate milieux or through organizations created for this purpose. Working in this way has a great importance, especially if it involves undertaking larger tasks which require cooperation and the use of technical means. No less valuable is individual activity, especially by people who are better prepared for it in regard to the various kinds of human suffering which can only be alleviated in an individual or personal way. Fi