God Sees Your Suffering
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Why does a good God permit evil things to happen to His creatures? This in a nutshell is the question of the problem of pain. It is one of the most common arguments against God. The history of Israel is replete with the Israelites lamenting to God because of the suffering and the pain they endured. During their exile, God sent them prophets like Ezekiel.
“You must speak my words to them, whether they hear or resist, because they are rebellious” (Ezekiel 2:7). The exile was perhaps one of the most painful things to befall Israel in salvation history. Having the word of God spoken to them during this time was both a consolation and a heartbreaking reminder of their rebelliousness against God. It does, however, serve as an exhortation of hope to us. Like Israel, God makes Himself close to us, especially when we are suffering.
No one enjoys suffering. Not one of us relishes in the idea of pain. Yet, all of us can acknowledge that encountering pain forces us to either center in on ourselves or to draw out of ourselves and fervently seek God. “We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world” (C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain).
Like Israel, then, in the moments of our sufferings, we tend to want to cling to God more. Our prayer intensifies. Our selfishness dissolves. Our souls look to Heaven because “our eyes are on the LORD our God, till we are shown favor” (Psalm 123:2b).
God is a good Father. He knows that suffering forces the fallenness of our human nature to encounter the horizon of virtue. Virtue met with grace is how we are conformed greater in the image and likeness of God. Fulton Sheem states that, “there is only one way we can become like Him, and that is in the way He bore His sorrows and His Cross. And that way was with love. It is love that makes pain bearable” (Archbishop Fulton Sheen). In other words, suffering embraced well makes us more loving, and therefore makes us more like God.
Paul in his public ministry was not spared great suffering as well. In the face of one of his most significant pains, God responded to him by saying, “my grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness…”, to which Paul rightly responded, “I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me” (2 Cor 12:9). As counterintuitive as this seems, this is precisely the role that suffering plays in our Christian life. God permits suffering so that we come to cling to Him ever more helplessly because He wants to be our all in all.
This is what prompted John Paul II to write that “the prospect of the Kingdom of God is linked hope in that glory which has its beginning in the Cross of Christ” (John Paul II, Salvifici Dolores). Hence, when we consider the Gospel ministry of Jesus Christ, we see that Christ proclaims an eternal hope free of suffering, provided that we are united to Him in all things. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor” (Luke 4:18). These glad tidings are the hope of Heavenly happiness, free of suffering – for all eternity.
While on this side of the veil, we need to understand that suffering is a part of the fallen human condition. We will never be rid of it. It is futile to pretend that we can spare anyone a life that isn’t in some way peppered with suffering. C.S. Lewis encapsulates it rather beautifully when he notes that, “we were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' and I accept it. I've got nothing that I hadn't bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination” (C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed). It is really in the face of our sufferings that our virtue is tested, grace is increased, our sanctification grows, and our resolve to follow Christ is tested. Yet we must remember: Christ not only meets us in our suffering, but has already borne our EVERY suffering on the Cross.
Even in the face of the specific suffering that you are facing right now, remember, Christ personally touched the sick and suffering and brought them healing (cf. Mk 6:6). He will not abandon you. He sees your suffering. And His plan is to set you free of all suffering. Reasonably in this life and fully in the next.
Deus Benedicat
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