Suffering in Culture - Part 3

My wife organizes a weekly presentation at our Parish every Tuesday evening, called Spirituality Tuesday. This is a major excerpt from the presentation called Our Experience of Suffering in Culture and in Faith by Sherry Cassedy, which I found to be a beautifully written thought provoking explanation, and exceptionally relevant to our lives. Although my life’s story is different I am grateful to have been present at this presentation, because it so strongly represents my understanding of suffering. Some of it has been edited and some of it hasn’t, but this is her work alone.

Suffering plays an important role in most religions, regarding matters such as consolation; moral conduct; spiritual advancement through life hardships or through self-imposed trials; and ultimate destiny.  In the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, the first truth is that life is suffering; life includes pain, getting old, disease, and ultimately death. We also endure psychological suffering like loneliness frustration, fear, embarrassment, disappointment and anger. This is an irrefutable fact that cannot be denied. In the Buddhist understanding, suffering is caused by our craving and aversion, and the way leading to its cessation is the Noble Eightfold Path; being moral, focusing the mind on being fully aware of our thoughts and actions, and developing wisdom and compassion for others. The Hindu understanding of suffering holds that suffering follows naturally from negative behaviors in our current life or in a past life; what we call karma. One must accept suffering as a just consequence and as an opportunity for spiritual progress. How we respond to suffering will determine future karma.

The Christian understanding teaches that suffering is inevitable in this life, and it is through grace that we can respond in a way that allows for transformation; a movement through suffering to joy. With every form of suffering endured by man, and indeed the suffering of the whole world, there arises the question: Why? John Paul II talks about this as “the deepest need of the heart and the deep imperative of faith.”  Pope John Paul II was a beloved world spiritual leader and he was also a man who knew suffering. The Book of Job dispels the notion that suffering is punishment for individual sin or evil. Job was a just, good man, and his suffering is accepted as the suffering of the innocent and speaks to the mystery of suffering. John Paul delves into the mystery of suffering and the redemption of human suffering through Jesus’ suffering and death. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Pope John Paul also tells us that “Love is the fullest source of the answer to the question of the meaning of suffering.” As a result of Christ’s suffering, man exists on earth with the hope of eternal life, and although the victory over sin and death achieved by Christ does not abolish earthly suffering in human life, it does throw a new light upon suffering: The light of salvation. The beatitudes speak to the dimensions of human suffering and redemption of suffering, the movement through suffering and death to new life. Christ drew near to suffering and of course the Cross leads to the Resurrection: To new life.