John Paul II on Suffering

I thought some of you might enjoy reading my papers from grad school. Maybe not. Just let me know. Here's the first:

Suffering needs no introduction. From the beginning of history until the end, in its many and varied forms, suffering accompanies humanity producing crippling despair, stoic endurance, the frenzied search for release, and universal cry: “why?” However, for those few persons that the Catholic Church calls saints, suffering produces a radically different response: joy. The apostle Paul wrote “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake” (Col. 1:24). Rejoice? For John Paul II, the determining factor between these two responses to suffering is found in a person’s discovery of the Christian meaning of human suffering. Each person must discover the meaning of human suffering, the answer to the question of the “why” of human suffering, in the redemptive suffering of Jesus Christ. In His suffering is joy.

For a correct understanding of the meaning of suffering at least two ideas must be clearly understood. The first and basic idea is that of suffering itself. What is this most universal phenomenon of suffering? In John Paul II’s apostolic letter, Salvifici Doloris (On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering) – the main text that concerns this paper, the late pontiff teaches that “man suffers whenever he experiences any kind of evil” (SD 7 – emphasis in text). Therefore, suffering itself is simply a human experience, specifically an experience of evil. He defines evil as “a certain lack, limitation or distortion of the good” (SD 7) and thus “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 ‘ought’ – in the normal order of things – to have a share in this good, and does not have it” (SD 7). Suffering, therefore, always has a double reference, both to the evil experienced and to the good which the person lacks in some manner. Such an understanding of suffering helps overcome the prevalent temptation to deny God, the supreme good, in the face of suffering. For the very experience of suffering is a proof that there really is good; it’s just that one presently lacks that good.

Another and most important aspect of suffering is that, in man, it always arouses the question: “why?” (SD 9) for, as noted above, he knows he “ought” to obtain the good and something has gone terribly wrong when he doesn’t. As noted above, man universally directs this question to God and if he does not encounter God’s answer, he is severely tempted to despair and curse God and bring even more misery down on himself.

Thankfully, according to John Paul II, God expects this question, listens to it, (SD 10) and abundantly answers it through redemption. Redemption is the second of the two ideas that must be understood to grasp the meaning of suffering. While suffering is the experience of evil, redemption is the liberation from evil (SD 14). In a certain sense, therefore, every person is a redeemer when he acts to relieve suffering by overcoming evil with good, such as in doing the works of mercy. Each work of mercy puts good back into the void of evil: bread given to the hungry, clothes to the naked, knowledge to the ignorant, etc. These works of mercy reflect God’s definitive work of mercy, the redemption wrought through the cross of Jesus Christ. These works, man’s and God’s, are called merciful because the “true and proper meaning of mercy does not consist only in looking [emphasis mine], however penetratingly and compassionately, at moral, physical or material evil: mercy is manifested in its true and proper aspect when it restores to value, promotes and draws good from all the forms of evil existing in the world and in man” (DM 6 – emphasis in text). Redemption, the liberation from evil, is therefore the result of mercy. That is why when man responds to God’s mercy (and he needs mercy because he suffers) by conversion he experiences redemption which is “the rebuilding of goodness” in him (SD 12). Mercy is effective; it effects redemption.

The correct understanding of suffering and redemption brings light to God’s definitive work of redemption through the cross of Jesus Christ and begins to answer the question of the meaning of human suffering. According to John Paul II, the suffering of Jesus Christ was unique, in regards to His divinity, and at the same time, in regards His humanity, His suffering was in a certain sense universal (SD 17). As the divine son, Jesus suffered the definitive, unique suffering that accomplished our redemption: “[Christ’s words in the garden to his Father] attest to this unique and incomparable depth and intensity of suffering which only the man who is the only-begotten Son could experience” (SD 18). Later, on the cross when Jesus cries, “my God my God, why have you forsaken me” he experiences “the ‘entire’ evil of the turning away from God which is contained in sin . . . this suffering which is the separation, the rejection by the Father, the estrangement from God” (SD 18 – emphasis in text). This is the suffering that is closed to the realm of man’s experience and yet, there is an aspect of Christ’s suffering that is open and universal to man. Through the cross, Christ 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” (SD 20). It is as if in its very uniqueness, as the suffering of the God-man, the suffering of Christ becomes universal. Outside of salvation history suffering cannot be shared and co-experienced. Even when showing compassion, which is in a certain sense co-suffering, man does not directly experience the other’s suffering, he experiences his own suffering alongside the similar suffering of his brother. But in Christ, because he is God-man and has united himself, in a certain sense, to every man, every man really does share His sufferings with Christ. To an extent, it is an experience of the same suffering. This truth has profound consequences to be discussed in the final section of this paper.

The last point to examine regarding the unique and universal suffering of Christ is in regard to its fruit; what did Christ’s suffering accomplish? Redemption. Bearing in mind the definition of redemption above, John Paul II’s words concerning Christ’s suffering are particularly profound: “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” (SD 17). That “love for the Father which overcomes the evil of every sin” is the divine mercy, the effective love that eradicates suffering. This understanding of Christ’s merciful redemption begins to reveal the meaning of suffering.

When man responds to the suffering merciful love of Christ with faith, he gains the fullness of the meaning, and thus the answer to the question, “why”, of suffering. The passion of Christ invites a response from man precisely because Christ has “opened His suffering to man” (SD 20 – emphasis in text). This is in reference to the universal aspect of Christ’s suffering noted above. Man’s proper response to this invitation is to unite his own personal suffering to Christ’s suffering through faith, “for through faith the cross reaches man” (SD 21). By faith, through this unity of suffering, all the fruits of the Redemption flow to man.

John Paul II mentions several of these fruits in the latter half of Salvici Doloris. The most astonishing fruit is that man’s personal suffering becomes redemptive! The following summary text is worth quoting in full:

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. Insofar 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” (SD 24).

Man’s suffering, through Christ, is redemptive! Suffering leads to good and does not have to give way to despair and misery! This is, as John Paul II calls it, the Gospel of Suffering.
There is yet more fruit of the Redemption that flows to man through Christ. Suffering with Christ matures man, that is, it rebuilds good in man, so that he can mature for God’s kingdom (SD 21) the final culmination of which will be sharing in God’s glory (SD 22). An essential aspect of this maturing is a merciful love in man that reaches out to his suffering neighbor. John Paul II writes, “suffering is present in the world in order to release love, in order to give birth to works of love towards neighbor, in order to transform the whole of human civilization into a ‘civilization of love’” (SD 30). Finally, as man experiences the mercy of God and he practices mercy in return, he discovers the fullness of the meaning of human suffering and experiences joy:

“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 . . . It is then that man finds in his suffering interior peace and even spiritual joy” (SD 26).

Such is the experience of the saints; such is the call, the invitation of Christ to every man. It is also the invitation of John Paul II. Yes, suffering indeed needs no introduction, but the Gospel of Suffering does; it is not natural to man. In ignorance of this gospel, suffering leads to misery and despair, but through this Gospel man may live mercy and experience joy. This is a Gospel worth suffering for.