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Insights from Pope's own words In 1984, Pope John Paul II issued "Salvifici Doloris," an encyclical "on the Christian meaning of human suffering." These excerpts from the letter seem especially timely, given the Pope's current health problems. The entire text can be read at www.vatican.va. Within each form of suffering endured by man,...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.... 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.... 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....Christ causes us to enter into the mystery and to discover the "why" of suffering....This answer has been given by God to man in the Cross of Jesus Christ. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." Those words, spoken by Christ in His conversation with Nicodemus, introduce us into the very heart of God's salvific work....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.... 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.... Christ drew close 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 goes towards His Passion and death with full awareness of the mission that He has to fulfill 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.... 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".... 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"; and, before His disciples, He placed demands of a moral nature that can only be fulfilled on condition that they should "deny themselves."... 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.... When the 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.... 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...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.... 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.... There should come together in spirit beneath the Cross on Calvary all suffering people who believe in Christ, and particularly those who suffer because of their faith in Him who is the Crucified and Risen One, so that the offering of their sufferings may hasten the fulfillment of the prayer of the Savior Himself that all may be one. (4/7/05) |