How did saints cope with the suffering of the world?

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Please share with me any suggested reading by saints (or others) on the mystery suffering.

To clarify, what troubles me is not my own puny suffering but the enormous suffering of others, esp children. Most books on suffering are on how to deal with your *own *suffering, “Why does God make me suffer so?” Even what few writings I have encountered by saints are about why we should embrace our sufferings as sent by God, etc. Ok, I’ve got that part. Now how do I continue to live in the world of the suffering of others without putting out my eyes?

What I would like to see is something like the book of Job, but retold from the perspective of Job’s mother who had to watch everything her son went through.

Also, I am not necessarily looking for the reasons God allows such suffering. I don’t expect to understand, anymore than Job understood. I just want to know how to cope. The short answer, I know, is: through prayer and fasting. But I’d still like to know what the saints had to say.
 
Hi Pellman and welcome to CAF 👋

Perhaps this link will be of help to you. It concerns the wisdom of our late Holy Father Pope John Paul II… on “The Problem of Pain and Suffering”… and I believe it was featured in “This Rock” magazine.

I hope this helps to answer your question. May God bless. And Happy New Year. :snowing:

catholic.com/thisrock/2007/0701fea1.asp
 
This is an EXCELLENT question! I would like to do something to help children like Genie. I am starting to believe that God simply wants to use us to help others, that is simply his wish. Have you ever read the saintly story of St. Josephine Bakhita? vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20001001_giuseppina-bakhita_en.html

Maybe if there were more devout Catholics, we would have enough people to take care of children such as Genie so we must do all we can to encourage one another in the faith!! Please maybe you might let me know your thoughts on what an individual, assuming that individual had all the resources in the world, could do about Genie and others like her? Adopt her? Even though her mother won’t allow it! Prayerfully, I ask you.

P.S. The patron saint of social justice is St. Martin de Porres

May the Holy Spirit through the Mother of the Word grant us the graces that we most desperately need, particularly wisdom, discernment, love, faith, amd mercy!! May the LOVE and MERCY of the Sacred Heart of Jesus come into this world with abundance, be loved, known, believed, trusted in, confided in, hoped in, praised, glorified, respected, revered, venerated by all souls, in all of time, in all of creation!! May the WONDERS of the Immaculate Conception come to our aid, and be respected, loved, believed, known, and venerated for all of time, in all places, by all souls!!

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world! For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world! For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world!

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!
Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *
 
A saint is a person who lives his faith in a heroic manner. That being said, a saint is a good Catholic. A good Catholic embraces his suffering for the redemption of souls and the protection of others. He or she does not endorse suffering or keep it going.

A Good Christian brings people in from the suffering. Look at Mother Teresa, St. Francis, John XXIII, Vincent de Paul and Jesus himself. You accept suffering when you have no choice. Then you accept it as God’s will and you make it your will.

There is an example in Christian history of parents living with the suffering of their children. The two parents that jump to mind are Rita of Cassia and Elizabeth Ann Seton. I encourage anyone who is interested to read their biographies. Both of thee mothers had to watch their children suffer and even die. But the circumstances were beyond their control. So they united their will tothe will of God in these case. However, they did suffer watching the deaths of their children. Holiness does not make us less human. On the contrary, it should make us more human and better human beings.

JR 🙂
 
I will try to get back to you soon because on this forum I have been on a personal question to understand suffering and I have learned a lot! 🙂 :eek: Thank you most especially BarbaraTherese and JReducation for your words of knowledge!! However, before I go, I would like to suggest that Job’s mother might remind us of Jesus’s mother!!

Here are a few works off the top of my head that might be relevant to this topic:
On the Dolors of Mary by St. Alphonsus Mary de Liguori, one of the 33 Doctors of the Catholic Church, explains the sufferings of Our Lady in great and descriptive detail, the seven sorrows http://writer.zoho.com/public/immaculate/Seven-dolors

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus en.wikisource.org/wiki/Devotion_to_the_Sacred_Heart_of_Jesus#FIRST_POINT._.E2.80.94_The_ardent_desire_Jesus_Christ_feels_to_be_with_us.

Papal Encyclical of His Holiness Pope John Paul II:
On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_11021984_salvifici-doloris_en.html

A Pope’s Answer to the Problem of Pain catholic.com/thisrock/2007/0701fea1.asp

Here is my very best short shot at why we suffer: Adam and Eve at the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Thus, suffering is evil and it entered into the world. Just as we know the fullest expression of good or love, Christ, we also have the opportunity to know the fullest expression of evil. Also, I read somewhere, perhaps St. Mary Faustina’s Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soulsaint-faustina.com/Diary/DMIMS1.shtml that some people are full/drenched of God’s love, other’s barely touched by it. And I realized that often the Church or Christians have been bulwarks against major suffering. William Wilberforce, a Christian, led the campaign to legally ended slavery in Great Britain. Reverend Martin Luther King led the campaign for civil rights here. We see Archbishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa, and even now Reverend Rick Warren donates 90% of his income to the poor.

If we research the Holocaust, we realize that the Catholic Church saved more Jews than all other international organizations combined and according to the Jewish Virtual Library, was the ONLY institution to have a 100% pro-life policy that led them to condem forced sterilziation of the mentally ill. jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/disabled.html jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/piusdef.html If we research slavery, we see the Catholic Church to the best of my horribly imperfect knowledge, always condemned it. catholiceducation.org/articles/facts/fm0006.html If we research human history, we realize that Western civilization, which may be increasingly becoming a civilization of love and leads the world in science - which can be used to lessen human suffering- has been founded on uniquely Judeo-Christian roots. catholiceducation.org/articles/homosexuality/ho0003.html These moral laws may have led to the civiliation’s progress and women’s rights by constraining sexuality - giving people more time to pursue science and reducing idolatry of males. Maybe perhaps God wants to use each individual to end suffering, until Christ’s kingdom is built on earth through the work of individuals drenched with Christ’s love, and God allows it because he knows he will reward us each and every person in the afterlife. Maybe that is how Christ is planning to humbly rule the world?

I think it is very interesting that a poor person may have taught Mother Teresa. “Jesus is kissing you from the cross.” “Tell Jesus to stop kissing me.” Maybe we think we are lucky because we are not suffering in this world and we can choose into suffering but when we die it will be the poor and suffering among us who are first in the kingdom of heaven. The last shall be first and the first last.

May the Holy Spirit through the Immaculate Heart of Mary grant us the graces that we most desperately need! May the LOVE and MERCY of the Sacred Heart of Jesus illuminate our lives, be adored, glorified, venerated, proclaimed, respected, loved, believed, trusted in, now and always, by all souls, all the time!! May the WONDERS of the Immaculate Heart of Mary shield us, be respected, known, loved, believed, venerated, in all creation, by all, in all places!!

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world! For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world! For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world!

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!
Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *
 
Saint Padre Pio perhaps gave the eternal Father a clearer image of His Son’s redemptive humanity and intercession than does any person in history. He lived a crucified, selfless, holy life in deep union with Christ. He had the gift of reading souls, and of bilocution when his presence was required for souls distant from his monastery of San Giovanni Rotondo.

Through his intercession, God permitted spiritual and physical healings that are well documented in our times. For 50 years, Padre Pio bore deep wounds in hands, feet and side. The chest wound was four inches long, with a smaller transverse cross-wound. These bleeding wounds remained unchanged until his death at 94 years of age, on September 23, 1968, when, having served their intercessory purpose for countless souls on earth and in Purgatory, the deep, painful wounds disappeared.

Padre suffered continually for souls and was known to say**—“If you knew the value of suffering, you would never give it up.” **Nevertheless, he prayed for healing for others, and advised anyone in their difficulties to seek divine assistance. “**It is not a loss of patience if one asks Jesus to take away pain, when this becomes insupportable to us and beyond our strength, nor does one lose the merit of the suffering which is offered, by asking this of God.” **

**“Pray that God will console you when you feel the burden of the Cross, for in doing so you are not acting against the will of God, but you are placing yourself beside the Son of God who asked His Father during the Agony in the Garden to send Him some relief. But if He is not willing to give it, be ready to pronounce the same ‘fiat’ that Jesus did.” “When least you are expecting to be liberated, Jesus, who cannot bear to keep you long in affliction, will come and relieve and comfort you, giving you new courage.”

“He is the Father of all; He is so in a very special manner for the unhappy.” “The Cross will not crush you; if its weight makes you stagger, its power will also sustain you.” “What does it matter whether Jesus wishes to guide you to heaven by the way of the desert or by the fields, so long as you get there by one way or the other? Put away excessive worrying which results from trials by which the good Lord has desired to test you; and if this is not possible resign yourself to the divine will.”

“Humility and purity are the wings which carry us to God.” “Where there is no obedience, there is no virtue.” “Sin against charity is like piercing God in the pupil of the eye.”
“The spirit of God is always a spirit of peace, and in the case of grave sin, it makes us feel a tranquil sorrow, humble, confident, and this is due to His mercy. The spirit of the demon, on the contrary, makes us in our sorrow feel something like anger against ourselves, whereas our first charity must be towards ourselves. So, if certain thoughts agitate you…Such agitation comes from the devil.” “Walk with simplicity in the way of the Lord and do not torment your spirit.”

“Each soul…is a stone destined to build up the eternal edifice…it has to be polished with the blows of hammer and chisel…these hits of the chisel are the shadows, the fears, the temptations, the afflictions of the spirit, the spiritual tremors with some aroma of desolation, and also physical illness.”

“Be certain that the more a soul loves God, the less he feels it…God is incomprehensible…so that the more a soul enters into the love of this Supreme Good…this sentiment of love towards Him seems to diminish, to the point of seeming to love Him not at all…Say rather that you love, and that you wish to love with a perfect and consummate love. This good cannot be obtained in its completion except in the next life!”**

Surely, Padre Pio has something of the total self-giving of the Saviour. He wrote, “If I know that a person is afflicted in mind and body, what would I not do to see him freed from his ills, I would willingly take on all his afflictions in order to see him freed, giving up in his favour… the fruits of such suffering if the Lord would permit me.” [Letters 1, no. 184]
 
Sorry that I cannot recall the priest’s name but he was being interviewed on Catholic radio station known as “Relevant Radio” about a book he had written. I heard a part of the interview. He had suffered from some kind of addiction – not sure which kind. He concentratd on helping addicted persons spiritually.

He took questions from callers and one asked about sufferning. The priest relayed an internal locution from Christ himself. He once asked God why he makes us suffer. The answer was that it was necessary, in order to conform us to the way we need to be.

I thought it was an extremely interesting thing which made a great deal of sense if you think about it for a long time.
 
While I haven’t personally read anything by her, I would imagine Mother Theresa would be a great example of one who lived among those who suffered greatly.

From a Magisterial point of view, I would recommend this by John Paul II:
vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_11021984_salvifici-doloris_en.html

and this from Pope Benedict XVI (he actually discusses St. Josephine Bakhita in it):
vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi_en.html
 
I think the citation from Padre Pio says it well. If we read his opening sentence, there is an admission that suffering is part of the human condition and that it is not wrong to pray for relief from suffering.

The point that Padre Pio, Mother Teresa, Vincent de Paul and John Paul II make very well is that we must unite our will to the Will of God. It is not always God’s will to relieve us from suffering for our own good.

We often need help to remember that we are dependent on God. Too often we want to shape our lives without God. Modern society has taught us to take control of our lives. This is not a bad idea. We must take responsibility for our lives. But we have taken that to the other extreme. Taking control of our lives does not mean kicking God out of the picture.

Suffering can be a very efficacious tool to remind us to call upon God and to depend on him to assist us in living out our lives as it was meant to be, not according to our design. This is what we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy Will be done”. This was Mary’s fiat, “Be it done to me according to your word.”

That’s where we often fail when we suffer. We can try to recover. We can try to be more comfortable. But we must combine these efforts with our own fiat.

Fraternally and Happy New Year!

JR 🙂
 
I was just thinking of someone else who coped with the sufferings. He too was one of us.
So I just thought I’d share how I see Him as coping.
It’s in Isaiah 52 verses11-12, and 54 verses 1-12.
The following I wrote in tears once. It’s as human as we are.

Jesus’ dying prayer

Father God, the sky is darkening with the culmination of my human destiny. I can no longer see Your Face! I humbly cry out to You from the depths of my being. I AM Your beloved Son who has accomplished all that You desired of me. I AM only begotten Son of Your divine Essence. You created all things through me. Yet I hang defenceless upon searing metal stakes that bite into my flesh and bone each time that I force upwards to gasp the very air that You created through me.

My torment is scarcely bearable and my mind faints and jolts in horrific awareness with the weakness of my battered, abused body. My body, ruined in its youthful strength, is exposed in degraded despoil. Fevered with dehydration, my eyesight fades, my ears ring, my head throbs, and my tongue swells. My muscles tremble uncontrollably, deeply bruised by the Roman scourgers who smashed metal and jagged bone into every part.
My face is swollen and raw; my eyelid split, heavy with pain and blood. Sweat screams saltily in my torn nerves. My joints are dislocated with violent distension. My head can find no ease as the thorns gouge into my scalp with inescapable ache within my brain.

Yet nothing wounds deeper than the torture of love within my being. My heart thunders and rips with the anguish of love. Love is the shuddering gasp of my breath.
Love is the dry, harsh voice of thirst that cries out my forgiveness. Love is the blood and life-fluids that drain from me. Love is my strength, my weakness, my hope, my faith and my generosity. Love has been my life and now it is my death. Let love flow from me upon all my brothers and sisters of humankind, to cleanse them from evil and discord. Let love draw them to me, in communion on their cross of redemption.

My Father how I love them, these foolish blind ones who watch me die, and taunt with indifference, lukewarmness and unbelief throughout the centuries. They have not seen and heard although I have fought the powers of evil for them, with persistent prayer and penance, with teaching and example, with humility and powerful truth, and now with my death. I am, for them, a bleeding, suffering testimony of love.

I love them, Father. Forgive them. They cannot understand what they do and fail to do. For my love of them even in my extremity, forgive them. Save them from the pitiless powers of darkness that rule the earth and oppress their lives.

They are my kin. I emptied myself of all glory and lived, witnessed and die—as man—for them. Pity them, for sake of my pity for them. I hold them up to You. My whole being bears the emptiness, darkness, and guilt of humankind’s deepest struggle. I would strive to enlighten them as I have these past years, but now is only time to suffer, to expiate, and to plead for them.
 
continued
I have been patient with them, Father. With careful repetition and example, I taught them what they must take into their darkened minds for their soul’s redemption and for the nations to which I will send them in Your name. I frequently transcended the natural sequence of events to offer them miracles, so that they would recognise Your power in me, thus be encouraged to believe and to follow Your truth. Yet many only marvelled at spectacle, seeking more.

Father, my throat is bruised and constricted, for grief of the souls for whom I die. They cannot know how terribly wounded I am by their sin, infidelity, hypocrisy, mental blindness and hardness of heart. I am God and I am sinless man—so these things have heinousness and poignancy far beyond their dulled understanding. Nor can they imagine the depth of my love and yearning for each precious one’s everlasting happiness and fulfilment in You.

Father, look upon these Your chosen people from whom You drew my human form. They join with the gentiles to destroy me, for evil howled for my death, and they succumbed. Now it seems that my mission is lost to evil spirits who believe that they have triumphed over the only Person who could restore Creation and redeem humankind. Yet I shall rise again, because I am eternal Lord of Creation. I am undefeated, for my faith and love is Your reality and victory, You who are divine origin of all that exists. With my rising so shall humankind be raised to You.

Father, I offer You my whole Self, all that I am and have done, with all that You are, to plead for salvation and conversion of souls. I might have refused to become their redemption, yet I accept total immolation. Within it, Father, I hold each person to myself. In the wounds, the blood, in the tender swelling of broken tissue, in the shuddering of shattered muscle, in the sweat that burns across the clammy dust of earth upon me—within these is written the name of each human soul!

Laden with humankind and with the sins and guilt of each, I offer myself to You, Father. As Your divine Son, I implore that You accept this prayer across the length and breadth of time.

Father, my Father, I am crushed! My humanity yearns for release and peace as grief and longing rasps at every fibre of soul, mind, heart and body. Speak in me, Father, out of Your own Being. Pray in me, and accept all suffering love at my torn, bleeding hands.

I am Your own, Your very Self—and these for whom I am living Sacrifice are my sisters and brothers, my kin, flesh of my flesh. Accept all my prayer for them—all ever prayed and suffered by any person in union with me throughout time, all love, atonement and praise from each individual, held up to You in my ruined hands.

Everything You have given to me and to each soul, I return to You, with all that I am, which is of Your nature yet also of my human frailty. So Father, grant the coming of Your Kingdom in the souls of Your people, my own, out of Your great love for me.

The next bit is me/us speaking

Father, behold His grief at souls lost to divine life. Mercifully grant the wishes of His heart for each of us whom He calls brother and sister. Behold the infant, the child, the young man who bore the unfolding knowledge of humankind’s redemption! You knew His love, joy, and pain as He lived in ordinary humanity for thirty years. In His goodness He prayed and did penance for strength to live out the Father’s will and our redemption—so now as His own little one I pray for Him and His desires.

because it was no different for Him as a human being. As St Paul said, he endured everything we do. He simply didn’t sin]
 
Pellman said:
What I would like to see is something like the book of Job, but retold from the perspective of Job’s mother who had to watch everything her son went through.
Click to expand...
An image of the Blessed Mother standing at the foot of the Cross watching her Most Holy and Innocent Son Jesus die after He was spat on, beaten, crowned with thorns, etc. came to my mind on reading your words.

~~ the phoenix
 
Archbishop Oscar Romero’s death from an assasin’s bullet on March 24, 1980 crowned a life of service as priest and bishop. During his three years as archbishop of San Salvador, he became known across the world as a fearless defender of the poor and suffering. The universities of Georgetown and Louvain gave him honorary degrees, and British parlimentarians nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize. Yet he also earned the hatred and calumnity of powerful persons in his own country - hatred that produced powerful attacks on him in the media and inevitably led to his martyrdom.

Week after week for three years, Archbishop Oscar Romero’s voice rang out over El Salvador, crying out against murder and torture, exhorting his people to seek peace and forgiveness and to build a more just society. By means of the archdiocese’s radio station (unless its transmissions were jammed or its plant too badly damaged from dynamite attacks) he kept a whole nation hanging on his words. It seemed that one could hardly help hearing his voice from some radio on Sunday morning, especially in the neighborhoods of the poor and villages of the peasants.

Continued in this book a collection of thoughts (homilies??)

The Violence of Love
plough.com/ebooks/pdfs/ViolenceOfLove.pdf

St. Josephine Bakhita, St. Edith Stein, St. Maximilian Maria, Archbishop Oscar Romero, Blessed Mother Teresa, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Dominic, St. Martin de Porres, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Therese of Liseux, St. John of the Cross, St. Padre Pio, St. Vincent de Paul, Pierre Touissant, His Holiness Pope John Paul II, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, St. Mary Faustina, St. Louis Mary de Montfort, St. Alphonsus Mary de Liguori, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, Archangel Raphael, Archangel Michael, Archangel Gabriel, all the popes and saints and angels, we humbly beg you to pray to the Mother of the Word for us!!

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world! For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world! For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world!

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!
Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *
 
Here is another related question, perhaps maybe I will post another thread if this one does not get any responses. :o

What is the theological reason why we should care about the suffering and evil in the world?

Sometimes it seems like God is an incredibly merciful and loving God for not just destroying Adam and Eve… But why be so loving? Wouldn’t they have been fine if they just no longer existed? Why have a world that would eventually be filled with such sin and evil, slavery, colonialism, genocide along with the every day evils that we all suffer? Why should God so love this world that he should send his only son, Christ, to save it? Why should we participate in social justice since perhaps the world is so evil that some new form of evil, like nuclear war or abortion or gay marriage or racism, always pops up to undermine any progress that has been made? Why not just find a good spouse and make a nice life and spend a lot of time in prayer to reach union with God and let the rest of the world burn if that is what it wants to do? Especially if one has accepted suffering so that one does not care either way, one way or another, whether one is in suffering or joy/happiness? What is so great about the world and another humans that God should desire to save it – or it simply that he saves it for his own glory, because he created, he ought to choose to save it? Perhaps only because we are created in the image of Christ, that is the only reason that we need to have to care about saving the world?

unborn babies, St. Josephine Bakhita, St. Martin de Porres, Venerable Pierre Touissant, St. Edith Stein, Sr. Lucy of Fatima, St. Therese of Liseux, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, St. Maximilian Maria, St. Mary Faustina, St. Alphonsus Mary de Liguori, St. Louis Mary de Montfort, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Timothy, St. Peter, St. Paul, St. John, St. Stephen, St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, St. Dominic, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Padre Pio, St. Gemma, St. Dympha, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Catherine of Siena, His Holiness Pope John Paul II, all the angels, saints, and popes, we humbly beg you, may you pray to the Mother of the Word for us!!

May the Holy Spirit through the Mother of the Word grant us the graces that we most desperately need!! May the LOVE and MERCY of the Sacred Heart of Jesus overwhelm us!! May the WONDERS of the Mother of the Word come to our aid!!

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world! For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world! For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world!

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!
Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *
 
AveSantaMaria said:
What is the theological reason why we should care about the suffering and evil in the world?

What is so great about the world and another humans that God should desire to save it – or it simply that he saves it for his own glory, because he created, he ought to choose to save it? Perhaps only because we are created in the image of Christ, that is the only reason that we need to have to care about saving the world?
Click to expand...
You have given two of the best theological reasons in your post.
  1. God creates us in his image and likeness. Therefore, we are not evil. We are capable of great evil, because we have been given free choice. But that does not make humanity evil. That’s like saying that fire is evil because it can destroy and take lives. That is not its function, but it is one of its potentials. The same happens with man. Evil is within man’s potentil, but it is not his purpose or his nature. Even though we sin, we remain God’s creation and the sacrament of God’s presence.
  2. God does save us for his glory. God can do no greater good than to glorify himself. That is the some of all goodness.
  3. God also saves the world out of love. He becomes incarnate so that man can be saved through man’s redemptive sacrifice united with divinity. Through the incarnation, God’s divinity raises our humanity. In raising our humanity Divinity makes it possible for man to offer the perfect gift of atonement. That is why the God-Man must die and rise.
Once this has been accomplished, we are drawn into God’s redeptive work and we become cooperators in redemption. Therefore, we cannot stand by and watch humanity self-destruct. Therefore, God gives us different paths that lead to the redemption of humanity. Some he calls to live an active life in society, making every social interaction work toward the good of all. Others he calls to a hidden life of prayer and solitude, seeking out Christ. Because in the search for Christ grace is found. Grace upon grace is poured upon humanity. For whatever one member of the body does affects the entire body, whether it is good or sinful.

JR 🙂

Happy New Year
 
THANK YOU for this post and explanation!!

The explanation of 1. is quite helpful as sometimes I forget that “evil is not man’s nature.” Perhaps we are in a state of grace and just as one can advance in holiness, one can decrease in holiness. So when I contemplate great evil in the world perhaps I should also contemplate on the great good, as Mary did when she participated in the sacrificing of her son - she knew the benefit it would bring to humankind. When I am perturbed by an individual in my life’s wrongs, perhaps I should focus on the fact that it is a result of the fact that may not be in a state of grace progressing towards holiness. That person is not evil or unredeemable, they are simply not on the right spiritual path. :confused:

2 is hard to understand as it may be theologically difficult to figure out why the greatest good that God can do is glorify himself.

3 Alas, thank you for posting this!! I DO NOT understand in the slightest the true meaning of Christ as God-man, and I have never heard anything before about why it matters that man’s redemptive sacrifice is united with divinity. Sadly, I struggle to understand the purpose of the Crucifixion at all in fact!! :o Any Saint or Pope reading material on this subject would be greatly appreciated!!

unborn babies, St. Josephine Bakhita, St. Martin de Porres, Venerable Pierre Touissant, His Holiness Pope John Paul II, St. Edith Stein, Sr. Lucy of Fatima, St. Therese of Liseux, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, St. Maximilian Maria, St. Louis Marie de Montfort, St. Alphonsus Mary de Liguori, St. Maria Faustina, St. Dominic, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Bonaventure, Archbishop Oscar Romero, Mother Teresa, St. Dympha, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, St. Gemma, Archangel Gabriel, Archangel Raphael, Archangel Michael, all the holy angels and saints and Popes, pray to the Mother of the Word for us!!

May the Holy Spirit through the Mother of the Word grant us the graces that we most desperately need, particularly an abundance of love and mercy!! May the LOVE and MERCY of the Sacred Heart of Jesus overflow in our hearts and around all we encounter and do not encounter!! 😉 May the WONDERS of the Immaculate Heart of Mary come to our aid!!

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world! For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world! For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world!

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!
Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *
 
AveSantaMaria said:
THANK YOU for this post and explanation!!

The explanation of 1. is quite helpful as sometimes I forget that “evil is not man’s nature.” Perhaps we are in a state of grace and just as one can advance in holiness, one can decrease in holiness. So when I contemplate great evil in the world perhaps I should also contemplate on the great good, as Mary did when she participated in the sacrificing of her son - she knew the benefit it would bring to humankind. When I am perturbed by an individual in my life’s wrongs, perhaps I should focus on the fact that it is a result of the fact that may not be in a state of grace progressing towards holiness. That person is not evil or unredeemable, they are simply not on the right spiritual path. :confused:
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It is not up to us to judge whether another person is on the right path or not. We can only judge actions. If an action is wrong, there is nothing wrong with saying so.
2 is hard to understand as it may be theologically difficult to figure out why the greatest good that God can do is glorify himself.
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The first three commandments are about God’s right to be loved. If God has the right to be loved and God is perfect, then God must love himself. He achieves this in the community known as the Trinity. The Father and the Son glorify each other and the Holy Spirit proceeds from their love.
3 Alas, thank you for posting this!! I DO NOT understand in the slightest the true meaning of Christ as God-man, and I have never heard anything before about why it matters that man’s redemptive sacrifice is united with divinity. Sadly, I struggle to understand the purpose of the Crucifixion at all in fact!! :o Any Saint or Pope reading material on this subject would be greatly appreciated!!
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If you read John’s prologue, Jeus is both human and divine. His humanity and his divinity do not blend. They exist together in one person. Thus he is both God and man, but he is only one person. Thus, he is the God-Man. This was debated and declared at the Council of Nicea. You look up “hypostatic union” in any Catholic encyclopedia. That will help.

JR 🙂
 
Pellman said:
Please share with me any suggested reading by saints (or others) on the mystery suffering.

To clarify, what troubles me is not my own puny suffering but the enormous suffering of others, esp children. Most books on suffering are on how to deal with your *own *suffering, “Why does God make me suffer so?” Even what few writings I have encountered by saints are about why we should embrace our sufferings as sent by God, etc. Ok, I’ve got that part. Now how do I continue to live in the world of the suffering of others without putting out my eyes?

What I would like to see is something like the book of Job, but retold from the perspective of Job’s mother who had to watch everything her son went through.

Also, I am not necessarily looking for the reasons God allows such suffering. I don’t expect to understand, anymore than Job understood. I just want to know how to cope. The short answer, I know, is: through prayer and fasting. But I’d still like to know what the saints had to say.
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Sometimes, the Lord sends a soul suffering for their greater perfection and share in His glory on the Cross. Let this thought console you. And pray for all the suffering souls, both in this world and in Purgatory.
 
JReducation said:
It is not up to us to judge whether another person is on the right path or not. We can only judge actions. If an action is wrong, there is nothing wrong with saying so.
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There is a lot of evil in the world though! And often pointing it or correcting it does not cause anyone to change their minds, and perhaps a person like myself, in my limited understanding, cannot understand why another person will not change their mind about something I think of as evil and begins to lose hope in the world. St. Edith Stein wrote many many letters to the Pope during the Holocaust urging the Catholic church to take a stronger stand. She was eventually martyred. St. Maximilian Maria went to Auschwitz in the first place because he got in trouble for sheltering Jews and supporting them during the Holocaust to the best of my extremely limited understanding. Served carbolic acid and thrown into a gas oven. Perhaps I should read more on his life.

St. Josephine Bakhita was mutilated and scarred from slavery at a very young age. Until the end of her life, even after she had been rescued, she would suffer painful flashbacks where she would say things like “Remove the chains; they are heavy!!” although she was not in chains. St. Martin de Porres was discriminated against over and over as a mixed-race man, even by his fellow Dominican brothers, in Peru despite the fact that he rose and attained acclaim as a Dominican brother. Many nations around the world, most of Africa and Latin America, still suffer the brutal legacy of colonialism. Much of the time, merely saying so, is not enough to change people’s minds. Sometimes when confronted by all the evil in the world, I, unfortunately in my sinful nature, struggle to keep my faith in the ultimate goodness of God and the dignity/worth of man. Some people stuggle to understand why God allows the possibility of Hell as well as natural disasters, others struggle to understand why God doesn’t create another Flood and quietly end man’s existence, the way Joseph wanted to quietly divorce Mary. 😦
The first three commandments are about God’s right to be loved. If God has the right to be loved and God is perfect, then God must love himself. He achieves this in the community known as the Trinity. The Father and the Son glorify each other and the Holy Spirit proceeds from their love.
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Interesting, I’ve never heard this interpretation of the Holy Spirit as proceeding from their love before. Maybe I ought to do more research into the source of this idea. :eek:
If you read John’s prologue, Jeus is both human and divine. His humanity and his divinity do not blend. They exist together in one person. Thus he is both God and man, but he is only one person. Thus, he is the God-Man. This was debated and declared at the Council of Nicea. You look up “hypostatic union” in any Catholic encyclopedia. That will help.
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I’ve read on the hypostatic union in the online Catholic Encyclopedia and still don’t really understand all of it, but even if I understand hypostatic union at the smallest depth of understanding, I have no clue whatsoever as to what this means and was extremely grateful that you posted it: “He becomes incarnate so that man can be saved through man’s redemptive sacrifice united with divinity. Through the Incarnation, God’s divinity raises our humanity. In raising our humanity, Divinity makes it possible for man to offer the perfect gift of atonement. That’s why the God-man must rise and die.” Hopefully, I will be able to find more information on this subject and more fully understand it if I can find valid Catholic sources for this teaching.

THANK YOU for your insight and contribution!!!

Happy New Year to you as well.

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world! For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world! For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world!

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!
Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *
 
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