Suffering: is it a neccesary evil?

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live_for_jesus

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one way or another, we have all experienced it. many people ask why o lord why? like in the book of Job. many despair, others come even closer to God…however for many still remains a mystery. And what do you think?
 
I don’t know about the “necessary” part of suffering because if we look at God’s original design for us in the Garden, suffering did not exist. Because of the fall, and our continued romance with sin, it seems inescapable. I can’t imagine how we, as mere humans, could ever achieve any type of spiritual perfection without suffering now. It offers us the opportunity to purify ourselves of the attachments we have to this world and turn to the only solace that satisfies in the Lord. Most folks would admit that it is only through great trials that they have learned life’s most valuable lessons. What grieves me is watching people suffer without ever gaining any insight.
 
live_for_jesus said:
one way or another, we have all experienced it. many people ask why o lord why? like in the book of Job. many despair, others come even closer to God…however for many still remains a mystery. And what do you think?
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For a really good insight into suffering I recommend the following books:

Making Sense Out Of Suffering by Peter Kreeft
Arise From Darkness by Father Benedict Groeschel
 
There is no such thing as a necessary evil. Evil is not necessary and if we view evil this way we co-operate with it and to some extent even condone it.

Suffering is not part of God’s plan or it would have existed from the beginning, but suffering only came when man co-operated with evil. Only evil can inflict suffering, if there had been no evil in the world there would never have been the Cross. But because of the great evil in the world the Lord Jesus bore all of that evil upon Himself by the work of His Cross to destroy the work of evil and to redeem men from the prison they had freely entered into by co-operating with evil therefore becoming evil themselves.

God knew from the beginning that man would co-operate with evil and still knowing this and knowing He would die and rise again for these disobedient unloving creatures (because to co-operate with evil is to not love) He still created men and He still created all the angels even the third who rejected Him and were thrown out of heaven. God continued with His plan to create men because God is love and He knew that for the sake of the few who will love Him He will create the many who do not love Him. For those few who will love Him God desired to lavish so much love upon them He knew that they would also partake in His Cross to destroy evil for all eternity even though there will be those who also bear the cross but don’t love the cross and don’t love God. The many who don’t love His Ways nor understand them nor care to understand them but rather hate God as they see Him as the source of all their sufferings and don’t believe that He will deliver them from all of their trials and so their suffering is dark and truly a hell upon earth. But for those who love God their suffering does not destroy them, their suffering is a victory in Jesus and suffering is transformed from torture to redemption, evil truly has no power over them no matter how severely evil may attempt to afflict them. In the worse of situations God greatness is glorified.

The Kingdom of Heaven comes only by the way of the Cross. Love cannot say to another, ‘You suffer for me and I will let you suffer for me but I will not suffer for my own soul.’ No that is not love. Love says ‘Thank you for suffering for me and now because I love You whatever suffering I endure I suffer for love of You and love of my brothers and sisters.’

God in His great wisdom did not destroy evil entirely at Calvary, but He did bind it. God still alllows men the freedom to believe in Him. It is when we see God’s work with the eyes of faith that we see He gives us every opportunity to love as He does and so He did not remove evil from the world, but He said ‘Come to me all you who are heavily burdened and I will give you rest’. This is very important what Jesus says here, He did not say ‘Come to me you who are heavily burdened and I will remove it from you’; what He says is ‘In Me suffering is transformed and I will not allow it to defeat you.’ Jesus did not come to take anything away from the world, He has left everything as it is, but He did come to transform His creatures within the world. So all that men face has not changed, but what has changed is that they do not face it as men who cannot be healed, they face it as men who are being recreated and more than this they do not face it alone,they face it with the Lord of all Creation and all of His Might and all of His Glory.

The day will come when Jesus will come on the clouds and He will come with all of His power and might and glory. He will come with all of the angels and He will climb up and take His seat on His throne as King of Heaven and of Earth. What a great day, what a wonderful, fearful and magnificent day. All nations will be gathered before Him every man with all their sufferings. Jesus will claim His Victory over evil eternally for all men who love Him with all of their intent and evil will be banished forever. The joy of those who took up their cross and truly followed Him will be immeasurable, their cross will seem as light as a feather on the Last Day because they will know that whatever they endured has been part of the greatest Victory in history and they will know their love was like the love of Jesus. On this day suffering will take up its rightful place in the power, might, glory, and love of God and on this day suffering itself will be fully transformed so that it no longer remains suffering but itself will be healed and transformed. I am not quite sure how to express this, but there will be no more suffering, rather suffering will become a victory that no longer afflicts men and in this it will no longer exist.

For the great Saints they already knew this immeasurable joy to be found in the transforming power of their cross in Jesus, they knew it even whilst they were still this side of life. And because they truly desired to be delivered from evil they always hated evil but gladly paid their debt.

continued
 
We all owe a debt and we could not ever pay the debt, so Jesus paid the debt for us. His Mother Mary too participated in paying our debt though she is sinless. Our Lady never did anything wrong, but she lived in a world that is wrong and so she too carried the burden of the world we have created.

Evil is not neccessary. However we are suffering the effects of participating in evil. God has turned this all on its head and made the effects of evil a passage to love. God does not need evil to bring about good, God does only good works and if there had never been evil God would always do good works and good things. What God does is continually defeat evil, He will not let it have victory and so God always provides every opportunity to turn away from evil for men and He brings good constantly into the world even to the point of the worst evil of human suffering being the highest road of attaining good in Him.

God in His great wisdom chose to suffer and die for men. God could have chosen any way that pleased Him to redeem men. His Incarnation alone could have been His Way, but this was only the beginning of His Way. God need not have entered into suffering at all, but He suffered and He still suffers, not as He did upon the Cross, but He suffers the lack of love of His creatures.

Men can spend all of their lives trying to unwravel the mystery of suffering and I have spent a long time embracing the mystery of suffering, the suffering of God upon the Cross, the suffering of men and the suffering of creation. I have merely scratched the surface. So deep is the mystery of suffering and the complex and great work God does to bring about good I firmly believe that we will not understand it until the last day of our lives and we are living the other side of life. There are no mysteries in the afterlife, there are only mysteries behind the veil. In the afterlife we may contemplate fully all that we only see now dimly. Only two have ever contemplated fully here on earth and that is why Jesus and Mary were able to embrace suffering for the paying of a debt they did not owe for us sinners who owe so great a debt.

Lack of understanding a mystery does not take away from the mystery. The depths and the knowledge of the mystery exist and lack of understanding of it does not mean we should lack faith.

‘Faith, hope and love, these three things remain but the greatest of these is love’ Love will willingly embrace all things and endures all things even though they may not perceive all things. Evil is the absence of love and love destroys evil and evil can do nothing against love and God is love.
 
Suffering isn’t evil. In a little pamphlet of mine it reads:

  1. *]Sufferings come from God for our benefit.
    *]When we are in the state of grace, we derive immense merit from every suffering borne patiently, even the little sufferings of our daily lives.
    *]God will give us abundant strength to bear our suffering if we only ask him.
    *]If we bear our sufferings patiently, they lose their sting and bitterness.
    *]Above all, every suffering is a share in the Passion of Our Lord.
    *]By our usfferings, we can free ourselves in great part, or entirely, for the pains of Purgatory.
    *]By bearing our sufferings patiently, we win the glorious crown of martyrdom.
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  1. Of course, the devil may use sufferings or torments to try to break us from our relationship with God. However, if we endure them, how much greater will God love us and how much closer will we be to Him.
 
Suffering is evil and does not come from God though God allows suffering to exist.

See the Catholic Catechism:

usccb.org/catechism/text/pt1sect2chpt1art1p7.htm

scborromeo.org/ccc/p122a4p2.htm

It is not good that men suffer or Jesus would have commanded us to leave each man to his suffering. But Jesus commanded to serve one another and alleviate suffering in love of each other and love of God. Whatever suffering God allows us to endure we enter directly into a battle with evil and we enter directly into it so we too may also participate in the redemption of our own souls and of the souls of others although this would not be possible unless Christ Jesus had first redeemed men by His Cross.
 
newadvent.org/cathen/14004b.htm

Excerpt:

The second effect of sin is to entail the penalty of undergoing suffering (reatus pænæ). Sin (reatus culpæ) is the cause of this obligation (reatus pænæ ). The suffering may be inflicted in this life through the medium of medicinal punishments, calamities, sickness, temporal evils, which tend to withdraw from sin; or it may be inflicted in the life to come by the justice of God as vindictive punishment. The punishments of the future life are proportioned to the sin committed, and it is the obligation of undergoing this punishment for unrepented sin that is signified by the “reatus poenæ” of the theologians. The penalty to be undergone in the future life is divided into the pain of loss (pæna damni) and the pain of sense (pæna sensus). The pain of loss is the privation of the beatific vision of God in punishment of turning away from Him. The pain of sense is suffering in punishment of the conversion to some created thing in place of God. This two-fold pain in punishment of mortal sin is eternal (1 Corinthians 6:9; Matthew 25:41; Mark 9:45). One mortal sin suffices to incur punishment. (See HELL.) Other effects of sins are: remorse of conscience (Wisdom 5:2-13); an inclination towards evil, as habits are formed by a repetition of similar acts; a darkening of the intelligence, a hardening of the will (Matthew 13:14-15; Romans 11:8); a general vitiating of nature, which does not however totally destroy the substance and faculties of the soul but merely weakens the right exercise of its faculties.

God does not cause suffering. Suffering is a result of evil and a result of co-operating with evil in the world, that is sin. God has taken the worst effect of our co-operating with evil and has brought forth from it our redemption and Jesus who had never sinned took upon Himself the greatest penalty of suffering so that our suffering may be redemptive in His redeeming work of the Cross.

We owe a debt, each and every one of us and our debt will be paid to the last penny either this side of life or in purgatory the other side of life. We may by God’s good grace pay our debt this side of life by loving Him and by embracing our cross and performing good works in the Living Prayer of our lives. God does not inflict this debt upon us, each man knows written in his own heart the debt he owes and each man will judge his own soul because in the sight of God each man’s debt will be known to him and he will not be able to deny it in th Light of the Goodness of God and so great, so almighty, so powerful and so glorious is He that each man will bend their knee and bow and beg for mercy. Only the truly evil will deny God who is all merciful and refuse to pay their debt and their debt they will measure out upon themselves for all eternity in hell.
 
blessedstar said:
newadvent.org/cathen/14004b.htm

Excerpt:

The second effect of sin is to entail the penalty of undergoing suffering (reatus pænæ). Sin (reatus culpæ) is the cause of this obligation (reatus pænæ ). The suffering may be inflicted in this life through the medium of medicinal punishments, calamities, sickness, temporal evils, which tend to withdraw from sin; or it may be inflicted in the life to come by the justice of God as vindictive punishment. The punishments of the future life are proportioned to the sin committed, and it is the obligation of undergoing this punishment for unrepented sin that is signified by the “reatus poenæ” of the theologians. The penalty to be undergone in the future life is divided into the pain of loss (pæna damni) and the pain of sense (pæna sensus). The pain of loss is the privation of the beatific vision of God in punishment of turning away from Him. The pain of sense is suffering in punishment of the conversion to some created thing in place of God. This two-fold pain in punishment of mortal sin is eternal (1 Corinthians 6:9; Matthew 25:41; Mark 9:45). One mortal sin suffices to incur punishment. (See HELL.) Other effects of sins are: remorse of conscience (Wisdom 5:2-13); an inclination towards evil, as habits are formed by a repetition of similar acts; a darkening of the intelligence, a hardening of the will (Matthew 13:14-15; Romans 11:8); a general vitiating of nature, which does not however totally destroy the substance and faculties of the soul but merely weakens the right exercise of its faculties.

God does not cause suffering. Suffering is a result of evil and a result of co-operating with evil in the world, that is sin. God has taken the worst effect of our co-operating with evil and has brought forth from it our redemption and Jesus who had never sinned took upon Himself the greatest penalty of suffering so that our suffering may be redemptive in His redeeming work of the Cross.

We owe a debt, each and every one of us and our debt will be paid to the last penny either this side of life or in purgatory the other side of life. We may by God’s good grace pay our debt this side of life by loving Him and by embracing our cross and performing good works in the Living Prayer of our lives. God does not inflict this debt upon us, each man knows written in his own heart the debt he owes and each man will judge his own soul because in the sight of God each man’s debt will be known to him and he will not be able to deny it in th Light of the Goodness of God and so great, so almighty, so powerful and so glorious is He that each man will bend their knee and bow and beg for mercy. Only the truly evil will deny God who is all merciful and refuse to pay their debt and their debt they will measure out upon themselves for all eternity in hell.
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AMEN,AMEN.AMEN, I read your letters and i can confirm what you wrote by my own experience, i was really ill, i cried a lot…and asked god why?as well, but during my illness i reflected and meditated on our lord’s passion, prayed a lot, and offered my illness for conversion of sinners. I used to take the holy bible with me to hospital,God gave me the grace to forget myself and help others too. and today…:extrahappy: I’m healed…

My suffering was worth every minute,…not only because i’m healed, but because during my suffering i truly met Jesus and i thank my mum ever virgin mary for her intercession.

We can all meet the ressurected CHRIST but first we have to pass through his cross
 
Of course, sufferings don’t come from God. He permits them to happen so that we have a cross to bear that brings us closer to him. In that sense they are from God, but not created by Him.
 
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