Views about suffering?

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What are our views on the subject of suffering?

I realise that this could be a highly emotive subject so please be respectful, courteous and polite, thank you.
 
I think we need to differentiate between types of suffering.

There is unavoidable suffering, like a terminal illness for which all the care you can reasonably get including palliative care, is not enough to remove all suffering. Or even a small unavoidable suffering, like you have a cold for a week and feel miserable. In this case, the person suffering has to find a way to process/ make sense of what is happening. Some ways people do this are by offering their suffering to Jesus, joining their suffering to Jesus, or trying to be an example to others who may be suffering similarly. Mother Angelica had a painful leg disability for most of her life and said she thought God had given her that because he wanted her to be an example to other people with disabilities.

There is avoidable suffering, where something can be done to stop the suffering such as medical care, helping someone to escape a bad situation, or changing one’s own habits (example: you drink every day and suffer because of the resulting effects on your life). In this case I think we have a responsibility to try to stop the suffering.

Finally, there is suffering we willingly inflict on ourselves for a spiritual reason. Usually this is some small suffering like fasting for a couple of days. People use this suffering in all different ways - they can offer it for reparation for sins, for the souls in Purgatory, or as just a way to remind themselves that Jesus is really all they need. There are all kinds of different approaches to fasting and penance. I have my personal favorite or useful ones, someone else may have a different one. if it’s bringing you closer to God and isn’t excessive, it’s all good. If you’re doing more than a small amount of it, you should probably talk to a spiritual director to make sure you’re not doing too much.

I remember Fulton Sheen going past a hospital and saying something like, “All that suffering, wasted”. When we get stuck with suffering that we can’t do anything about, we should try not to waste it. I also take as my examples the Fatima children who tried to find small sufferings like going without lunch and offer them up “for reparation, for the Holy Father, and to save souls”.

That’s my view, if someone wants to argue about it fine, I’m not going to be participating, due to a recent thread that IMHO got way out of hand.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
I remember Fulton Sheen going past a hospital and saying something like, “All that suffering, wasted”. When we get stuck with suffering that we can’t do anything about, we should try not to waste it.
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This is important, in my eyes.
I am not big in searching suffering on my own. But I am a person who learned much more through suffering than through success. So, life was pretty good in the last years to give me enough to work on…But I tried to establish this thought as a guideline. If I can´t stop the suffering (because I´m sick even with the help of a doctor/lawyer/friend/), then I will try to grow through my suffering and offer it up.
My life feels richer since then, as my darker hours are not wasted.
 
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From my own experience I found that I had nowhere to turn except the Catholic Church, my suffering led me directly to Catholicism where I’m happy to say I eventually found great succour.

These days I try, and I mean try, to find value in hardships which cause me to suffer in some way, spiritual value I mean. Even my physical problems remind me of my effemeral nature and actually help me to appreciate the transience of this world and the promise of eternal spiritual life.

Having said those things I understand that some pains are far harder to bear than those I’ve experienced.
 
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alice24 said:
I remember Fulton Sheen going past a hospital and saying something like, “All that suffering, wasted”. When we get stuck with suffering that we can’t do anything about, we should try not to waste it.
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I believe Archbishop Sheen took that from St Theresa of Lisieux, whom he had a great affection for.

She wrote it in her diary

Jim
 
That reminds me of St John Vianney

Whether we will or not, we must suffer. There are some who suffer like the good thief, and others like the bad thief. They both suffered equally. But one knew how to make his sufferings meritorious, he accepted them in the spirit of reparation, and turning towards Jesus crucified, he received from His mouth these beautiful words: “This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise. “
 
Suffering is very close to my heart because I, like many here, suffer daily either mentally or physically. It’s like a part of me. I’m not yet like St Paul as I don’t rejoice but I accept it sadly. I’ve actually been thinking about this for a while and the only thing my tired mind can do to relieve it is to look forward to eternity. I always say “This is all temporary”. It is sad, not to live with joy but some are used to it…it’s like just waiting. Hard to explain.
 
I found it hard to understand how any value could be found at all in suffering, I thought it was an extremely odd way to think. Then I began to realise, since bad things were gong to happen anyway why not try to see the value in them if any. I have mentioned before how St Francis was robbed in the woods and left naked and dispossessed and yet sprang to his feet and continued on his journey singing praises to God. How could he do that? He thought that God had blessed him with even more humility and taken away the burdens of possession.

Suffering can help,us to be more empathetic and thus loving to some degree towards our neighbour. Suffering can help us feel humility. Suffering has many fruits if you look carefully. But these are just nice ideas unless you cleave to them.

When little or no gain seems obvious then we can still offer up our suffering to help that of others, whether they be mortal or in purgatory.

None of which means we shouldn’t seek medical care if we need it, but I’m sure many will appreciate that even with medical care we can still be left suffering in many ways.
 
St Pope John Paul II’s writings on suffering are so important.

C. S. Lewis “A Grief Observed” is another good read.
 
Suffering should be taken advantage of. Offered to Christ, intentions, for the holy souls in purgatory, and so on. It is when one is suffering that you unite yourself more to Jesus and what he suffered during the passion. It is then where you feel the natural humility of being helpless or truly needing God by your side.
 
This one always bothered me

1Peter 2:19 For whenever anyone bears the pain of unjust suffering because of consciousness of God, that is a grace. 20 But what credit is there if you are patient when beaten for doing wrong? But if you are patient when you suffer for doing what is good, this is a grace before God.

I figure most of my suffering is my fault, for having chosen wrongly long ago in the past and having established wrong habits of thought and action.
 
Lee1 said:
What are our views on the subject of suffering?

I realise that this could be a highly emotive subject so please be respectful, courteous and polite, thank you.
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Suffering is necessary to our salvation because without it, we wouldn’t desire anything more than this current life. If everything was perfect and without suffering here on Earth, we’d never desire anything more than what we currently have, since we’d already have all we could want. Suffering reminds us that not everything we want can be obtained here on Earth. So where can we find everything we want? Well, with God Himself in Heaven, where everything is perfect. And suffering is one of the ways in which we come to desire Heaven- a permanent end to all of our sufferings here on Earth. It causes us to desire more than what this world has to offer. And God is more than everything any of us could ever want. Suffering leads us to loving God, which is what we were created to do above all.
 
Pug said:
But what credit is there if you are patient when beaten for doing wrong? But if you are patient when you suffer for doing what is good, this is a grace before God.

I figure most of my suffering is my fault, for having chosen wrongly long ago in the past and having established wrong habits of thought and action.
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It would seem to me that suffering as the result of bad behavior might have the effect of atoning somehow for the bad behavior. When we let a criminal out of prison, we say he has “paid his debt to society” for his crime. Perhaps grace doesn’t accrue but it’s still a fair paying of a debt. The good thief made the point that he himself was not being crucified unjustly and yet he still went to Paradise.

“Bad choices” are more debatable than bad behavior. Often someone makes a bad choice without fully understanding the potential long-term consequences, and they may not have really good options to choose from. There’s also some question in my mind as to how long a person should have to suffer for one or two bad choices, often made with incomplete understanding or information.
 
I think the one place where I would still have a big question about suffering, though I have chosen to just trust God to deal with it, is when some human suffers who is really incapable of understanding or processing their pain. This would have to be a really young child, a baby in the womb, or a severely mentally challenged adult. In the case of an animal we can and would bring about a quick and merciful death, but you can’t do that with a baby. One might say that our motivation in “mercy killing” the baby or mentally disabled adult would be we don’t want to pay for their care or be burdened with it, but this doesn’t address the situation of the baby’s own pain. One might also say that the situation is teaching the comprehending persons around them a lesson, but again you still have a baby hurting even if this is bringing great spiritual wisdom to all nearby.
 
I agree there’s a different types of suffering ; active and passive etc. like tisbearself said in her first post.

I think most of us are given some sort of suffering and we can chose to moan and complain or participate in it redemptively. We accept this and thank God for it and this is passive self abnegation. This is not as easy as it sounds if the suffering is long term or even if it is a cold or short term illness. Actually even if it’s not an illness. You can also offer your suffering from any thing to God, even from the struggle against sin.
I don’t think anyone likes suffering, well at least not until they get to some level of saint hood. But I do think you can at mere mortal level get to the stage of accepting it and enduring it for love, which is not to say you like it but where you will ask for it for the sake of love. It’s not that hard to imagine as sleep deprived parents will still have another child even though they have just got their 18month old into a routine… for love. That’s just me trying to explain, an example.
Then yes we do chose sufferings in the form of fasting (not just food) etc active self abnegation.

Suffering is always for our own good and the good of humankind. This I have absolutely no doubt of.
 
Another aspect of suffering is that the positives to be gained are very subjective and personal and we are also speaking about it from a Catholic perspective.

I hesitate to say this and I don’t want any likes for this please. Last week my cousin, who is being treated for bone cancer suddenly lost his twenty eight year old daughter. She has suffered from physical and mental disabilities from birth and needed constant twenty four hour care. She died in the night possibly following an epileptic fit.

Both my cousin and his wife are unbelievers and so I am not able to console them to any degree. Someone who was a Christian suggested that their daughter was now in a better place, the mother told her that the best place for her was with them.

I can think of many stuations where it would be difficult to see any positive side that I would dare suggest to someone and this is one. I’ve no doubt others have had similar experiences. In time they will cope with this but I am greatly saddened by it of course and frustrated that since they have no faith I am incapable of helping them other than sharing in their grief.
 
That sounds terribly sad.

Maybe you can console them by just letting them talk about whatever they want to say about their daughter and the situation, without interjecting anything about she’s in a better place, you’ll see her again, etc.
Let them figure out some way she “lives on” for them.
 
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