This very excellent booklet contains information we all should know and review from time to time. It will help us not to lose the eternal merit of suffering. It explains the purposes of suffering, and is especially helpful for those who are ill. Imprimatur 1958.
Suffering plays an important role in a number of religions, regarding matters such as the following: consolation or relief; moral conduct (do no harm, help the afflicted, show compassion); spiritual advancement through life hardships or through self-imposed trials (mortification of the flesh, penance, asceticism); ultimate destiny (salvation, damnation, hell). Theodicy deals with the problem of evil, which is the difficulty of reconciling the existence of an omnipotent and benevolent god with the existence of evil: a quintessential form of evil, for many people, is extreme suffering, especially in innocent children, or in creatures destined to an eternity of torments.
Christianity also believes that human suffering plays an important role in religion. Suffering is only to be thought of as a positive experience in the case of achieving a higher meaning of life, such as Jesus suffering for the lives of other people as was the case during the atonement. Suffering is the time to find God and value faith while doing so. This allows Christians to face reality of human experience with suffering and find an understanding in the divine.
The Bible's Book of Job reflects on the nature and meaning of suffering. It is supplemented in the Hebrew bible by the passages found in the Book of Isaiah and the Book of Jeremiah which elaborate the emotional and physical suffering of a conquered nation with its vanquished inhabitants forced into the suffering of exile and captivity in a foreign land.[12]
In the New Testament, suffering is portrayed both in the life of Jesus portrayed in the Synoptics, which narrate the suffering of the crucifixion, and in the post-Easter narratives. The suffering associated with punishment is further portrayed in the Apocalypse of John where suffering at the scene of the Last Judgment is depicted as the just recompense for sin and wrongdoing. Pope John Paul II wrote "On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering".[13] This meaning revolves around the notion of redemptive suffering.
Redemptive suffering is the Christian belief that human suffering, when accepted and offered up in union with the Passion of Jesus, can remit the just punishment for one's sins or for the sins of another, or for the other physical or spiritual needs of oneself or another. In Christianity, it is a tenet of Catholic theology, although it is taught in Reformed doctrine as well.
Pope John Paul II stated, "Each man, in his sufferings, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ".[2] (cf Colossians 1:24) Like an indulgence, redemptive suffering does not gain the individual forgiveness for their sin; forgiveness results from God’s grace, freely given through Christ, which cannot be earned.(See Romans 4:3-5) After one's sins are forgiven, the individual's suffering can reduce the penalty due for sin.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states the following concerning redemptive suffering:
Moved by so much suffering Christ not only allows himself to be touched by the sick, but he makes their miseries his own: "He took our infirmities and bore our diseases." But he did not heal all the sick. His healings were signs of the coming of the Kingdom of God. They announced a more radical healing: the victory over sin and death through his Passover. On the cross Christ took upon himself the whole weight of evil and took away the "sin of the world," of which illness is only a consequence. By his passion and death on the cross Christ has given a new meaning to suffering: it can henceforth configure us to him and unite us with his redemptive Passion.
Thérèse of Lisieux wrote the following about her own redemptive suffering from her deathbed:
O Mother, it’s very easy to write beautiful things about suffering, but writing is nothing, nothing! One must suffer in order to know! I really feel now that what I’ve said and written is true about everything ... It’s true that I wanted to suffer much for God’s sake, and it’s true that I still desire this ... All I wrote about my desires for suffering. Oh! it’s true just the same! And I am not sorry for delivering myself up to Love. Oh! no, I’m not sorry; on the contrary!
Likewise, Padre Pio said the following about the purification brought about through redemptive suffering:
“I want your soul to be purified and tried by a daily hidden martyrdom. How many times,” Jesus said to me a little while ago, “would you have abandoned me, my son, if I had not crucified you.”
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