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Thursday, April 6, 2000
When you can’t go it alone
By Theresa Sanders
Catholic News Service
ne day St. Teresa of Avila was
out riding when her horse bolted; her
carriage was overturned. As Teresa
got up and realized her arm was bro
ken, she raised her eyes to heaven and
cried, “If this is how you treat your
friends, it’s no wonder that you have
so few of them!”
Sooner or later, suffering comes to
all of us. We encounter sickness and
death, and many of us live with other
forms of suffering every day. We
might be lonely, hopeless or in the
grip of an addiction. We might feel
depression, anxiety or a sense of guilt
that leaves us exhausted.
We often have no control over the
suffering we experience. The most we
can do is decide how we want to react
to it. The truth is, there is no one
right way to do that.
This is shown clearly in the New
Testament accounts of Jesus’ death.
—In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus
seems at peace with his impending
death. As he draws his last breath, he
says, “Father, into your hands I com
mit my spirit!” Jesus feels a sense of
trust that allows him to go peacefully
into the life that awaits him.
—In Mark and Matthew, on the other
hand, Jesus cries out in agony to a Father
who seems far away: “My God, my God,
why have you forsaken me?”
Neither one of these reactions to pain
is necessarily better than the other.
What matters is that we are as
open and honest as we can be about
what we are going through. God
doesn’t expect us to deny our feelings
and to pretend that everything is fine
when it isn’t.
We can be angry with God or at
peace with God. We can question God,
or complain, or protest, or give
thanks. What matters is that we
trust God enough to be who we are
when we pray.
Sometimes, though, when we are in
the midst of suffering, we cannot sum
mon the energy to pray. Cardinal Jo
seph Bemardin, who died of cancer in
1996, wrote about his struggles with
prayer in a memoir called The Gift of
Peace. He described how, after one of
his surgeries, he had neither the desire
nor strength to pray. He advised his
friends, “Make sure that you pray
when you’re well because when you’re
real sick, you probably won’t.”
At times like this, we may have to
rely on friends or the church as a
whole to pray for us. When we are too
sick or too angry to pray, we can ask
others to lift us up to God and to place
us in God’s hands. Cardinal
CNS photo of family at plane crash site from Reuters
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Bernardin wrote: “I go back to one
word: ‘connected.’ Without prayer,
you cannot be connected or you cannot
remain united with the Lord. It’s )-
solutely essential.”
Even the act of asking others to
pray for us is a way of maintaining
Ml
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too angry to pray, we can ask
others to lift us up to God and
to place us in God’s hands.”
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that connection with God.
If we are able to see our suffering in
light of this connection, we might dis
cover ways it can transform rather
than defeat us. Suffering can make us
more sympathetic to the pains of those
around us.. It can awaken us to life’s
precious nature. If nothing else, suf
fering can bring forth tenderness and
charity in those around us as they
care for our needs.
In short, suffering can challenge
our spiritual lives tremendously;
what we can do is pray for the grace to
live through it with love.
(Sanders is an assistant professor of
theology at Georgetown University.)
hen we are too sick oi
How the liturgy envisions suffering
By Father Lawrence E. Mick
Catholic News Service
q
k-/ome wise person once said that
the church’s function is to comfort the
afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
That’s also a fair description of what
the liturgy does.
—If we are too comfortable, our en
counter with the Lord in the liturgy
calls us to conversion, to moving
ahead on our pilgrim journey of faith.
—If we are afflicted, the liturgy
offers us needed comfort.
Suffering is part of the human con
dition. All of us carry our own unique
burdens, and when we come to liturgy
we bring them with us.
When it comes to personal suffer
ing, the liturgy brings us into contact
with the ultimate victim, Jesus
Christ. The New Testament letter to
the Hebrews says, “Because he him
self was tested through what he suf
fered, he is able to help those who are
being tested” (2:18).
Whatever suffering we bring with
us, when we meet Christ in the lit
urgy we are invited to unite our suf
FAITH IN THE MARKETPLACE
Tell of a step you took in the face of personal suffering
that gave birth to hope.
“One Good Friday ... I despondently sat in a small meditation room at a
hospital praying for my dad during one of his many hospitalizations over a
23-year period. In my emotional pain, I noticed the space was cramped and
that the hospital needed a larger place for people to pray.... I became
involved in a project to have the hospital build an interfaith chapel.... And
now, a few years later, I am touched to see a beautiful interfaith chapel at
that hospital.” — Joann Buhler, Aberdeen, N.J.
“We had a problem with my daughter in college, and I depended on
prayer. And now I thank God that everything has worked out.” — Karen
Holcombe, Palmer, Alaska
“There came a time in my life when my ministry wasn’t going well, and
I moved on to a new ministry. I spent time in prayer as I made my deci
sion.” — Sister Denise Herrmann, CSA, Madison, Wis.
An upcoming edition asks: How has the church in your area concretely
welcomed or supported new immigrants? If you would like to respond for
/possible publication, please write: Faith Alive! 3211 Fourth St. N.E.,
rvCV Ad Washington, D.C. 20017-1100.
fering with his passion and death on
the cross. In this way our suffering
can be redemptive, as his was.
But it is important to remember
that Christ’s death was not the end.
The liturgy always celebrates both his
death and his resurrection.
So Christian liturgy closely paral
lels our life experience, for we know
that suffering is part of life but we also
know that life is not ultimately extin
guished by suffering.
Reminding us that we are not alone
is another way the liturgy helps us
cope with suffering. When we gather
with other Christians to celebrate the
liturgy, we form one body in Christ.
Both our sufferings and our joys are
shared with the other members of the
body.
This means that our union in
Christ enables us to draw strength
from one another. We even draw
strength from those who have gone
before us in faith, especially the mar
tyrs who suffered the ultimate price
but still remained faithful.
Of course, suffering tends to make
us focus inward, perhaps even to feel
sorry for ourselves. But the liturgy
calls us out of our self-centeredness
and challenges us to think of others.
Just gathering with others helps us
move beyond the limits of our own
concerns. Then in the liturgy we pray
together for the needs of the world;
those petitions regularly remind us of
people around the world who suffer
even more than we do.
“Come to me,” Jesus said to heavily
burdened people, “and I will refresh
you.” In the liturgy he is always wait
ing for us. No suffering we endure is
greater than his love for us.
(Father Mick is a priest of the
Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Ohio, and
a free-lance writer.)
In 0 Nutshell
“The true message of suffering is a lesson of love. Love makes
suffering fruitful, and suffering deepens love,” Pope John
Paul II said in his homily at St. Edith Stein’s 1998
canonization.
“Often people can go the extra mile for others because they
have been spiritually formed through suffering. For
Christians, suffering is both hope and challenge,” the U.S.
bishops said in a 1995 statement.