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- Herausgeber: anna ruggieri
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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Praise for Finding God in Suffering
“I wish I didn’t need this book, but I do. We all do, because so much of life is occupied with suffering—grief, disappointment, physical pain, shame. Jesus Christ showed us the way through every ordeal, empowering us not only to endure, but to triumph. In these pages, Father Mahar shows us that way, helping us to understand it as he provides clear, practical spiritual guidance.”
— Mike Aquilina, executive vice-president, St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology; author, The Fathers of the Church; EWTN host
“Suffering is often opposed to human happiness, and its incidence often robs life of its meaning. In Finding God in Suffering, Father Mahar evangelizes the human experience of suffering, illustrating how it can serve God’s purpose and is, therefore, not a sign of the absence of God.”
— Cardinal Peter Turkson, Chancellor, Pontifical Academies for Sciences and Social Sciences
“Despite the ‘broken families, broken promises, and broken lives’ all around us, [Father Christopher Mahar] effectively illustrates the astonishing Good News of our faith—that the ‘Gospel of Suffering’ allows every trial to be a rich encounter with Christ and an opportunity to embrace a creative vocation radiating hope.”
— Genevieve Kineke, author and speaker on authentic Catholic femininity
“Finding an answer to the question of suffering is one of the most crucial discoveries in life. Father Mahar masterfully and gracefully guides us into this difficult subject, helps us to find God in suffering, and in him discover its meaning and value. This work is an answer to the prayers and cries of so many presently in dark valleys, and it is a source of light and hope to all those who compassionately strive to love and care for them.”
— Father Roger Landry, Catholic Chaplain, Columbia University.
“The shadow of the Cross falls upon each of us in different ways and can plunge us into disorientating darkness, distress, and even despair. Where is God? we ask.
“Yet, for the Christian, the Cross is a sign of hope: its deepest shadows are cast by the light of Easter morning. The victory of Our Lord Jesus Christ over sin and death transforms our suffering and gives it redemptive value. In our suffering and through it we can participate in that victory; we can encounter God with an intimacy and purity of heart perhaps hitherto unknown.
“Pope Benedict XVI taught, ‘Suffering accepted for love of Christ, for love of God and of others is a redeeming force, a force of love.’ May Father Christopher Mahar’s profound book help us to retrieve this power, this force of love, which is so often absent in the suffering of men and women today. May it inspire each of us always to persevere in the supernatural hope that suffering borne for the love of God betokens, for, as Our Lord taught, ‘He who perseveres to the end shall be saved’ (Mt 24:13).”
— Robert Cardinal Sarah, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments.
Finding God in Suffering
Finding God in Suffering
By Father Christopher M. Mahar
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023934139
ISBN 10: 0-8198-2756-8
ISBN 13: 978-0-8198-2756-2
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions in the above list and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.
Cover design by Ryan McQuade
Cover art and frontispiece: The Crowning with Thorns, Caravaggio (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, wikicommons).
Excerpts of the Catechism of the Catholic Church are taken from the English translation for use in the United States of America copyright © 1994, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops—Libreria Editrice Vaticana. English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Modifications from the Editio Typica, copyright © 1997, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops—Libreria Editrice Vaticana.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
“P” and PAULINE are registered trademarks of the Daughters of St. Paul.
Copyright © 2023, Christopher M. Mahar
Published by Pauline Books & Media, 50 Saint Paul’s Avenue, Boston, MA 02130-3491
www.pauline.org
Pauline Books & Media is the publishing house of the Daughters of St. Paul, an international congregation of women religious serving the Church with the communications media.
To my parents, Earl and Mary, and my siblings, Melissa and Matthew.
Contents
Introduction
Salvific Suffering
A Redeeming Force
Part I
When We Suffer
Chapter 1
The Encounter with Suffering
Diagnosing the Disease
Chapter 2
The Problem of Evil
Distortion of the Good
Chapter 3
Transcendence and Hope
The Search for Meaning
Chapter 4
Castles East of Eden
Freedom’s Sacred Space
Chapter 5
Growth in Suffering
A Difficult and Enlightening Path
Chapter 6
Innocent Suffering
Seeking Balance in a Broken World
Chapter 7
Light in the Darkness
Finding Love in an Unlikely Place
Chapter 8
Christ the Redeemer
Overcoming the Ultimate Suffering
Chapter 9
Gethsemane
Reclaiming the Garden
Chapter 10
Sign of the Cross
Suffering Redeemed
Chapter 11
Eucharistic Suffering
Christ, the Good and Loving Pelican
Part II
How We Suffer
Chapter 12
The “Fortunate” One
The Path to Freedom
Chapter 13
Proof for God
The Heartbeat of Hope
Chapter 14
The Broken Road
A Way for the Church
Chapter 15
Now I Begin
Finding the Courage to Persevere
Chapter 16
Presence and Participation
God Working in and Through Our Suffering
Chapter 17
The Patience of God
Perseverance in the Face of Evil
Chapter 18
Encounter with the Living God
Sharing in the Suffering of Christ
Chapter 19
Suffering for Christ
The Cross of Martyrdom
Chapter 20
Suffering with Christ
Listening for God’s Voice
Chapter 21
Set Free
The Descending Meaning of Suffering
Acknowledgments
Appendices
Appendix I
Sacred Scripture on Suffering and Hope
Appendix II
Prayers for Times of Suffering
Appendix III
Further Resources on Suffering
Introduction
Salvific Suffering
A Redeeming Force
It was the Great Jubilee Year 2000 and I was a seminarian standing in St. Peter’s Square. Saint John Paul II was celebrating Mass as I shuffled uncomfortably and tried to understand the homily. The Pope’s words were labored and, at certain points, incoherent. The Parkinson’s disease that he had endured for so long had taken its toll, but it did not hinder him from addressing the crowd of pilgrims that day. He was speaking about suffering and discipleship, subjects that interested me a great deal. In many ways it was the experience of the cross that had led me to a deeper understanding of God in my life. Through the conflicts I faced in my daily life, I had come to discover that Christ, who willingly took up his cross, desires to draw near to us when we endure difficulties and challenges. Listening now to the Pope addressing suffering, I found that his words rang with a magnetic authenticity.
The Mass continued, and at one point my attention was drawn to the jumbotron as the camera closed in on him. He was holding his crosier, the large staff that symbolized his governance and shepherding care of God’s flock. At the top of the crosier was the crucifix graphically depicting the wounded and suffering Christ. Undoubtedly his own life had come to resemble the Lord’s cross more and more through the accumulation of sufferings he had experienced. As the image remained on the screen for some time, I was flushed with emotion and thought, “This is the homily he was preaching moments ago.” The messenger was himself the message.
In that same place, on a warm and sunny day in May of 1981, Pope Saint John Paul II had survived an attempt on his life that left the world in shock. The following Sunday, from his room in the Policlinico Gemelli hospital, he sent a brief, pre-recorded message to be played for vigilant pilgrims in St. Peter’s: “I pray for that brother of ours who shot me, and whom I have sincerely pardoned. United with Christ, priest and victim, I offer my sufferings for the Church and for the world.”1 To hear the voice of the fallen Pope speaking anew to his flock was itself a triumph, but those words carried a profound and even daunting message that still awaited further expression and a deeper explanation.
Nearly three years later, on the Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, patroness of the sick, the Holy Father gave the Church and the world the Apostolic Letter Salvifici Doloris, “On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering.” One man’s personal struggle with evil and the cross would become a gift for those immersed in what he described as the “world of suffering.”2
The cross, in one form or another, enters into every human life. For some, it may seem overwhelming, a weight almost too heavy to bear. For other people, perhaps there are several, lesser burdens, but ones that last for long periods of time. Big or small, many or few, we all bear them. What Saint John Paul II teaches the Church and the world is that we are not alone in our struggle. There are answers from God, even in the midst of suffering. He who began his pontificate with an encyclical letter on Christ the Redeemer directs our gaze to the Lord of all, who has the power to transform even sorrow and pain into hope and new life.
In the sufferings that Saint John Paul II bore throughout his life, which were pronounced and widely visible at his life’s end, he taught us that there is meaning in suffering and that God draws near to those who struggle beneath the burden of the cross. Pope Benedict XVI, describing the ailing Saint John Paul II, explained how “he showed us that suffering accepted for love of Christ, for love of God and of others is a redeeming force, a force of love and no less powerful than the great deeds he accomplished in the first part of his Pontificate.”3
This book is inspired by both the messenger, Saint John Paul II, and the message of redemptive suffering that he teaches us in Salvifici Doloris. In many ways the chapters of this book follow the questions, challenges, and themes of that apostolic letter. Each chapter, therefore, builds upon the material that comes before it and helps to form a composite of the complex and compelling reality of human suffering.
While we all struggle to find an answer to the question of suffering in our own lives, the solution is not so simple. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that “only the Christian faith as a whole constitutes the answer to this question.”4 Our faith celebrates the amazing story of the God who created us in love and sent Christ into the world to find us when we became lost; in the most dramatic of ways Christ underwent the passion to redeem us and founded the Church to embrace the world with his message of salvation. This integral drama alone has the capacity to address the difficult and often overwhelming question of suffering. The chapters of this book attempt to unfold that drama and allow the reader to understand that God will stop at nothing to communicate his redemptive and healing love to those who suffer.
Finding God in Suffering is written with the individual person in mind and can serve as a personal guide through what may seem at times to be a labyrinth of suffering. It might also be helpful to read this book in groups, leaning on the assistance of others who can share our burden of suffering and help us to find the strength to move forward in faith.
In the chapters that follow, there are many different stories of suffering and of healing. Some are compelling anecdotes or tales from the lives of the saints; others are taken from literature. All of the stories are intended to help the reader enter more deeply into the greatest story ever told: the drama of the eternal Son of God who loved us and offered his life for us on Calvary.
What the teachings of our faith propose, and what the witness and writings of Saint John Paul II articulate, is not merely that there is a meaning in human suffering. More than that, they communicate the profound and mysterious truth that, even in suffering, we can find love. They present nothing less than this astounding paradox: in the cross of Jesus Christ, love has found us.
Part I
When We Suffer
Chapter 1
The Encounter with Suffering
Diagnosing the Disease
Kristin sits uncomfortably on the cold paper sheet that covers the cushioned examination table in her doctor’s office. The preliminary evaluation is over. She waits for the physician with mixed emotions: fear, impatience, resignation. In the last few weeks she has experienced several surprising episodes: tightness in her throat, shortness of breath, and the terrible feeling that she was going to be sick. It happened twice in the supermarket, and then again during a meeting at work. Something was wrong. Was it the onset of some terrible and debilitating illness?
She has explained it all to her doctor, who listened with careful attention and asked many questions. Some of them were about her health, while others seemed more personal. Oddly, she felt relieved responding to inquiries about her increased responsibilities at work and challenges at home that were weighing heavily upon her.
Finally, her physician returns and takes a seat beside the examination table. Kristin is fighting back tears, convinced that this will be very bad news. “Everything looks great so far,” the doctor says. “There are no major concerns.” Kristin sighs, expressing both relief and confusion. The doctor goes on to explain that Kristin may be suffering from increased anxiety and something called agoraphobia. She smiles and hands Kristin a small booklet with that strange name on the cover. “Let’s start with this,” she says. “We’ll call it homework for your health. It’s a different kind of medicine, but it has proven very helpful for the very thing you are struggling with. Look it over, and we can check back in a few weeks.” Kristin takes the booklet home and reads it, feeling consoled by the descriptions detailing her own personal experience. She is still facing a difficult climb. It is not the last time she will struggle with anxiety, but now that she knows more about what she is up against, her response from this point forward will be different, better.
Reading a book on suffering will not remove our difficulties and crosses any more than a booklet on agoraphobia will take away anxiety. But knowing more about suffering, and reflecting on the insights of the saints and the teachings of our faith, can help us to see what we are up against. More than that, we come to discover that we are not alone.
