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. . .
The question came up, “What, then, is the purpose in suffering, and
healing (or lack of it)?” . . . . I believe, especially
in Job’s case, the point to which God was driving Job was to recognize
the self-righteousness under which he was living and to drive Job to seek
a righteousness outside himself—a foreshadowing of justification and
redemption in Christ.
 ctually, Job wasn’t a
self-righteous man. He was a man of faith, innocent of guilt. Satan inflicted
suffering upon him—with God’s permission—as a test of Job’s
faith and loyalty to God.
Nevertheless, Job’s friends
tried to convince him that he was at fault in some way. In fact, much of
the suffering in this world is the result of personal behavior. Even
Christ, after healing someone, often said, “Go, and sin no more.”
But Job remained adamant in his innocence. And throughout all the suffering
heaped upon his head, he did not commit sin.
So, what was the purpose of it
all?
Beyond Our
Comprehension
Well, notice what God said in
answer to Job’s demand for an explanation. God made no attempt to defend
Himself. He simply said that He could do what He wants.
Now, that kind of statement might
sound arrogant—that is, if it came from anyone but God. So what was
God getting at here? He meant that He could do what He wants because He has
reasons for doing what He wants, even if we cannot comprehend those
reasons.
A Dilemma—and
a Mystery
This, though, leaves us with
a dilemma. How do we know for sure whether our suffering is the result of
sin or if it serves some unfathomable purpose of
God? To anyone but a Christian, the answer to this question remains a mystery.
But every Christian has the answer hanging right before him: the divine Mystery
of Christ crucified. In Christ on the cross, we
comprehend perfect obedience to God’s deepest motives. On the cross,
even innocent suffering glorifies God, for it leads us to
persevere in obedience despite all the opposition
the world can inflict on us.
A Testament and
a Penance
So when a Christian suffers,
it doesn’t matter whether the suffering is the consequence of sin or
not. All that matters is that all suffering be accepted and
carried as one’s cross. Let it be a
testament to God’s glory and a penance for all the sins
that nailed Christ to the cross. Christ endured all suffering for our
redemption, so, as we bear our suffering gracefully,
we share the burden of the cross with Christ. Let all suffering end in
love.
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Consider it all
joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the
testing of your faith produces perseverance. And let perseverance be perfect,
so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. |
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—James 1:2-4 |
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Obedience Lets
all Suffering End in Love
Let all suffering end in
love. That’s how the Book of Job ends. Job recognizes his
mistake of falling into distress
because of his suffering. He submits to God’s will in total obedience.
He therein discovers love, because an essential
aspect of love is obedience. Christ told
His Apostles that, if they loved Him, they would keep His commandments (John
14:15). And, as He told Saint Margaret Mary, He loves obedience, and no one
can please Him without it (Autobiography, 47). Love means to accept
God’s will totally, without complaining that it is too difficult, or
too inconvenient, or not “relevant” to the modern world.
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If, when we shall
arrive at St. Mary of the Angels, all drenched with rain and trembling with
cold, all covered with mud and exhausted from hunger; if, when we knock at
the convent-gate, the porter . . . refuse to open to us, and leave
us outside, exposed to the snow and rain,
 suffering from cold and hunger till
nightfall—then, if we accept such injustice, such cruelty and such contempt
with patience, without being ruffled and without murmuring . . .
write down, O Brother Leo, that this is perfect joy. And if . . .
taking a knotted stick, he seize us by the hood, throwing us on the ground,
rolling us in the snow, and shall beat and wound us with the knots in the
stick—if we bear all these injuries with patience and joy, thinking
of the sufferings of our Blessed Lord, which we would share out of love for
him, write, O Brother Leo, that here, finally, is perfect joy. |
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—Saint Francis of Assisi
The
Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi
Chapter VII |
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A Deliberate
Decision of Free Will
Suffering, however, cannot
end in love unless it begins as a deliberate decision of
free will. Therefore—and pay
attention here, because this is important—unless you understand how
much you don’t want to do
something, your doing it is not an act of love.
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This fact was
made perfectly evident by Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane when He stated
openly to the Father that He did not want to take up the cup of His Passion,
but that, if it were the Father’s will, He would do it
anyway (Matthew 26:36-46; Mark 14:32-42;
Luke 22:39-46). |
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Now, for most individuals who
think they know how to love, and who think they live holy lives,
their resistance to doing the will of God will be expressed
unconsciously—that is, outside their conscious
awareness. This is what makes the resistance so insidious; on the surface,
everything seems perfectly “loving,” and yet grave impediments
to charity lurk silently in the dark corners of their hearts.
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These impediments
can be uncovered only through careful psychological attention to the
fantasies that run constantly through your mind.
It’s hard work, because most of those fantasies seem so ugly that you
would not want to confess them even to a confessor
or psychotherapist. But if you face up to them, and if you do the work to
overcome them, you are laying the foundations of real love. |
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The Subversion
of Obedience
It’s simply a psychological
fact that no one enjoys suffering. Even
masochists, who seem to enjoy pain, don’t
really desire pain per se; they really desire the hope of being admired
because of their willingness to allow themselves to be humiliated. Moreover,
not only do we not enjoy suffering, we make heroes of those who seem
to escape it. Our personal fantasies and
social entertainments glamorize Eastern sages,
fierce warriors, and mythical sorcerers. The emotional appeal of such figures
is that they appear to possess an otherworldly power that transcends personal
weakness.
When expressed spiritually, this
desire to transcend personal limitations has been exemplified through the
ages by a doctrine called Quietism—and, through the ages, the various
forms of Quietism have been condemned by the Church as false
doctrines.
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On the one hand,
Quietism is exemplified by non-Christian philosophies such as Buddhism
and all other natural philosophies that attempt to avoid suffering as something
evil and that teach an indifference to personal experience as a way to attain
“enlightenment.” |
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On the other hand,
Quietism is exemplified in so-called Christian thought by
“mystics” who advocate self-abandonment
to inner illumination, along with a passive acceptance of everything, considering
the entire process to be a veiled “purification” of the soul. |
Whatever its outward form, Quietism
essentially teaches that a person can attain to identification with the divine
by living totally in the moment with indifference to all worldly
experiences—even with indifference to the
responsibility for distinguishing right from
wrong.
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Thus you can
find even “Catholic” writers claiming that a person may be moved
by feelings contrary to virtue—feelings such as obstinacy, disobedience,
troublesomeness, contempt, and indignation—and yet be passively
participating in God’s design for union with
Him.[1] |
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Well, this sort of thinking only
makes you a dupe of your unconscious and leads you to lie to yourself
emotionally. All the while that you are praising yourself for being detached,
obedient, and holy, you have a tempest of non-virtuous behaviors pouring
from your heart, protesting God’s will.
Therefore, the error of Quietism
should be apparent: indifference leads to ignorance, ignorance of your
motivation makes love impossible, and, when
love is impossible, “obedience” is obedience only to
Satan.
The Defeat of
Satan’s Bet
When suffering becomes
love, however, then all of Satan’s tricks and
temptations get thrown right back into his
face. And that’s why God accepted Satan’s bet and allowed him to
put Job to the test. Job wasn’t self-righteous—Satan was. Satan,
in all his “roaming the earth and patrolling it,” sought nothing
but his own glory. The defeat of Satan’s self-righteous wager by Job’s
obedience was the perfect foreshadowing of Christ’s perfect obedience
in His Passion and His final victory over sin and
death and all the suffering they cause.
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Yes, when you
are obedient I take away your weakness and replace it with My strength. I
am very surprised that souls do not want to make that exchange with
Me. |
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—told to St.
Faustina by Jesus
(Diary, 381) |
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Postscript:
Wisdom
In the Gospels, Jesus spoke about
willingly going two miles with a Roman soldier who commands you to carry
his baggage for one mile. Christ is describing here an impossible
circumstance; that is, in world of His time, an individual had no choice
but to obey a Roman soldier.
Nevertheless, there are circumstances
other than impossible circumstances, circumstances in which we do have the
power to change things. Consequently—especially in regard to our
suffering—it is important to have the wisdom to know the difference
between what you can change and what you cannot change.
For example, on the one hand,
when another driver does something rude to you on the road, it is best to
remain quiet and suffer (and pray for the repentance of the offender) in
silence.
On the other hand, if you buy
an item that turns out to be defective, you can return it and ask for a refund
or exchange. You don’t have to be a “doormat” and let others
walk all over you; such behavior is masochism, not
humility.
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When you accept
suffering patiently and willingly for the sake of the salvation of others,
that is love. When you bring suffering on yourself in order to win
the approval of some other person, that is masochism. |
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Or, again, when someone next
to you in church is speaking loudly, you can tell those persons to be quiet.
If they apologize and quiet down, then all is well, and you have exercised
your wisdom. If they tell you to go to hell, however, then a circumstance
in which you originally had the power to do something has suddenly become
an impossible circumstance, and it would be best now to suffer in
silence and pray for the enlightenment and repentance of the
others.
Therefore, in all things, pray
for the wisdom to know the difference between what you can change and what
you cannot change. When you find yourself in circumstances that you can change,
go about the work with kindness and
patience. And when you find yourself in circumstances that you cannot
change, learn to suffer obediently, with love.
Notes
1. See Jean-Pierre de Caussade, The Joy of
Full Surrender (Paraclete Press: 2008), p. 113. (Note that the original
title of Caussade’s work was Abandonment to Divine
Providence.)
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