“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of His body, that is, the church” (Col 1:24).
Here's a helpful thought for the start of Lent — and indeed for any other time. In particular: Do the words above from the epistle to the Colossians contain the hint of the best explanation we've got for something like the tsunami disaster in Asia? Is this the key to the riddle of suffering?
Twenty-one years ago, in one of the most remarkable documents of his pontificate, Pope John Paul II argued convincingly that the answer is yes.
As thinkers from the author of the book of Job to John Paul II have recognized, whoever comes at the problem of suffering from the perspective of faith comes face to face with a profound mystery. Suffering clearly will not get a definitive explanation this side of the grave.
Atheists have it easier in a way, since they can merely shrug their shoulders and say life is meaningless and suffering absurd. That isn't an option for people of faith. They must reconcile belief in an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God with horrific events like the tsunamis. Can it be done? Or must we agree with the philosopher William James that “a God who can relish such superfluities of horror is no God for human beings to appeal to”?
The pope's attempt at probing the dark side of life (in a 1984 document called “On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering”) is as good as we're likely to get. Without pretending to solve the age-old problem of evil, he gives a theological and spiritual account of the role suffering has in God's redemptive plan.
Taking as his starting point the passage from Colossians quoted above, he argues that suffering is best understood as a form of participation in the Passion of Christ by which we co-redeem with Him.
This idea isn't new. Think of the familiar expression “Offer it up” where “it” is some suffering or disappointment. “Offer it up” is a simple way of saying, “Participate redemptively in the redemptive suffering of Christ.” An alternative that cuts even more directly to the heart of the matter is, “Take up your cross and follow Me.”
“In my flesh,” Colossians says, “I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions.” Nothing is lacking in the redemptive efficacy of Christ's suffering of course. Yet His suffering does not exhaust all human suffering. We suffer too, and our suffering is a way of sharing in His.
There's an obvious objection: “What you say may be helpful to well-formed adult Christians who think seriously about things, but what about children, infants, and non-Christians — the tsumani victims, let's say — who never dreamed of sharing in Christ's redemptive suffering? What possible meaning could their suffering have for them?”
The philosopher Jacques Maritain wrestled with that question many years ago in a remarkable essay called “Blessed Are the Persecuted.” He suggested that the Passion of Christ is replicated in human history, and those who suffer without comprehension are sharers in the aspect of the Passion that found expression in Jesus's cry of abandonment from the Cross, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Mk 15:34).
“The great flock of the truly destitute,” Maritain added, “of those dead without consolation — would He not take care of those who bear this mark of His agony?” It's appropriate that reflection on this mystery end with a question mark.
Russell Shaw is a freelance writer from Washington, D.C. You can email him at [email protected].
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(This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.)
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