In our discussions about this and other areas involving human dignity, we Catholics frequently and appropriately speak from a human rights perspective in attempt to communicate with a secular world. One does not have to be a Christian or even religious to understand such a basic principle as the right of any human being to live. One only has to be human to see that treating other classes of humans as subhuman — as slaves, machines, scientific experiments, or imperfect misfits to be disposed of — is barbaric.
For Christians though, such basic, natural laws are elevated by considering God’s creation of and intervention in the human realm. God is the author of life and we are made in His image. He knew us before we were born and has instructed us in His Word to care for the weak and the vulnerable and even commanded us not to kill. He took on human flesh. For Christians there can be no debate about the value of life, whether that life is seconds old after conception, seconds from death, or anywhere in between and in any state. A person’s value is inherent, and cannot be based on utility, productivity or economics. What others may see as useless, we through God’s eyes see as perfect. What others may see as pitiful, we through God’s eyes see as beautiful. Many of the things we believe are upside down from the world’s beliefs.
Nowhere is this more true that when we consider the concepts of suffering and the interior life. Catholic Christians in particular have a special understanding of suffering because of the Church’s long and rich tradition of meditating on the physical and spiritual (interior) passion of Christ. It is a paradox of Christianity — that at the same time we embrace our own suffering as a means of knowing Christ and sharing in His loving sacrifice, we are called to the work of mitigating or eliminating the causes of suffering for others where possible.
Yet in our discussions in Catholic circles we sometimes forget to talk about physical and spiritual suffering as it relates to our growth in holiness. Such things are easy to forget immersed as we are in a society that teaches instant pleasure and quick fixes for pain. Furthermore, our society and even our churches are sometimes so focused on activity and the visible “doing” of things that we do not have the patience for physical suffering or the time for understanding and growing from spiritual suffering. We sometimes even devalue the monastic vocation, failing to see how a soul that embraces the suffering of dying to the world and living for God is performing a valuable work. We even may think of such a life as “unproductive.” After all, the interior life involves what we cannot see, the fruits of which we may never know in this life. And it sometimes asks for us to “do” nothing but be still and wait in a blind trust, believing that when darkness seems to reign, when suffering appears to be meaningless, when there is no action we can take to change things, that God has not abandoned us and is working on a plan bigger that we can know. It calls us to a life of prayer that is deep enough to lead to transformation, asking us to let go of control and embrace His will as a means of knowing Him more and more.
We have the best example of this in Christ. We also have the witness of innumerable saints and the help of spiritual doctors of the Church who teach us about the fruits of suffering in the soul, the purgation necessary to encounter the Holy that will be done at our death if it is not done in the life. It is a work of the Holy Spirit that needs to happen in all of us and it does not matter what we are capable of physically or mentally. Physical suffering can even be the impetus for this conversion of soul. For the capacity of the soul is not diminished by one’s ability to speak or hear or walk or work or “do” anything. Though someone like Terri may appear to be left with nothing but her soul, she has everything. When someone like Terri may appear to be “doing” nothing, she may be cooperating with a greater work than we could ever imagine, leading her to become a sanctifying presence in the world, interceding for the rest of us.
While it is true that our faculties of thought, emotion, intellect, or reason are the normal route by which God works through us and by which we can come to an understanding of God, there comes a point when these very faculties can be a hindrance to the soul that desires to grow in intimacy with Him, and He can suspend these faculties in order to get the soul’s attention. As a Carmelite nun quipped at a day of recollection, in today’s climate a mystic experiencing union with God might be put out of her “misery” because she appears to be unaware or paralyzed, because the body of a soul in such union may not be able to respond or move or hear or see the things of this world. And chances are that it is easier for a soul like Terri’s to surrender to transformation and achieve union with God than it is for rest of us. So our normal reasoning and ability are not necessarily indispensable to attain to a fullness of life in the here and now, and the soul never loses its capacity to respond to God who will always be at work in the soul. He does not abandon people when they become mentally or physically disabled, nor should we. We should not even abandon ourselves ahead of time through “living” wills that allow us to be killed because we fear extreme suffering or losing our dependence or our pride. We cannot know ahead of time what, in those moments when we are near death, God will speak to our souls and ask of us. Our “yes” to God — active or passive, known or unknown by others — is always productive, valuable and redemptive. We must allow ourselves and others the opportunity to cooperate with God and serve Him in whatever way we can as long as He chooses for us to remain here. Episcopal priest James A. Pike summed this up perfectly in his 1957 book, The Next Day: “The goodness and power that can come out of a life truly dedicated to God are by no means limited by the fact of sickness or disability.”
None of us wants to suffer, and few of us would willingly choose to undertake pain or the seeming humiliation of lost independence, but we cannot say what we would choose once it happens to us. We hope we would choose God’s will, even in difficulty, and trust in God’s divine providence that all things work together for the good of those who love Him. We may never see the fruits of our physical or our interior suffering in this life, but we have faith that all of our grief and trials will be counted as joy, a joy given by Christ and which no one can take away. As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Great Divorce:
Ah, the Saved…What seemed, when they entered it, to be the vale of misery turns out, when they look back, to have been a well; and where present experience saw only salt deserts, memory truthfully records that pools were full of water.
…Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory…and the Blessed will say, “We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven….”
© Copyright 2005 Catholic Exchange
Colleen Murray is a life-long Catholic. Together with her husband, she assists with youth events and adult faith formation at her parish. She is currently in Lay Carmelite formation studies and is chairing a new chapter of Catholics United for the Faith in Tampa, Florida.
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