The Anchoress

It is with a feeling of some reluctance that I direct your attention to Carol’s post at An American Housewife. I am reluctant because the first part of the post actually mentions little ol’ me, and I don’t want people to think I am sending them there to read about the “wonderfulness” of myself. Quite the contrary. Rather, I am directing you there because I am marveling at what the Holy Spirit does, sometimes, without our knowing it. Yesterday I, uncharacteristically, wrote a post based on a private email exchange, and from it Carol was inspired to take it in a completely different, and wise direction. Amazing.

Carol lost her husband rather unexpectedly in June, and her post is remarkable because within it she quotes John Paul the Great - who has a thing or two to teach us about suffering:

“…..people react to suffering in different ways. But in general it can be said that almost always the individual enters suffering with a typically human protest and with the question “why”. He asks the meaning of his suffering and seeks an answer to this question on the human level. Certainly he often puts this question to God, and to Christ. Furthermore, he cannot help noticing that the one to whom he puts the question is himself suffering and wishes to answer him from the Cross, from the heart of his own suffering. Nevertheless, it often takes time, even a long time, for this answer to begin to be interiorly perceived. For Christ does not answer directly and he does not answer in the abstract this human questioning about the meaning of suffering. Man hears Christ’s saving answer as he himself gradually becomes a sharer in the sufferings of Christ.

The answer which comes through this sharing, by way of the interior encounter with the Master, is in itself something more than the mere abstract answer to the question about the meaning of suffering. For it is above all a call. It is a vocation. Christ does not explain in the abstract the reasons for suffering, but before all else he says: “Follow me!”. Come! Take part through your suffering in this work of saving the world, a salvation achieved through my suffering! Through my Cross.

Then Carol adds her own new understandings, and these are what I find remarkable:

I used to think “suffering” was a bad thing. But now that I understand it a little better I see that suffering should be an honor. By recognizing our own indivual suffering we can help others by sharing our experience, strength, and hope.

Here Carol touches on that mysterious idea I have encountered so many times in my life, the one the old nun talked about here, the idea that our suffering is a demonstration of God’s enormous love for us. It is a meaningful concept, full of consolation, but not always easy to wrap one’s mind around. It is rather like trying to grasp a down feather which has escaped from a pillow - you reach for it, but the very act of reaching sends it drifting away…Carol has caught it.

The mystery of suffering is something this blog has explored several times - so many that I wonder, sometimes if I should not throw it into a separate category. It is the commonality of our humanity - the thing that Christ endured, his own Blessed Mother endured, that each and every one of us endures at some time or another. If God, in the person of his son, consented to suffer, and if God, who loved Mary well enough to honor her with the great blessing of bringing forth the Savior, did not permit her to escape suffering…then we may understand that suffering is - as JPII wrote - more than mere human experience, but both supernatural and human in nature, and yes, transcendant.

Carol, you and your kids are in my prayers.