All of us suffer. We live in a fallen world, and suffering is simply a part of life. This suffering can take many forms, and we are all affected differently by it.
But why do we suffer at all? How are we to understand suffering? Is there any purpose to it? And what are we to do with the suffering we face?
Suffering: What Every Catholic Should Know is the latest volume in the What Every Catholic Should Know series, published by Ignatius Press and the Augustine Institute. Other volumes include Being Catholic, Literature, Salvation, The Bible, God, Philosophy, and Mercy.
In Suffering, Dr. Mark Giszczak ably tackles one of the most difficult topics not just in the Catholic faith, but in theism: why does God allow suffering, and what are we to do with it? This is a particularly appropriate topic during the season of Lent, when we are pondering in a special way the sufferings of Jesus, and the salvation He accomplished through His Passion, death, and resurrection.
Dr. Giszczak is Professor of Sacred Scripture at the Augustine Institute Graduate School of Theology, specializing in Old Testament Wisdom Literature, as well as biblical theology and Catholic biblical interpretation.
He recently spoke with Catholic World Report about his new book, the problem of suffering, and how Catholics are called to unite their sufferings with those of our Lord.
CWR: How did the book come about?
Mark Giszczak: This book started as a course I taught called “The Theology of Suffering.” Suffering, of course, is universal. Everybody suffers. But I was interested in working on this topic from a theological angle since I had seen that a little bit of theological thinking about it could go a long way.
So many professions–from medicine to psychology to entertainment–are dedicated to relieving suffering, but I wanted to explain what to do when all the therapeutic options have been exhausted. When my suffering cannot be taken away, what then?
CWR: The book is part of the What Every Catholic Should Know series. Why is suffering a topic that every Catholic should be educated in?
Kiszczak: Everyone experiences sufferings, so everyone should know about it. Sadly, I think many people just try to avoid the topic, but life does not let us get off so easy. When we run from suffering, it will eventually chase us down and find us. So, if suffering is inevitable, then maybe we should look it in the face rather than run from it. Jesus even calls us to “take up our cross” and follow after him. But how? How do we do that? In this book, I try to explain how Christian life is truly “cross-shaped.” We are meant to experience both suffering and joy at the same time.
CWR: Why is the “problem of suffering” a question that incessantly plagues humanity?
Giszczak: The “problem of suffering” is perennial because suffering is confusing. In the book, I take a whole chapter to discuss how suffering disorients us. As humans, we are problem-solvers, but suffering is not a problem that can be “solved.” That’s frustrating. Suffering feels like punishment, but typically is not actual punishment, just pain.
When we suffer, we often feel like something has gone wrong with the universe, but that’s not the case: God is still in control and he is good. Giving up on “solving” suffering can help us adopt the right attitude of seeking to grieve over losses and arrive at a place of acceptance and peace.
CWR: Jesus asked us to take up our cross and follow him. What does he mean by this? Can our own suffering be salvific?
Giszczak: God did not look down on us and take away all our suffering. Rather, he came down here and entered into our suffering. This is mysterious. Why would Jesus choose to show his love for us by dying on the cross if our salvation could have been accomplished some other way? And yet, the cross has become the greatest symbol of love. As he demonstrates his love by his suffering, so he invites us to make every day a similar sacrifice that we can spiritually join to his. In our own private sufferings, we can participate in his mission to redeem the world.
CWR: How can we unite our sufferings with those of Christ? And if we do that, does this mean we are saying Christ’s suffering was insufficient in some way?
Giszczak: Catholics often tell each other, “Offer it up,” by which they mean to spiritually offer simple human sufferings as spiritual sacrifices to the Lord. I don’t think it needs to be complicated. It could be as simple as saying, “God, I offer the pain that I am feeling for my friend’s conversion.” These simple acts of spiritual union can, over time, unite us more deeply to Jesus’ passion.
Indeed, Scripture opens up this possibility when St. Paul teaches that he is “completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions” (Col 1:24). He is not saying that Jesus didn’t offer a perfect sacrifice, but that the door is always open for us to participate in it.
CWR: Was there anything you discovered in your research and writing that surprised you?
Giszczak: I was blessed by many thinkers who have worked through the problem of suffering in different ways. One of my favorite quotes on it comes from the English monk Dom Hubert van Zellar who said, “You cannot think your way toward God in suffering. The only thing that helps is prayer.” That’s an important life lesson for us.
CWR: What do you hope readers will take away from the book?
Giszczak: I want readers to take away a renewed vision for Christian life, a vision that includes both suffering and joy. These two things are meant to be simultaneous for us. That does not mean we are supposed to like suffering, but rather that we can suffer well, have joy in the midst of suffering. This is the antidote, the solution, the real answer to suffering–that with God’s grace we can endure it and be joyful at the same time.
CWR: Is there anything else you would like to add?
Giszczak: Just a word of encouragement: No matter what your suffering, no matter how deep the wounds or how tragic your grief, the Lord is ready to give you the grace to carry on, to suffer well, to experience joy in the midst of it all and to join him forever in heaven. Suffering has the power to transform us to be like Christ if only we let it.
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Certainly in agreement in principle with Dr Giszczak. Although suffering is no fun. Except for masochists it’s difficult to enjoy. Nonetheless I would have to agree with Giszczak that suffering is our means of becoming like Christ.
What Christ suffered is why Christ suffered. What he suffered was for our salvation because he loves us. That is what makes suffering pleasurable, joyful, fulfilling, not the anguish or pain itself, rather the faith conviction that we’re [laity and clergy] offering our love for the salvation of some other in the most pure way revealed to us by Christ. And in participation with Christ in completion of what is lacking in his suffering. Here the Apostle refers to the salvific journey of the Mystical Body of Christ in the world. We are Christ’s surrogates.
Dear Father Morello. I am constructing a response to Mr. Senz. My overriding point is he referred to Christ’s “eveyone has a cross to bare”. He overlooks the most vulnerable of society, our children born with unbelevably painful and life threatining illnesses, their “crosses”. “Image and likeness? I want an answer to the following…
On TV St. Jude’s Childrens Cancer Hospital we see babies stricken with life threatening cancer where one out of five will not survive. Compound that with certain of those babies having serious other ailments. Down’s Syndrome, painful spina bifida, crying with a serious cleft lip, born with short arm stubs that will not allow them to do basic things like wash, shave or go to the bathroom without assistance from their “cross bearing” parents.
Please tell me why I feel so inept?
Pray for our innocents.
Thank you.
The reason you feel inept, as well as most of us is that the terrible effect of original sin on all Mankind is beyond our complete intellectual realization. God is infinite good, evil is an infinite polarity to God beyond our full comprehension.
Comparable is the eternity of hell, which the Pope, and many other have difficulty with. Although the closer we come to God the more understandable it becomes. Faith and the acceptance of our intellect’s limitations is our option. In heaven if by the grace of God we’ll be there we’ll have a clearer knowledge. That’s the best response I can offer you morganD.
MorganD. Added to the mystery of suffering of Mankind is the suffering of Lucifer, the fallen angels, and justice. Justice demands a certain equity. Lucifer, contending with God that Mankind was given a second opportunity for salvation, and that the rebellious angels were denied, apparently demands Mankind suffer for original sin and estrangement from God. We find allusion to that in the Gospels, when Christ healing persons who he says were in the grip of the devil. Not necessarily possession, rather the suffering of an illness, deformity that although it has a natural physical cause and pathology is ultimately attributed to Satan’s power in the world, as the Prince of this world.
We who are on the path to salvation endure unavoidable suffering for sake of a greater good, our purification and as a weapon for the salvation of other souls.
The key to dealing in a genuine Catholic way with cross carrying and seemingly purposeless suffering was given by Senz at start when he said suffering is a mystery. When we do anything other than sit and pray (if we can pray) with pain and suffer we are treating it like a problem to be solved. Even the traditional “offer it up” can be a way to quickly move on, to do or think something helpful to rationalize pain and suffering. There is nothing to so or think about pain and suffering but wait.
El sufrimiento es consecuencia de nuestra humanidad caída. No es algo que Dios manda, es algo inherente a nuestra condición, seamos creyentes o ateos La diferencia está en que nosotros, los cristianos, podemos aprovechar el sufrimiento, cosa que no está al alcance de los no creyentes. Por ende no nos victimicemos. Tenemos la posibilidad de sacar bien del mal (el sufrimiento lo es) ofreciéndolo a Jesús con las intenciones propias de la oración. Demos gracias a Dios que sea tal el poder de la fe, y que podamos hacer del sufrimiento un motivo de maduración. Durus est sermo iste.
You lost me at “Old Testament Wisdom Literature.” Arthur Schopenhauer’s exegeses on Christ’s teachings and the New Testament seem clearer.
What is so confusing about Old Testament Wisdom Literature? Wisdom literature is a form of writing common in the ancient Near East; the Old Testament has several books that are widely and commonly understood to fall within that genre: Proverbs, Psalms, Job, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Book of Wisdom, Wisdom of Sirach, and part of Baruch.
No recuerdo bien el español que aprendí. Utilicé GOOGLE Translate aquí para expresar una meditación tomada de Proverbios 15:6.
Dios quiere una voluntad singular. Que nada lo divida. Orad por ello y por lo mismo en la memoria y el entendimiento, el cuerpo y las pasiones.
Ya sea una familia desertora, un Papa errante, un presidente infeliz, una enfermedad prolongada; da lo mismo, la voluntad es de Dios.
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I do not recall well the Spanish I learned. I used GOOGLE Translate here to express a meditation taken from Proverbs 15:6.
God wants a singular will. Let nothing divide it. Pray for it and for the same in memory and understanding, the body and passions.
Whether it is a deserting family, errant Pope, unhappy president, prolonged malady; it is all the same, the will belongs to God.