My work as a psychiatrist often reminds me of two inescapable truths. First, to a greater or lesser degree, everyone suffers in this life. Second, we often have no idea what other people are suffering interiorly. Appearances frequently deceive, and our assumptions about the lives of others—even people we think we know well—routinely miss the mark. Since my professional work involves diving deeply into my patients’ hidden pain and anguish, I want to share with you here in this Lenten series some of what I have learned about the Christian meaning of suffering.
In my clinical practice, I frequently see patients who have endured unspeakable evils. They bear an anguish that cannot be communicated or comprehended. Trying to accompany them in their pain has been my daily bread for over twenty years. This professional experience has provided a window into the suffering of the human heart that most people probably cannot access in the same way, at least outside of their own personal experience of suffering.
When we suffer, we understandably want to comprehend the reasons for our anguish. My patients often ask, as I ask when I am in pain: Why is this happening to me? Did I do something wrong to deserve this? Is God punishing me? Why is God—who is all good, all knowing, and all-powerful—allowing me to suffer when He could have prevented it? These questions are perfectly natural. Notice, however, that they all involve asking God to teach me about my suffering. We want God to explain our anguish to us. We pray, “Help me make sense of my suffering.”
But this side of eternity, we are not usually given the answers to those questions, for our finite intellects are incapable of comprehending the reasons behind God’s providential designs. God’s answer to Job’s questions was itself a question: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (Job 38:4). God did not explain Job’s suffering to him, except to say that the answer was beyond Job’s or his friends’ capacity to comprehend.
Lent is a time when the Church invites us to turn our attention towards the suffering of Jesus. All our desires to understand our own suffering, and even our pious intentions to unite our suffering to Christ’s, are good—there is nothing wrong with those intentions or efforts. But they are of secondary benefit for anyone who first learns Christ’s suffering. If we do not fix our gaze on Christ’s Cross, any answers to questions about our suffering are at best incomplete and often simply wrong. We may have learned how to cope or found some peace or purpose in our pain; but whatever we have found falls short of what Christ ultimately desires for us.
When we learn His suffering, when we go more deeply into His Passion, we find peace in our own suffering that is much deeper than anything that this world can provide. If you suffer physical or mental illness, for example, doctors, mental health professionals, and medicine are good. We often need this help. These professionals can assist us to function better in this life, and they can often alleviate some of our suffering. But even when you have paid all the best doctors, taken all the prescribed medicines, and prayed for a cure with a deep faith, any answers you receive to your deepest questions about your suffering are inadequate. Nothing in this world can heal our souls as fully as Our Lord can, even if this healing does not always involve a cure for our medical or mental illness.
During my nearly five years of dealing with a severe, debilitating chronic pain condition, I wanted very badly to understand my suffering, more than I wanted to understand Our Lord’s. It took a long time before I discovered that meditating on Christ’s wounds was far more fruitful than contemplating my own. I was slow and stubborn, and I wish I would have learned sooner to turn my attention to Christ’s Cross rather than focusing on mine.
When I was in pain, and when I could think beyond the tunnel vision of my own situation, I did try to unite my suffering with Christ’s. But my prayer still remained focused mostly on me rather than Jesus. In a fallen world, it makes sense that we grasp for anything to endure this mess we have brought upon ourselves. But I needed a crucial shift in focus: anything to do with my sufferings puts me at the center instead of God. When I rightly recognize His place, my attention reorients from my own suffering to His. There I can find liberation.
While I was praying to reconcile my suffering with His, to give it value by uniting it with His, Jesus gave me something immeasurably more valuable: He gradually taught me that I don’t need to comprehend my own suffering. Whatever I have suffered or not in this life is of little consequence for finding true peace. The path to lasting peace, to genuine freedom, is in learning His suffering and embracing His Cross. For, like John the Baptist said, “He must increase but I must decrease” (Jn. 3:30). I must eventually become nothing if I want to one day be united to the One I love.
When we seek first Christ’s Cross, then my sufferings, and your sufferings, eventually fade into the background. That’s when our sufferings ebb, when we become unburdened by them, when the shackles are removed. That is where true freedom is found. The martyrs show us that even the most horrendous sufferings can become insignificant, even nothing, if our eyes are fixed totally on Christ.
Our Lord does want to heal us; He does wants to alleviate our suffering. He does that through His own Cross: by His stripes we are healed (Is. 53:5).
This Lenten series on the Christian meaning of suffering can be distilled in a simple but profound prayer, a short aspiration that anyone can learn: Doce me passionem Tuam—“teach me Your suffering,” or more literally, “teach me Your passion.” (For those of you who are not Latin scholars, the first two words are pronounced “doe-chay may”.) This prayer, which expresses our desire to go more deeply into Our Lord’s suffering, leads us into the mystery of Christ’s Cross—the most powerful manifestation of His love for us.
This prayer consists of only four words, yet one could pray it one hundred times a day and never exhaust its depths. After all, the most profound realities are often conveyed with the fewest words. Consider the simple words at the consecration of the Eucharist: “This is my body,” which encapsulates the great mystery of faith. Or consider Jesus’ final words during the crucifixion: “It is finished.” Or Our Lord’s words to St. John at the foot of the Cross: “Behold your mother.” These phrases are inexhaustible.
This simple but profound prayer, doce me passionem Tuam, does not ask God to help us avoid suffering. It does not even ask Him to explain to us why we are suffering. Instead, it takes us more deeply into Christ’s suffering. We can begin by simply saying these words and desiring this in our hearts. We don’t need to engage in a complicated exegesis; we do not need a degree in philosophy or theology. If we say the prayer and unite the words with the longings and desires of our heart, Jesus will do the exegesis for us. He will unpack what it means for us personally.
Learning His suffering and, with His help, coming to embrace our own crosses, is a journey primarily of the heart and not the intellect. I invite you to start that journey by simply writing this prayer on your heart and reciting it often.
In future installments in this series, we will begin to unpack its meaning for our lives as disciples of Christ.
Author’s Note: This is Part 1 in a weekly Lenten series on the Christian meaning of suffering and the Cross of Christ.
Photo by James Coleman on Unsplash
