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Home , Pleasure, Reverence (emotion), Salvifici doloris, Suffering

The Person as the Subject of : The Values of Having, Doing, vs. the Values of Being By Janet E. Smith

Suffering and Conference University of St. Thomas November 10-13, 2005

Human beings undergo an enormous variety of suffering and we can hardly be said to like it. It is undeniable that some of us are true wimps: we find even the least amount of suffering — such as the niggling troubles of daily life — nearly intolerable, or at least an annoying and inexplicable blight on existences that we naively and foolishly expect should be unrelentingly pleasant. Rebate forms, negotiating endless menus in seeking tech support, traffic delays, misplaced keys, runs in our nylons or stains on our ties can bring out the pathetic whining in some of us. And then there is real suffering such as disease, injury, failure, disfigurement, heartbreak, living under tyranny, false imprisonment, and failure, and , unjust treatment, , for our sins, of future suffering, for missed opportunities, poverty and exile, death of or abandonment by loved ones — and the list could go on. Still, suffering is not associated only with what is negative; we believe that suffering sometimes enhances our of achievement; it accompanies some of our most meaningful and cherished experiences, such as work and childbirth, athletic activities, study and all sorts creative endeavors. We have to admit that had we not had to work so hard to win the guy or the gal, the degree, the game, the battle or the job, we might not have enjoyed our success so much. And, of course, suffering can be an enormous source of growth and knowledge; who would not say that they have learned some of the most important truths in their lives through facing and living through some significant suffering?

In of the fact that suffering is such a common experience, it is daunting to write about. Indeed, John Paul II said that suffering “intimidates.” (Salvifici Doloris 5). Obviously suffering is a complicated and profound topic — and most everyone must acknowledge that there are others who have suffered much more than we ourselves have, and before whom we shudder to utter our feeble attempts at consolation and our platitudes about finding meaning in suffering, lest we sound like Job’s ineffectual interlocutors. Actually, apart from writing this paper and going to a lot of conferences, I haven’t suffered much in my life. It is always painful to write about something one knows little about — but that has been the story of my life, so this is not so very different. Even more ironically, most often I talk about sex, which perhaps could be perceived as a source of but which for me has become a source of “suffering” whereas, giving this talk about suffering is a welcome break from what is sometime a tedious routine, and thus a source of pleasure.

Since I know so little about suffering I am not tempted to speak much in my own voice, rather I shall employ the self-protective sense to draw upon the of others. Initially I am going to draw upon what John Paul II had to say about suffering in his

1 ,1 a document that very much should shape all considerations of the suffering entailed in end of life issues and of suffering in general. I will also be drawing upon John Paul II’s apostolic letter, Salvifici Doloris2 or On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering. The Latin properly translated means “On Redemptive Suffering” and I shall be using that title for the document throughout. In Salvifici Doloris, or in “On Redemptive Suffering” John Paul II focuses on the redemptive power of suffering; on the wondrous ability of man through suffering to share in Christ’s redemptive act. The individual who truly understands and embraces suffering will be one who unites his or her suffering to the suffering of Christ. That is the ultimate destination of the journey of suffering. I am not going to say much about that destination; rather, I am going to focus on the intermediate stages in the journey. Redemptive suffering is a profound theological topic beyond my grasp; my field is more philosophical and I am content to serve as a handmaiden to the higher discipline of theology. There are certain philosophical truths about the human person, illuminated and made richer by revelation, that I shall focus on here. While I will focus more on suffering as a school of understanding and a school of various , Salvifici Doloris shall nonetheless remain a key source since there is ample material about these matters there.

My primary focus will be: what does suffering tell us about the human person? The title of this talk, “The Human Person as the Subject of Suffering,” invites us to think about what is happening in the interior of the human person who is suffering. Suffering is not the same thing as — pain can be a cause of suffering and can be a result of suffering, but suffering itself is the interior experience of bearing up under something that is being experienced as negative or troubling; Salvifici Doloris defines suffering as “the undergoing of before which man shudders.” (18) The experience of suffering is actually extremely important for the human person; among other things it helps the human person realize he or she is a person and what it means to be a person. Salvifici Doloris says exactly that: “in [suffering] the person discovers himself, his own humanity, his own dignity, his own mission.” (31)

Discovering that we are persons and something of what it means to be a person, is essential to our . Servais Pinckaers speaks of suffering as the great leveler: not everyone is beautiful or intelligent or rich but everyone suffers.3 If discovery of truth and the path to happiness depended upon or intelligence or wealth or power, only a very few could have access to them; but if suffering is a reliable path to the discovery of truth and the path to happiness, they are thus in the grasp of everyone.

To be a person and a subject means, among other things, having the ability to think and ponder and to draw conclusions about the ; it means the ability to choose between conflicting and to make decisions about how to live and thereby to shape one’s interior — to become a certain kind of person with a character formed by one’s choices. Being a person means feeling various such as , fear, , ,

1 (1995: available online at www.vatican.va) 2 (1984: available online at www.vatican.va) 3 Servais Pinckaers. The Pursuit of Happiness —God’s Way: Living the Beatitudes, trans. Sr. Mary Thomas Nobel, O.P. New York: Alba House, 1998. 82

2 delight, and , and being aware that one experiences these and having a to make some sense of these feelings; why do we fear what we fear or delight in what delights? Suffering is an experience that invites us to discover the “values of being,” of being a human person.

In Evangelium Vitae John Paul II makes some sweeping observations about the modern world: He speaks of an “eclipse of the sense of God and of man” that “inevitably leads to a practical materialism, which breeds , and .”

The values of being are replaced by those of having. The only goal which counts is the pursuit of one’s own material well-being. The so-called “” is interpreted primarily or exclusively as economic efficiency, inordinate consumerism, physical beauty and pleasure, to the of the more profound dimensions — interpersonal, spiritual and religious — of . In such a context suffering, an inescapable burden of human existence but also a factor of possible personal growth, is “censored”, rejected as useless, indeed opposed as an evil, always and in every way to be avoided. When it cannot be avoided and the prospect of even some future well-being vanishes, then life appears to have lost all meaning and the temptation grows in man to claim the right to suppress it ... (23, my emphasis)

This text is packed with insight. The metaphor imbedded in talk of the “sense of God” being “eclipsed” suggests that it is no more possible to obliterate the sense of God than it is possible to obliterate the sun. But something can stand in the way of our basking in the light of the sun or experiencing the presence of God. Earlier in Evangelium Vitae, John Paul II had located the roots of the of death in the modern notion of “” or the notion that the individual subject rather than objective is the arbiter of truth. This subjectivism has led to both skepticism and and what is labeled a “tragic distortion of the meaning of freedom”, — or the freedom to do whatever one likes rather than the freedom to do what one knows to be good. This conjunction of distortions of reality is also of extreme concern to John Paul II’s successor, Pope Benedict XVI. He has made the flight from objective truth into the dictatorship of relativism a theme of his early pontificate. If there is no objective truth, why shouldn’t we each live by whatever values appeal to us? If there is no truth and no God, then why must the individual be concerned with anyone, but himself or herself and his or her own , and not be free to live largely however he or she likes? Why should the autonomous individual endure beyond what he or she chooses, or be at the service of others who suffer?

In the passage just cited John Paul II lists some of the consequences of the eclipse of the sense of God caused by subjectivism and a distorted view of freedom joined with a practical materialism that breeds individualism, utilitarianism, and hedonism. (That’s a pretty powerful list of “isms”!) Few things epitomize the presence of these “isms” in our culture more than such acts as abortion and embryonic stem cell research — both actions treat the lives of very small and young human beings as disposable when convenient for

3 us. Our obsession with celebrities and their hedonistic lifestyles indicates the hedonism towards which we are drawn. What place can the of suffering have in a culture that is riveted on the love affairs of Ben Affleck, Brad Pitt, and Tom Cruise, or Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Jennifer Aniston? Could we possibly be more shallow than to find the lives of shallow individuals of such great ? In fact, the next pope may have to inveigh against a dictatorship of shallowness or triviality. (I think someone soon needs to write a book entitled The Evil of Banality.)

In the passage from Evangelium Vitae cited above, we read that in this shallow context:

The values of being are replaced by those of having. The only goal which counts is the pursuit of one’s own material well-being. The so-called “quality of life” is interpreted primarily or exclusively as economic efficiency, inordinate consumerism, physical beauty and pleasure, to the neglect of the more profound dimensions — interpersonal, spiritual and religious — of existence. (23, my emphasis)

Not only have the “values of being” been replaced by the “values of having” and the “values of doing” we hardly know any more what the “values of being” are.

Perhaps one way of getting at the notion of the value of being is to consider the picture of parents gazing at their newborn. A newborn does not do much beyond cry, gurgle and perform some basic bodily functions. A newborn cannot make autonomous choices nor is it much useful to itself or others. Nonetheless, just because it “is”, we treasure it. Here “being” clearly trumps “having, doing, or producing.” Perhaps it could be said that we love infants so much because they are filled with promise of future developments that will benefit themselves and others. But we love even those infants who have little prospect of much development at all; parents whose babies die shortly after birth derive profound from the ability to hold and love them for the short period of time that they live.

Reverence shown for the feeble elderly also demonstrates that future promise is not the deciding factor. In many the elderly who can not do much except sit by the fire and occasionally reminisce if they can remember anything at all, are considered to be of immense value. The mere fact of their being, the mere fact of their existence, contributes to the meaning of the lives of others; sometimes their mere presence is immensely consoling and inspiring; they are living embodiments of links to past struggles and sufferings that brought us where we are today. And those of us who are grateful for their struggle and sufferings, love them and want the opportunity to show that love. Again, we love them because they are one of us, they are ours. Terry Schiavo’s parents simply wanted an opportunity to show love for their daughter, but because Terry could no longer “do” things typical of human life, her life was considered worthless.

Indeed, when we are in love with someone, we often do not need to “do” anything with that person; we are often satisfied just to be in his or her presence, to delight in the mere fact that this individual exists and that we are privileged to exist in the same universe

4 with him or her, and we enjoy that person nearly to the point of worship; and this need not be a relationship of romantic love; it can be a relationship between teacher and student, grandfather and grandson, or sport’s fan and sport’s hero. New parents, lovers, and fans of , , and sport know the values of being — they simply like being in the presence of what they love and singing its praises. They don’t really need to do or have anything. Love and worship and the values of being are natural companions.

Let us consider further what these “values of being” are, that are counterpoised to the “values of having and doing.” It is clear enough, I suppose, what “the values of having” mean; it means possessing things and to overvalue them means getting one’s sense of self worth and measuring one’s happiness by the number or value of the possessions that one has. To overvalue the “values of doing” means that one’s sense of self worth and one’s source of happiness resides in the level of success one has at one’s chosen activities or that one must always be busy to be happy; that repose and contemplation make one fidgety. Immediately, we might see that the values of having and doing are much more dependent upon external measures than are the values of being.

The word “being” is probably not as well known in non-philosophical circles as it is in philosophical circles. “Being” refers primarily to existence; anything that exists has being —plants, animals, human beings, angels, God; so do desks, and numbers, and friendship, too. Once when giving a lecture to members of a lay religious group that has a charism of bringing about the Kingdom of God in a fairly militant manner, I was attempting to explain different charisms. The religious order with which I am most allied is the Dominicans and its charism is very different from the establishment of the kingdom, as worthy as that goal is: Dominicans primarily want to discover and protect and enjoy the Truth. The name Dominican means “hound of the Lord” — a sobriquet evidently meant to capture the fact that Dominicans track down the wolves of heresy. But dogs not only hunt; they also sit at their master’s feet and simply at him with love and expectation of great things. I know many Dominicans for whom that is a fit description: they sit at their Lord’s feet and just contemplate his ways.

Dominican contemplation tends to focus on one of the great philosophical questions, which is: why does anything exists at all? Why is there something rather than nothing? And why should human beings be the only embodied beings in the universe that seem to be able to ponder that question? Some Dominicans I have known are so enamored of being and so astonished that something exists rather than nothing and that they are able to contemplate the beauties of existence and existing things that they have a hard time getting around to “doing.” If their master throws a ball and asks them to fetch it or wants them to bite someone’s ankles, they will happily do so, but they prefer just sitting at his feet. They are true contemplatives; they are interested primarily in knowing and appreciating what is good and true.

One woman came up to me after I made these observations and said that she had once been in a study group led by Dominicans. She said that they had read a marvelous book that gave her all sorts of ideas of things that should be done. She went to the Dominican priest who presided over the group and asked if they were next going to put together a

5 plan of action. He looked puzzled and stammered, “No. We are going to read volume two, of course.”

The values of being can rightly be allied with what are called “imminent goods” or goods that have their value in themselves and that benefit the agent not by providing material goods or some external benefit, but that benefit him or her by advancing some kind of internal perfection; by allowing us to actualize and perfect some part of our being. Imminent goods are contrasted with transitive or useful and practical goods. A way of discerning the difference is that imminent goods are those whose values are concomitant with the activity being performed. We get value from the imminent good but it is a value that is inherent in the activity itself; further goods may follow and follow predictably but even apart from those goods we value the activity; playing sports is generally that kind of activity; we value the and the companionship, but we just like challenging ourselves in that way. Again, gazing at one’s beloved is an imminent good as is listening to beautiful music or looking at beautiful art, as is dancing or singing or reading a fine book. Whatever benefits derive from such activity are closely allied with the activity itself — which is why we speak of doing these things “for their own sake.” If one were to be engaging in such activities solely to make money and without regard for the intrinsic benefits, they would no longer be pursued as imminent goods — they would be measured by external criteria. An artist who paints solely for the money and without appreciation for of the beautiful something he or she created would not be getting the benefits of an imminent activity. Whereas the value of external or material goods is measurable, the value of imminent goods is hardly measurable at all. They are internal to the agent engaging in these activities; the agent becomes happier or deeper and likely more at peace and those are the goods or values of being. These goods are intimately distinctive of our being; they make us more fully what we are meant to be. Who can say of what value is the love of a spouse, child, or friend? What is the value of enjoying a beautiful or song or sunset or victory in sport or a just verdict or understanding the truth about any reality? These are the values of being.

In the modern world we are often so preoccupied with the values of having and doing — which, of course, are good when ordered to the values of being — that we become forgetful and negligent of the values of being. Those who work with the poor, especially those in third world countries, those who don’t have much and can’t do much, often observe how much more attuned they are to the values of being; how much more inclined they are to find their chief satisfactions in living lovingly within the circle, and loving and trusting God. It is no small irony that it is in suffering, in being deprived of many of the goods associated with having and doing — such as financial well being, success, beauty, health, vigor, and even freedom that we have an opportunity to discover the values of being.

Now there is nothing wrong and much right with having and doing, but the values of being are primary and more important. As I mentioned, what is distinctive about human beings from plants and animals, is, of course, that we can appreciate the values of being. We have an awareness of our own existence; we can ponder the meaning of existence; we can ask whether it has any meaning at all. We can be astonished and grateful that we exist

6 and even sometimes angry that we do. Those subject to excessive introspection and the sometimes resultant depression have been known to the Socratic aphorism that the unexamined life is not worth living, but we generally think that at least the occasional foray into pondering the meaning of our existence enhances our lives. The fact is that when things are going well, when we are healthy, well occupied, and surrounded by loved ones we often don’t do much pondering; we are largely oblivious to the questions that suffering raises. We simply enjoy and rejoice; and that enjoyment can be an obstacle to further growth if it is pursued as an escape from wrestling with the discovery of the meaning of things. Drug addicts and hedonists are often running from the hard work involved in discovering true meaning and thus true happiness. It is when things are going badly; when we are sick, or jobless and directionless, when we have lost friends or family or are sensitive to the losses of others that we feel driven to seek the meaning of life.

Thus, if nothing else, suffering is provocative: a sufferer is almost certainly actualizing his ability to think. And one of his immediate thoughts may be that he is profoundly alone in his experience. Even when the sufferer is surrounded by others who love him or her, suffering is a very lonely experience. No one can truly enter into another’s suffering. In fact, it may be that no one can enter into any interior state of another human being. We speak sometimes of “sharing others’ joys and sorrows,” and sometimes we speak of someone who is so empathetic that he or she feels another’s pain as though it were his or her own; but that pain he or she feels is not that of the other. Ultimately what goes on in our interior is intensely private and incommunicable. We can’t really take on someone else’s suffering. It is something that we can acknowledge and try to alleviate, but we can’t make it ours — it belongs to the sufferer and the sufferer alone, and it is an invitation to understand what we and the world are all about.

In Salvifici Doloris, On Redemptive Suffering, John Paul II speaks of how suffering is both an intensely private experience, but at the same time something that strikes us as a problem that, as an objective reality, provokes us to seek some understanding of our suffering:

Even though in its subjective dimension, as a personal fact contained within man's concrete and unrepeatable interior, suffering seems almost inexpressible and not transferable, perhaps at the same time nothing else requires as much as does suffering, in its “objective reality”, to be dealt with, meditated upon, and conceived as an explicit problem; and that therefore basic questions be asked about it and the answers sought. (5)

Not only are answers sought, but the answers sought must be honest and satisfying ones, satisfying to the sufferer himself, for what satisfaction would there be in arriving at some “understanding” of suffering that made sense to others but not to one’s self? Suffering tends to break down the “tough guy,” “the person under control with all the answers” façade that some adopt, and it drives us to be honest with ourselves and the deepest part of our beings — what are we going to do with this suffering?

7 Let me sketch out what might be the thoughts of one who is suffering. I am hoping that that the line of reasoning that I lay out for a sufferer, let’s call him Jeb, is not an unusual line of reasoning. I will accompany my presentation of Jeb’s thoughts with a commentary about what we can learn about the human person and also about what truths Jeb may discover about himself, the universe, and God as his suffering drives him to think more deeply about the values of being. We will also see that these thoughts and experiences open Jeb to developing various virtues.

Our sufferer Jeb finds himself suddenly dealing with some great source of suffering — let’s say that in this instance, his beloved wife, Edith, has died young. He likely thinks, “Why did Edith die? She was so young. It wasn’t right for her to die.” At some point, he likely also thinks, “Why should I be suffering — things were going so well, why should they be thwarted by this suffering?” Or if Jeb has had a difficult life, he might think, “Why do I have to undergo this new source of suffering. Haven’t I suffered enough already?”

Like Jeb, we want to know why we or others suffer. In On Redemptive Suffering, John Paul II even speaks of suffering being so much a part of the human experience that is can be said to be part of man’s essence. He quotes St. Paul’s statement in the Letter to the Romans, that “the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now”, and then adds the following commentary:

even though man knows and is close to the sufferings of the animal world, nevertheless what we express by the word “suffering” seems to be particularly essential to the nature of man. It is as deep as man himself, precisely because it manifests in its own way that depth which is proper to man, and in its own way surpasses it. Suffering seems to belong to man's transcendence: it is one of those points in which man is in a certain sense “destined” to go beyond himself, and he is called to this in a mysterious way. (2)

Later in the same document John Paul II observed:

Within each form of suffering endured by man, and at the same time at the basis of the whole world of suffering, there inevitably arises the question: why? It is a question about the cause, the reason, and equally, about the purpose of suffering, and, in brief, a question about its meaning. Not only does it accompany human suffering, but it seems even to determine its human content, what makes suffering precisely human suffering. (9)

Again, the rest of creation also suffers, but it does not ask why; it does not seek the meaning of suffering. Only man does. To ask questions about suffering is so natural that we would be tremendously surprised if someone had never asked these questions.

Part of the transcendence of the experience of suffering is that it makes us evaluate the of what we are going through. In fact, suffering frequently seems unfair. Here I

8 want to ask, what does it tell us about ourselves and the universe that we are so ready to be angry when suffering comes our way; why is it that we are so prepared to think that suffering is undeserved and senseless? We think it is wrong that we or others should suffer — well, at least those of us who are good and others who are innocent. It is worth asking what gives us the idea that it is wrong to suffer and wrong for the innocent to suffer. It happens often, so why don’t we just accept it as a given, like flowers that die in the winter or armadillos squashed on the highway? Why do we think that someone needs to explain human suffering to us, and maybe especially God who, as the all powerful being, could prevent the suffering of the good and innocent? We would have made the universe differently had we made it, so we think; we wouldn’t have allowed the innocent to suffer, so we think. Perhaps these thoughts might help keep in mind that we didn’t make the universe and thus achieve some humility. These thoughts also show us that we would like the universe to be a perfectly ordered universe: we are thus in that way like God: we like perfect order.

As common and natural as these questions are, they suggest that we have some amazing expectations: we think that things should make sense, that we are owed an answer, and that God ultimately is in the dock, so to speak.

Nor it is without its significance that we tend to think the suffering of the cruel and unjust is just and is a good thing; we don’t really complain about their suffering — they deserve it. If only the bad suffered we probably would not object to suffering as we do. One of the dictates of natural law is surely that the good should be rewarded and that the evil should be punished. Where do we get those ideas? I am comfortable holding that such responses are hard wired into our systems, despite what Nietzsche opined.

What we see here is the fact that human beings are able to discern order and to think they deserve an answer when that order is being violated. Many don’t know that the description of man as a rational animal incorporates just that kind of insight. The word at the root of the word rational, the word “ratio” means order — and man is so ordered as to perceive order. We are profoundly utilizing our when we are pondering and protesting against the suffering of the innocent. We experience ourselves as thinking entities and ones who have questions that deserve to be answered — we have a sense that there is truth and it is important to us. We expect to get answers and have the sense that only God has the answers — in fact, that he owes answers to us; he needs to explain himself to us.

Jeb’s anger and confusion might lead him to rail at God. Railing at God is not such a bad thing. A large portion of the psalms, of course, are good men scolding God for apparently having forgotten them. I will always remember a priest who explained that the psalms show us that it doesn’t much matter how we talk to God; but it is important that we talk with him, because he will talk back. God, has, of course, in some remarkable ways explained himself or justified himself to us, to the extent of becoming one of us and living among us. We have the Scriptures and the Church and we have other Christians who have walked the walk and understand to some extent what are the ways of God.

9 Those who suffer often find themselves turning to those sources for help in understanding their suffering.

Our sufferer Jeb is also likely to feel fairly hopeless and helpless. He knows he can’t bring Edith back to life; he knows that neither he nor anyone else has the power to restore the order that he to have been shattered. He knows that nothing can really eliminate the suffering that he feels. Edith is gone. Isn’t this experience of helplessness extremely important for mankind? Otherwise might we not think of ourselves as completely self-sufficient? Might we not think we can supply for ourselves what we need? What Jeb is doing is what the would call “experiencing a sense of his own contingency.” As those who have gone through the excruciating experience of having lost loved ones know, we are not creatures who can make ourselves live or anyone else live for one nano-second longer than fate or whatever or whoever has allotted for us. We may try to keep ourselves healthy and fit, and monitor the activities and health of our loved ones, but something could happen at any instance that deprives us of our lives or our loved ones of theirs. We are very fragile, vulnerable, and dependent creatures. That is a terribly humbling reality and in fact as frightening as anything can be.

As he contemplates the fragility of his existence, Jeb may come to experience some fear — perhaps even the fear of God spoken of as one of the of the Holy Spirit. As Jeb thinks about his wife’s mortality and his own, he may begin to about whether or not he has behaved in such a way as to be able to give a good accounting of himself to God: he may become more attentive to the of his actions. The wise Cephalus in ’s Republic mentioned that in his old age, he particularly desired to make sacrifices to the gods to make up for any injustices he had done. Sufferers often find themselves exhibiting another of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the of piety. Sufferers are often moved to pray more, for instance, since they find themselves with a new respect and for the truly powerful force of the universe, and not just of petition for relief from their sufferings, but sometimes prayers of for the power of God.

As Jeb suffers, he may not only discover a greater awareness of God and God’s power, he may also discover that as weak as he is, he has a more powerful will and a more powerful imagination and intellect than he thought. Obstacles, handicaps, or that in the past he thought would cripple him, deprivations that he thought would defeat him, sufferings that he thought would cause him to wish to cease to live, in fact do not rule over him. He may find that in spite of his suffering he finds a new and to go on. He may find that he appreciates more than ever the values of being.

Years ago I saw a TV show in which the observation was made that many of those who struggle with find the time they are being treated for cancer to be one of the most fruitful periods of their lives; it serves as a kind of mandatory retreat from all busyness and distraction of their lives. While sitting in hospital chairs receiving chemotherapy intravenously, or being fatigued, but sleepless on the couch, or lying awake at night in about what it all means, they discover what is really important to them and nearly always what is really important to them are their relationships and their simple appreciation of natural beauty and perhaps even simply the fact of their own existence.

10 As their bodies and their health goes, they discover that these bodies and that health is not who they really are; they, in fact, are not entirely necessary to their sense of self, their sense of happiness. They not infrequently discover that what they thought in the past was the true source of happiness — the values of having and doing, in fact, are not; they discover that the values of being are the source of true happiness, and sometimes they even become teachers of that truth to others. John Paul II makes this observation: “When this body is gravely ill, totally incapacitated, and the person is almost incapable of living and acting, all the more do interior maturity and spiritual greatness become evident, constituting a touching lesson to those who are healthy and normal.” (Salvifici Doloris 26)

One of the most fascinating books I have ever read is The Diving Bell and the Butterfly4 by a French journalist who became nearly entirely paralyzed after a massive stroke. He could move only his eyelids, but managed nonetheless, by spelling out words through an unbelievably tedious process of blinking, to dictate his book. What he wanted to tell the outer world was what a rich inner world he had discovered. That he could enjoy immensely memories of his active life and also enjoy imaginary dinner parties he staged in his mind — he could imagine the preparation of the food, its smell, texture, and ; he could imagine the lively interactions of his dinner guests and their scintillating conversations. Suffering can provide the opportunity for discovering and exploring the rich interior world that all of us possess.

Earlier, I spoke about the hopelessness than can accompany suffering. But it is also true that often increased capacity to hope accompanies suffering. In Salvifici Doloris, John Paul II cites Paul’s Letter to the Romans, “… we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us”(76). John Paul II comments:

Suffering as it were contains a special call to the virtue which man must exercise on his own part. And this is the virtue of perseverance in bearing whatever disturbs and causes harm. In doing this, the individual unleashes hope, which maintains in him the conviction that suffering will not get the better of him, that it will not deprive him of his dignity as a human being, a dignity linked to awareness of the meaning of life. (23)

Those who are cast into the darkest pit by suffering, say the death of a loved one or a diagnosis that one has a fatal ailment, often find themselves developing the virtue of hope. In order to survive day by day, in order to cling to a reason to go forward, they often need to discover hope — hope of a cure, for sure, or hope that they will come to understand. As do many of us, I receive regular emails asking for prayers for the suffering and dying. Recently one was for a young and dying mother of nine children, the oldest being 16 and the youngest 9 months. In spite of the fervent prayers of multitudes, she died. But neither she nor her family nor her friends found her death to be a denial of the prayers said. The prayers that were said for her healing, were answered with peaceful

4 Jean-Dominique Bauby. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. New York: Vintage Books, 1997.

11 of her dying and the expectation that in eternity all the pain would be washed away when the grand uniting and feasting begins.

The same paradox there is in the relationship between hope and suffering — it both renders one hopeless and hopeful — characterizes the relationship between and suffering. Although one would hope that believers would find their faith to be a ready and sure source of consolation when they face suffering, what often happens instead, is that their faith is challenged; as John Paul II states in Evangelium Vitae: “More than anything else, it is the problem of suffering which challenges faith and puts it to the test.” (31) Indeed, in Salvifici Doloris, John Paul II calls suffering a test (11): it makes us face issues straight on. But when we do, we will find that when death and other suffering is faced well it is actually a school of faith — it perhaps makes immortality not just something desired all the more, but something in which it is actually easier to believe. Evangelium Vitae cites Vatican II: “It is in the face of death that the riddle of human existence becomes most acute” and yet “man rightly follows the intuition of his heart when he abhors and repudiates the absolute ruin and total disappearance of his own person. Man rebels against death because he bears in himself an eternal seed which cannot be reduced to mere matter.” (67; Gaudium et Spes, 18) We experience death as an affront and even an injustice. We experience the life force of people to be essentially a part of who they really are. We can’t really accept that people we love who are so fiercely alive and with something divine about them wouldn’t live forever; what they have within them is too good not to last forever. As Evangelium Vitae states, “[The] natural aversion to death and this incipient hope of immortality are illumined and brought to fulfillment by Christian faith.” (67) We find in our Christian faith reason to believe that the deep desire that we and others have to live forever — and to live without suffering — is in fact a realistic desire. Since suffering can lead us to embrace faith which is a source of knowledge, suffering opens us to the spiritual of knowledge.

It also leads us to charity. We tend to love our loved ones more, to love our life more, and to love those who suffer more, when we ourselves are suffering.

It is likely too that Jeb’s family and friends will reach out to him in his time of suffering; that they will attempt to console him or at least attend to his immediate needs. They will bring him meals, sit and keep him company, and maybe take him to activities to distract him from his grief. Even those who are fiercely individualistic will sometimes find that suffering leads them to interact with and depend more on others. Some people hate that, but they learn they must depend on others. Our social nature is inescapable. We are meant to live in community. We are meant to lean on each other.

Jeb likely will find himself experiencing new for others who have undergone similar suffering. He will look at other men who have lost their wives with new understanding. He may discover that he enjoys comforting others and that he experiences surprising for the suffering that he underwent, because he now can connect with and help others.

12 In Salvifici Doloris, John Paul II speaks of the community building power of suffering in this way:

The world of suffering possesses as it were its own solidarity. People who suffer become similar to one another through the analogy of their situation, the trial of their destiny, or through their need for understanding and care, and perhaps above all through the persistent question of the meaning of suffering. Thus, although the world of suffering exists “in dispersion”, at the same time it contains within itself a singular challenge to communion and solidarity. (8)

The phenomenal outpouring of and that natural disasters have provoked illustrates well this truth: not only do we suffer with others but we find in ministering to them in their sufferings an opportunity to love. In fact, we find a suitable outlet for our need to love. John Paul II speaks of an essential characteristic of the person to be not only the need to be loved, but also the need to love. And often it is actually most satisfying to love those who cannot reward you for your good works in any way at all. Giving without expectation of a return is one of the surest ways to know that one’s love is selfless and giving to the suffering often is without expectation of a return.

In speaking of the parable of the good Samaritan, John Paul II in Salvifici Doloris, says:

Following the parable of the Gospel, we could say that suffering, which is present under so many different forms in our human world, is also present in order to unleash love in the human person, that unselfish gift of one's “I” on behalf of other people, especially those who suffer. The world of human suffering unceasingly calls for, so to speak, another world: the world of human love; and in a certain sense man owes to suffering that unselfish love which stirs in his heart and actions. (29)

Now in spite of the outpouring of love and understanding that can result from the experience of suffering — both in the sufferer and his or her caretakers, it remains, as I said earlier, that suffering is ultimately a very interior and incommunicable experience. No one can truly enter into our suffering with us. No one, of course, except Christ Himself, himself a man of sorrows. And here we catapult into a whole new dimension for understanding suffering. In Salvifici Doloris, John Paul II call Christ “the interior Master and Guide”; he knows precisely what we are undergoing and knows precisely what we need to deal with our suffering. He is the one who “acts at the heart of human sufferings through his Spirit of truth, through the consoling Spirit. It is he who transforms, in a certain sense, the very substance of the spiritual life, indicating for the person who suffers a place close to himself.” (26) John Paul II speaks of suffering as a vocation, as a call to follow Christ (26).

John Paul II at the beginning of Salvifici Doloris cites the Apostle Paul, “In my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church.” John Paul II comments, “These words seem to be found at the end of the long

13 road that winds through the suffering which forms part of the history of man and which is illuminated by the Word of God. These words have as it were the value of a final discovery, which is accompanied by joy.” (1) Uniting our sufferings with Christ is a sign of advanced spiritual maturity — it is the end of a long road.

What I have tried to do in this paper is point out some of the stages along the journey to spiritual maturity. I have tried to show that suffering has the capacity to help us discover and live the values of being; it helps develop in us the virtues of faith, hope and charity. What are called the gifts of the Holy Spirit, fear of the Lord, piety, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom are also nurtured through the experience of suffering — in fact, all of those featured in my depiction of Jeb’s experience of suffering. Suffering may lead us to understand that we are creatures made in the image and likeness of our God and meant to be in a better place free of suffering. Ultimately I propose, that even if we cannot fully understand suffering, would it not be right to consider that which is a source of such gifts, to be a gift in its own right as well?

Sacred Heart Major Seminary, Detroit, MI

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