A Pope’s Answer to the Problem of Pain A Reason to Live Christ’s approach to the problem of pain is not an intellectual answer to an academic puzzle. Not every problem is abstract, intellectual, or academic. Theodicy—reconciling the existence of an all-good God with evil—can be tackled in this manner, but the problem of real pain is concrete, experiential, and personal. Its resolution does not come through words but through the Word alone. As the great Pope put it: 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 that 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. Gradually, as the individual takes up his cross, spiritually uniting himself to the cross of Christ, the salvific meaning of suffering is revealed before him. (SD 26)
Posted on: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 02:42:53 +0000