Thoughts On Suffering

[Credo in Deum]

9 minutes ago, Maggyie said:

What lesson should one learn from one's rape or from being burned alive in a cage?

That such sufferings can be used to save souls! The rape victim can unite her suffering of taking on the sin of one man to Him who took on the sins of all men for our salvation!  The person burned alive in a cage can unite their suffering to the intense burning Christ felt while on the cross! A burning which cause a physical thirst! A thirst Christ had not just physically but for the salvation of souls.  This offering up of such sufferings for the salvation of souls is the "laying down of our lives for our friends" Christ speaks of in the Gospel. It is the supernatural charity he extended toward us!

Edited June 28, 2016 by Credo in Deum

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Maggyie said:

What lesson should one learn from one's rape or from being burned alive in a cage?

The one doesn't follow the other. Because Jesus died on the cross that doesn't mean babies need to be ripped from their father's arms by giant reptiles. It's like an alcoholic, he can stop any time... He just has to want to. 

I said "sometimes" lessons can be learnt from suffering.  Sometimes indeed the good that God brings out of evil is not apparent to oneself nor does that good brought by God necessarily concern oneself at all, but others.  One simply invests fully in Faith and related doctrines of The Church, though one's humanity in the face of evil might reel in absolute horror and non-understanding. Mystery and Our Mysterious God.

Sometimes indeed the evil that exists in our world is horrific and unfathomable as to why God allows it to exist, while not contesting that He has indeed permitted it.  Faith in trustful confidence.........and I think that only Faith in trustful confidence can provide a Gospel response to the sufferings in our world.  Such Faith does not mean at all that one does not feel intensely the sufferings of others for example, sometimes with horror and repulsion indeed........and if possible to do what one might be able to alleviate.

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. Because Jesus died on the cross that doesn't mean babies need to be ripped from their father's arms by giant reptiles.

Very true indeed.  Abortion very often is the result of humanly initiated and cause of the evil. We can learn however how to respond to suffering through meditation prayerfully on Jesus - not only His Passion, His whole life can inform us on how to respond in my and all lives and it's vagaries etc.  How to live and respond in our own lives in our own quite personal situations and circumstances.

[Credo in Deum]

12 minutes ago, Maggyie said:

 

The one doesn't follow the other. Because Jesus died on the cross that doesn't mean babies need to be ripped from their father's arms by giant reptiles. It's like an alcoholic, he can stop any time... He just has to want to. 

You asked if God could have done things differently and I said yes. But different doesn't mean better, and while you believe the two do not follow the other, the simple fact of our faith is your wrong. Those who lose their innocent child to a beast/reptile know what it's like for the Father to offer His sinless child up to beasts and reptiles to be crucified for our salvation.  

As for you comment about the alcoholic, I disagree. The person is an alcoholic because their willpower has been diminished. If they could simply stop, they would have. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Spem in alium said:

This is the view I hold to - God permits suffering to happen, but He does not will it. God loves us in a way unlike human love, in a way we can't understand at all. I firmly believe that if He loves me so deeply, and in a way I can never be loved by anyone else, He will never willingly cause me pain or suffering. And maybe God wants us to ask of Him why something happened, or why a particular situation had to be so hard, simply because He desires us to go to Him in our suffering and find comfort there. 

God heals our wounds and wants us to trust Him. How then could He both willingly cause suffering, atrocities, etc. and then willingly heal them? I know He is all-powerful, but He is also all-good. It's a mystery to me, truly.

I am determined to read more on this, particularly from official documents of the Church. Pope Francis speaks a lot about God's mercy, and that really resonates with me -- and at the same time, it really seems to challenge the idea presented of a vengeful God.

Unhappily, props can mean simply an acknowledgment of the post as having been read it seems to me.  Props galore for the content above, Spem     

 

8 minutes ago, BarbaraTherese said:

I am determined to read more on this, particularly from official documents of the Church. Pope Francis speaks a lot about God's mercy, and that really resonates with me -- and at the same time, it really seems to challenge the idea presented of a vengeful God.

Should read "Spem in alium said", not "Barbara Therese said"

2 hours ago, Credo in Deum said:

Maybe you need to accept God as he reveals Himself and not the God of your fancy? Our surrender to God involves our entire being, including our concepts of who we think God is. Do you think it was easy for me to accept these things? No! It was not!  Like you I couldn't fathom them, and I couldn't see how God would will such things.  It pushed me close to atheism, but then an interior voice showed me that my thinking was wrong. These horrible events are not proof of an unloving God, and had I felt that they were I would have missed the Ressurection after Good Friday. I would have looked at Christ and said "No loving God would allow/will this to happen to a sinless man" and I would have left Golgotha convinced that there was no God.  Yet now I see that the mystery of all of the horrible things which happen are played out in the drama of our Lord's life, passion, death, and resurrection! Christs life is a testament of the Goodness of a God who wills such things.  It would be hypocritical of me to celebrate Christ's life and then at the same time deny the Father's supreme right to enact the passion and crucifixion in all of us. 

 

Excellent post and insightful with a new aspect for me.  Thank you muchly!

[Maggyie]

44 minutes ago, Credo in Deum said:

That such sufferings can be used to save souls! The rape victim can unite her suffering of taking on the sin of one man to Him who took on the sins of all men for our salvation!  The person burned alive in a cage can unite their suffering to the intense burning Christ felt while on the cross! A burning which cause a physical thirst! A thirst Christ had not just physically but for the salvation of souls.  This offering up of such sufferings for the salvation of souls is the "laying down of our lives for our friends" Christ speaks of in the Gospel. It is the supernatural charity he extended toward us!

Really! So the two year old who can barely speak and doesn't even know how to use the toilet, as his flesh is torn and his tiny lungs full up with water, he should know to "offer it up"? And know how? And be able to? God expects this of infants?

[Credo in Deum]

21 minutes ago, Maggyie said:

Really! So the two year old who can barely speak and doesn't even know how to use the toilet, as his flesh is torn and his tiny lungs full up with water, he should know to "offer it up"? And know how? And be able to? God expects this of infants?

No, God expects it of the parents. 

[Guest]

55 minutes ago, Maggyie said:

Really! So the two year old who can barely speak and doesn't even know how to use the toilet, as his flesh is torn and his tiny lungs full up with water, he should know to "offer it up"? And know how? And be able to? God expects this of infants?

Maggyie, I think you might  anthropomorphize God(I think that's the word), or in other words, assigning to God human understandings and qualities and therefore assigning to an Infinite God our finite qualities, reasoning and limitations?  I personally cannot understand much of God's permitting in this world of ours and often it absolutely repulses me  - and I leave it there with God in totally mystery to me on the human level (and it can be a type of suffering and the more intense the feelings the more intense the suffering), choosing in spirit to embrace the Doctrine of Divine Providence and in trustful confidence i.e.. to reject my own human reason and logic on the secular level, my personal emotional content  -  and I do so because I know in Absolute Faith on the spiritual level (trumping the secular) that I am indeed only human without full understanding nor insight of our Infinite and Infallible God.  I choose to invest what Faith tells me, not without of necessity great difficulty even suffering on the human level.

Some can see that as being unfeeling and uncaring and yet assuredly and absolutely it is not that at all.
 

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Maggyie: Really! So the two year old who can barely speak and doesn't even know how to use the toilet, as his flesh is torn and his tiny lungs full up with water, he should know to "offer it up"? And know how? And be able to? God expects this of infants?

Credo: No, God expects it of the parents. 

 

Well said Credo. God expects nothing at all since a two year old (for one) has not reached the age of reason.  Even some adults well beyond the onset of the "age of reason" do not know what "offering it up" means and how to go about it, nor why they should even try.  This is not any sort of culpability on their part - most often it is poor understanding of The Faith, poor catechesis or some other morally inculpable reason on their part.  I have only been reading rather recently on CA a thread on the subject.

 

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Credo said:  "These horrible events are not proof of an unloving God, and had I felt that they were I would have missed the Ressurection after Good Friday. I would have looked at Christ and said "No loving God would allow/will this to happen to a sinless man" and I would have left Golgotha convinced that there was no God.  

Yet now I see that the mystery of all of the horrible things which happen are played out in the drama of our Lord's life, passion, death, and resurrection! Christs life is a testament of the Goodness of a God who wills such things.  It would be hypocritical of me to celebrate Christ's life and then at the same time deny the Father's supreme right to enact the passion and crucifixion in all of us". 

 

The above is a quite profound and very important reflection in my book.

Edited June 28, 2016 by BarbaraTherese

[veritasluxmea]

Both Maggyie and Credo are right. 

First, if God stopped all the consequences from free will from doing playing out fully, He would violate our free will, and He has bound Himself not to. If He miraculously didn’t let the consequences of all our choices play out- if He directly changed things caused suffering, say, causing cars to break or slow down so their were no more fatal car accidents, making every gun that killed an innocent to misfire or break, that would also be a violation of free will. So we can suffer from our direct choices, and also from our ignorance or weakness. Mistakes made from those will have results and consequences too. So God will let suffering happen in His control, He has bound Himself to our free will and His hands are tied in a sense, He has to let that come from His hands- that is free will. To do otherwise would be to un-create the universe on some level, really.

So when people are ignorant, nature is out of order and a post-fall alligator gets hungry... it can have a horrific outcome. But Credo is right, instead of just leaving the suffering to be meaningless, He has come as close to the parents in His own suffering as He can and with their cooperation He will heal and sanctify them as gently and with the greatest love. He knows what they went through, and now they can come to know Him and His love better. His heart screamed in agony over what the little boy suffered right along with them. No, He didn't want to child to suffer and die like that. But great evil happened, and it was allowed by Him. There is the mystery of suffering. 

As for the book and heresy, I meant a Jansenist influence in perception, not outright heresy. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, I tend to be cautious anyways. Laudato Si and Story of a Soul also have an Imprimatur (actually a step up since one is an encyclical and the other written by a Doctor of the Church), yet in those writings the author’s perception and attitude of God still comes across and it’s a bit different than Fr. Drexelius. As interesting as everyone's posts are here, if you actually are interested in reading more about suffering from books with an Imprimatur, I would go for Story of a Soul, 33 Days to Merciful Love (specifically the section on living in darkness, you can skip the rest if you're not looking for devotional reading). I'd suggest The Problem of Pain by CS Lewis for a more basic run down, but it doesn't have an Imprimatur. 

Anyway, the selections posted so far aren't wrong, but they are incomplete. At their basic level they are asking, “Why?” and their basic answer is “God could stop it, but choose not to for His reasons which are for our good.” Which is true, but there’s more to it. Like they point out there really is the greatest Divine Love behind it all which suffers with us and brings all we go through into His plan- for our good. What they don't expand on is that He really does desire to bring us life, and life in abundance. He doesn't want or delight in such horrific evil to happen, but it is beyond our understanding. All He asks of us is to trust Him and suffer with Him. It's hard for me not to after coming to know Him 

[Guest]

I get most of your post @veritasluxmea - how would you explain please natural disasters that can bring about so much suffering and death  - seemingly to the secular mind our free will has nothing at all to do with the disaster although it does theologically (the Fall and original sin in the wake affecting negatively the whole of creation)

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Veritasluxmea: So when people are ignorant, nature is out of order and a post-fall alligator gets hungry... it can have a horrific outcome

I can't quite get the above.  I am taking it you mean human nature is out of order, not mother nature - although I believe that mother nature too is affected negatively ('out of order') by original sin and all individual and personal sins by humanity in the wake.  That mother nature is not as originally intended by God prior to the Fall etc.

I do grasp however and believe that God suffers with us where any form of evil is concerned - and that we are suffering with Him.

As I see it, the problem I can have is that I do not grasp what exactly sin really is in the face of our All Holy
God -  and any sin's at all devastating affect and effect on the universe itself, on both human nature and mother nature.......I wouldn't know really, but perhaps not very many do ever insight the horror of all sin in the face of The Glory of God - not on this earth anyway.

53 minutes ago, veritasluxmea said:

To do otherwise would be to un-create the universe on some level, really.

Obviously, to limit our free will would be indeed to un-create the universe in some way.  Do you mean that God has also created nature itself to respond to certain laws, and the fact that nature too is now affected by original sin and by our sin generally; hence, those laws established by God for Mother Nature pre the Fall are now distorted, and that distortion can bring about tragic natural disasters? : St Paul to Romans Ch8:19 " I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us.For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God;for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hopethat creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.For in hope we were saved. Now hope that sees for itself is not hope. For who hopes for what one sees?But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance."

Thank you for your post - and the reading recommendations........now included in my Favourites.

 

Edited June 28, 2016 by BarbaraTherese

[Maggyie]

9 hours ago, Credo in Deum said:

No, God expects it of the parents. 

Well what good is it then for the baby who dies such a horrific death? Especially if it is unbaptized? Does God allow one priceless soul to be damned in exchange for possible others?

[Anomaly]

1 hour ago, Maggyie said:

Well what good is it then for the baby who dies such a horrific death? Especially if it is unbaptized? Does God allow one priceless soul to be damned in exchange for possible others?

Careful now.  You're uncovering the beginning of many atheists.   

[Credo in Deum]

59 minutes ago, Maggyie said:

Well what good is it then for the baby who dies such a horrific death? Especially if it is unbaptized? Does God allow one priceless soul to be damned in exchange for possible others?

I think you're stretching here. Where unbaptized infants go has not been officially stated by the Church. Wherever they go, we can be assured of God's mercy. Lastly just because you cannot see the reason and good in this death does not mean there is none.  If God revealed to you that this child would have lost their eternal soul if they had not died when they did, what would you say? Is the soul not more important than the body and in the end of the day is it not our salvation which is God's primary concern?  This life is not our home, Maggyie. 

[CountrySteve21]

We have to remember that suffering was never part of God's original plan for us. Suffering entered the world through Adam & Eve's sin.  The Catholic view of suffering (that it has value when offered up to God) is actually comforting in a certain sense; regardless of your creed or religion, we all will suffer in this life.

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"But how can this be so? How can a God of love value our suffering? After all, suffering exists because of sin." Yes, it is true. Suffering entered the world through the disobedience of our first parents. So, clearly, God never intended for us to suffer. Even while on earth, Jesus worked miracles of healing for countless people, curing blindness, leprosy, deformities, and disease. It is clear Our Lord wants us to be happy and healthy, not to suffer. But it is when we offer our suffering--the one thing most disagreeable to our human nature--back to the Creator, it becomes a gift of inestimable value; drawing down from heaven more grace than any other action we can possibly make

Source: http://www.religious-vocation.com/redemptive_suffering.html#.V3KFOY-cHIU

 

 

[Credo in Deum]

1 hour ago, CountrySteve21 said:

We have to remember that suffering was never part of God's original plan for us. Suffering entered the world through Adam & Eve's sin.  The Catholic view of suffering (that it has value when offered up to God) is actually comforting in a certain sense; regardless of your creed or religion, we all will suffer in this life.

 

Very true. God did not intend us to suffer.  The existence of suffering was introduced by Adam.  As the Patriarch for all mankind Adam determined the type of relationship (one of suffering and death) man would have with God when he sinned. We now live the reality of this relationship which includes suffering and death, but we have Christ, the new Adam, who restores us back to life and to a greater existence and bliss than what Adam had since we will be with God in the beatific vision.  Since the punishments of suffering and death are not evil in and of themselves, they remain as our means of sanctification, and in the life of Christ we see them transformed from consequences to acts of supreme love, since Christ who was sinless would never be subject to them as consequence.  Therefor because of Christ, and only with and through Christ, suffering and death, and all of these hard things, can now be offered to God as acts of love, if they are united with the supreme act of love; Christ'sacrifice on the Cross.  

Edited June 28, 2016 by Credo in Deum

[Credo in Deum]

Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy--John 16:20