If suffering is evil, then it is useless. If suffering is redemptive, what kind of God would require that His child writhe in pain? I remember sitting in the emergency room of a local hospital one Sunday night. Around me were people in pain. One young woman was being consoled by a man who embraced her and tried to comfort her. A man in his early twenties sat by himself holding his left forearm elevated on the armrest of his chair. The arm was wrapped in what looked like a T-shirt. Blood was drying on the bandage.
I was waiting for a friend who was being seen by the emergency room personnel. My friend could not stop coughing and had difficulty breathing. I was not dressed as a priest. I just looked like everyone else, I supposed.
A crowd of people in pain occupied all the chairs of the E.R. A few people stood round awaiting their turn. A very old lady, thin and tiny sat in a wheel chair across from me. A man who was likely her son was standing next to her. She did not seem able to respond much to his words though she was awake. He looked up at me –we had not shared a word nor a gesture of acknowledgement– and said: “Do you think God will ever make a person who will not suffer?” I did not know what to say, although I am sure he did not expect a answer. He was just commenting on life as he saw it.
The easiest way for me to understand evil is as the absence of good. An emptiness, dark and defining. From this, nothing good can come. Jesus has no philosophical answer for evil. He just reminds us to do something good: Take up our crosses and follow Him. It is not the evil we are taking up, it is the goodness of holiness that we lift up through all the sufferings of life. It is Our Lord who walks with us along life’s journey and graces us along the way.
H