Today, I thought I’d speak about something pleasant for a change: suffering. (Do you see what I did there?) I’m told that, as Catholics, we love suffering. This is certainly true, at least on the surface. We have a kind of morbid fascination with it, and the idea of redemptive suffering has deep roots in our theology. However, the fact that it occupies such a prominent place in our theological academies can lead us to sometimes treat the matter with the same coldness that’s often assumed in academic papers. One time, I spoke to a friend about the difficulties someone I knew was facing, and they replied, “Good. The only way to Heaven is through a cross.” However, on another occasion, this same person said that they have no desire to suffer themselves. Such is the paradox of how Catholics understand suffering: on the one hand, it can be a powerful agent of change in someone’s life, but on the other, we’re not personally a fan. This is the awful truth, and our deep, dark secret as a Church. Of course, Catholics don’t love suffering, and like everyone else, we think it fucking sucks when its experienced.

Above all, people who suffer deserve our compassion and understanding, but they are also the recipients of our advice. People that care want to help them, after all, and one of the things that Catholics will often advise is that they should “offer it up”. Though this usually appears to be some kind of unwitting response, there is certainly some truth to it. However, it’s also confusing. What does it mean to “offer it up”? To whom and for what? Of course, being Catholics, it’s an offer to God: it’s part of this idea that our lives are a spiritual sacrifice. The “what” is less clear: is it offered so that things get better, so that you become a more holy or moral person, or is there another reason? I never quite grasped the concept myself because it sees suffering as an abstraction when it’s precisely the opposite: that pain is felt very deeply.

Recently I was told about a talk that someone gave on this matter. She suffers greatly from a disease that puts her in a lot of pain. She spoke about how she came to accept and even embrace her struggles. I can’t imagine how difficult this process must have been for her, but she certainly has a point. Viktor Frankl, writing about his time a concentration camp, spoke at length about how individuals could transform their horrendous experience into a kind of good. They found meaning in it, and those, he says, were the one’s who could make it through. He says:

Sometimes the situation in which a man finds himself may require him to shape his own fate by action. At other times it is more advantageous for him to make use of an opportunity for contemplation and to realize assets in this way. Sometimes man may be required simply to accept fate, to bear his cross. Every situation is distinguished by its uniqueness, and there is always only one right answer to the problem posed by the situation at hand. When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task.

Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

You might compare this to Nietzsche’s dictum that “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” For a man who is often thought of as a cynic, this is a remarkable statement about the human being’s capacity to endure even the worst of crosses life might throw at them. However, it cannot be for any old reason. If someone were to fight on for the sake of, for instance, seeing a film that’s soon to come out, they might give up rather easily, saying, “It’s probably not as good as the first one, anyhow.” It cannot, therefore, be offered up for any vain pursuit, or else it is a shallow offering. What motivates a man to endure the pain must be something far greater.

To give an example from my own life, let me relate to you a time when I was experiencing a great deal of pain. As one should when faced with such demons, I spoke to a friend about it, and said only that, “It sucks, but I will suffer it because I love them.” When I said that, I didn’t contemplate the definition of love, nor the redemptive nature of suffering whatsoever. It was, in all truthfulness, very unphilosophical, and my response was purely based on two emotions: pain and love. Such an odd pairing, though I suppose that opposites can sometimes attract. It was, in the moment, the only way I could rationalise the pain I was feeling. It was, and is, the only thing that gives it any meaning whatsoever. Sometimes love means pain, and because love is worthwhile, the pains of it are worthwhile, too. It is just as Frankl said: “The salvation of man is through love and in love.”

Of course, every situation is unique, but I daresay that love is the best reason to endure suffering, and that it can help us to endure the worst crosses even in a scenario where love doesn’t seem to be an active cause of pain. Freud tells us that “we are never so defenceless against suffering as when we love,” and he is quite right. That is to say, sometimes you don’t endure because you care: sometimes you endure because someone else does, and for their sake, you make do. In this way, it is true that suffering is redemptive: it forces you to love others. In fact, this is quite like Christ, whose suffering was for the good of others, and this, of course, is surely redemptive for the individual as well. Perhaps, then, it is true what Jung says: “No tree can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.” To “offer it up” is not, in fact, shallow advice. Quite the contrary: the only thing that can make it so is what you offer it up for.