Lent and Suffering
Thursday, 13.04.2006, 0122 hours
I was talking to a friend the other night, and he mentioned that, one of the reasons why he's generally agnostic, is that, having gone through more than his fair share of difficulties in his short life, he refuses to believe that the God of Love is also the God of Suffering, the burning question being: How could our common understanding of a God that is kind and just condone seemingly senseless human suffering?
I blame the almost 40 days and 40 nights of Lenten reflection to be in this relatively sombre, almost morose mood. In the same long conversation, I mentioned to said friend of my normal recalcitrance and discomfort when it comes to the common concept of 'sharing' (in Bible/ Catechism studies, cell/ discussion groups, religion classes and the like) with near strangers. I suppose it is due to the fact that I am not particularly partial to the idea of someone I don't really know poking in the dark recesses of my paranoid mind. I am probably afraid of what they would find. Who knows, I might scare them away if I allow them to dig too deep. I would certainly share, but only with those I am comfortable with.
After all that had happened in the past couple of months, though, I believe I would like to share these: two articles on Christianity, Lent and the ruminations on the concept of suffering. Oh, I don't consider myself particularly religious, I have no such pretensions, but I shan't lie. Religion and faith does work for me, even if on occasion. I would like to think, that there is a Greater Being out there to watch over me, fool that I am. The thought comforts me, and acts as a check and balance for outrageous behaviour :p
From Catholic Asian News, March 2006 issue, an article by Rufus Bruno Pereira:
Suffering in Perspective
In Search of Meaning
Suffering is inevitable but why? Explanations like suffering results from evil, from sin or misconduct, or misjudgement are inadequate.
Augustine's basic claim explaining evil as human freedom misused fails the empirical test for the mature and disciplined exercise of freedom has seen terrifying pain and suffering. Unexplained and incomprehensible sufferings are known to have resulted from good and well-intentioned efforts.
Prior to Augustine, Irenaeus (120-202 A. D.) and others presupposing an imperfect creation have argued that the presence of suffering challenges people to moral or character development. The world then is a higher place for forming the higher potentialities of the human personality otherwise impossible in a world without suffering or pain. The weakness with Irenaeus' position is that suffering instead of calling forth moral development has seen moral collapse.
Some have contextualized suffering within the understanding that life is a school teacher that can teach us things if we are open and willing to learn from life. Valuable though that reasoning is, it is not absolute for how does one reconcile with the fact that there are people who suffer tremendously only to learn small lessons in life and end up bitter?
Will the appeal to Job or Jesus help in explaining the meaning and the purpose of suffering in life? The author of Job insists that suffering cannot be caused by sin. However, Job's suffering has significance being part of a larger cosmic drama between God and Satan while for Christians, Jesus' sufferings have turned cosmic wheels redeeming cosmic life.
Yet ordinary human experiences of sufferings appear stripped of such epic significance where little meaning can be found while the experience plagues a person into despair. Besides, giving suffering a divine purpose for the universe is to mean that God willed it, and if God willed it, claiming that God will not allow suffering beyond human endurance has been disproved by life itself in the atheism that stem from bitterness and anger.
A Necessary Predisposition
How does one approach the reality of suffering then? Even those sufferings that are logically explainable do not make sense to the very persons whose lives have been plagued by the experience. The above explanations are logical ones based on religious premises but logical arguments based on secular academics are just as inadequate.
In the midst of so many questions and so few answers, there are few consistencies that enable one to meaningfully approach the inevitability of suffering.
Harsh as it may sound, it appears true that if one were to cower before the inevitability of suffering, one leaves life to chance and both life and the experience of suffering disintegrates into aimlessness. That is even worse than having to suffer as a result of attempting to live life meaningfully.
No one doubts, that suffering is part of any meaningful and purpose driven existence, and time and again, grievous suffering at that. It was stated earlier that for many, suffering can be very painful when no meaning or significance behind that suffering is seen. Could a lack of meaning in suffering stem from a lack of meaningful existence? It may be part of the reason.
Attempting to live one's life meaningfully is not fool-proof but it reduces the possibility of our lives becoming aimless when we cower before the inevitability of suffering. Many people are afraid of pain.
Pain panics them into irrational thinking. Choices, decisions and behaviour become erratic and they fall from the frying pan into the fire. From pain to chaos. Courage is fear surpassed, not fear absent. Courage here means training oneself to live with the reality of pain and of suffering.
Taking such a stance one can be assured that one would suffer, but grievous as one's suffering may be, there is really little to lose. Enduring difficulty has the capacity to strengthen one to grow in self-confidence, in courage, in patience, in perseverance.
One learns to appreciate and to value life without taking life and people for granted. We begin to realize that unplanned though our sufferings may be, we profit from the experience of suffering.
Limitting Ourselves
What can potentially reduce our capacity to find meaning in our sufferings is the kind of environment that we have been born or socialised into. Our environment is secular.
Religion has been privatised. Conveniences and luxuries are almost instant, not to mention that ours has become a culture of deadlines, quick-fix.
Consumerism, materialism and individualism has crept in.
Ideas like sacrifice, abstinence, selflessness and moderation are pushed to the periphery and some of these ideas are associated with discipline and regimentation, good in themselves. Overall the idea of postponing self-gratification weakens the will. Our education system harps on the intellect and everything is subject to the explanatory power of science or logic failing which it is rejected.
Suffering, on the other hand, rarely gives us quick answers, quick meanings or quick solutions. Most of the time, it involves engaging in a process and we moderns find that unbearable.
Escapisms are more available today than times past. When people become soft resulting from such socialisation the requisite will for moral living is broken by the experience of suffering.
The pace of life has quickened so much that we don't make the time to listen to ourselves and to take stock. Then when suffering and pain enter into our lives, we find ourselves in a situation not even knowing ourselves well enough to know how to live with difficulty.
It doesn't become surprising that suicide rates and stress related illnesses are on the rise for our lifestyles may have made us so soft that we are unable to cope with life.
From The WORD Among Us, Lent 2006 issue, by Joseph Difato, Ph. D., Publisher.
Suffering, Redemption, and Hope during Lent
While many people tend to prefer the New Testament, the Old Testament is simply amazing. When looked at as a whole, this 'book' of the Hebrew Scriptures does something unique: It tells us how God's plan unfolded during the long years before Jesus was born--and it does it in a way that tells us a whole lot about Jesus in the process.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the four 'Songs of the Suffering Servant' that are found in the Book of Isaiah (chapters 42, 49, 50, and 52-53). In these songs, we meet an unnamed 'servant' who takes upon himself all of the infirmities and iniquities of the nation. Through his sufferings for the sake of others, this servant revealed a new insight into the mystery of human pain and suffering. Rather than seeing affliction as God's punishment for sins, this servant revealed a redemptive dimension: Suffering is not a curse from God but rather an opportunity to draw closer to him, to be lifted up to his presence, and to experience more of his grace.
With the help of the Holy Spirit and with hindsight, we can look at this Suffering Servant and see him as a prefigurement of Jesus. In fact, these songs are instrumental in helping us see that Jesus' death and resurrection are the keys to our forgiveness and our healing.
As we read and meditate on these four songs, we should, on one hand, ask the Holy Spirit to show us more about Jesus and all that his suffering has accomplished for us. But on the other hand, we should also ask the Spirit to show us how to approach our own times of physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering.
Lent is a time of special grace. So know that if you open the door of your heart to the Lord this season, you will be rewarded. You will sense his presence moving in your life, filling you with love, giving you God's peace, and showing you a different, more godly, way to live.
I was talking to a friend the other night, and he mentioned that, one of the reasons why he's generally agnostic, is that, having gone through more than his fair share of difficulties in his short life, he refuses to believe that the God of Love is also the God of Suffering, the burning question being: How could our common understanding of a God that is kind and just condone seemingly senseless human suffering?
I blame the almost 40 days and 40 nights of Lenten reflection to be in this relatively sombre, almost morose mood. In the same long conversation, I mentioned to said friend of my normal recalcitrance and discomfort when it comes to the common concept of 'sharing' (in Bible/ Catechism studies, cell/ discussion groups, religion classes and the like) with near strangers. I suppose it is due to the fact that I am not particularly partial to the idea of someone I don't really know poking in the dark recesses of my paranoid mind. I am probably afraid of what they would find. Who knows, I might scare them away if I allow them to dig too deep. I would certainly share, but only with those I am comfortable with.
After all that had happened in the past couple of months, though, I believe I would like to share these: two articles on Christianity, Lent and the ruminations on the concept of suffering. Oh, I don't consider myself particularly religious, I have no such pretensions, but I shan't lie. Religion and faith does work for me, even if on occasion. I would like to think, that there is a Greater Being out there to watch over me, fool that I am. The thought comforts me, and acts as a check and balance for outrageous behaviour :p
From Catholic Asian News, March 2006 issue, an article by Rufus Bruno Pereira:
Suffering in Perspective
In Search of Meaning
Suffering is inevitable but why? Explanations like suffering results from evil, from sin or misconduct, or misjudgement are inadequate.
Augustine's basic claim explaining evil as human freedom misused fails the empirical test for the mature and disciplined exercise of freedom has seen terrifying pain and suffering. Unexplained and incomprehensible sufferings are known to have resulted from good and well-intentioned efforts.
Prior to Augustine, Irenaeus (120-202 A. D.) and others presupposing an imperfect creation have argued that the presence of suffering challenges people to moral or character development. The world then is a higher place for forming the higher potentialities of the human personality otherwise impossible in a world without suffering or pain. The weakness with Irenaeus' position is that suffering instead of calling forth moral development has seen moral collapse.
Some have contextualized suffering within the understanding that life is a school teacher that can teach us things if we are open and willing to learn from life. Valuable though that reasoning is, it is not absolute for how does one reconcile with the fact that there are people who suffer tremendously only to learn small lessons in life and end up bitter?
Will the appeal to Job or Jesus help in explaining the meaning and the purpose of suffering in life? The author of Job insists that suffering cannot be caused by sin. However, Job's suffering has significance being part of a larger cosmic drama between God and Satan while for Christians, Jesus' sufferings have turned cosmic wheels redeeming cosmic life.
Yet ordinary human experiences of sufferings appear stripped of such epic significance where little meaning can be found while the experience plagues a person into despair. Besides, giving suffering a divine purpose for the universe is to mean that God willed it, and if God willed it, claiming that God will not allow suffering beyond human endurance has been disproved by life itself in the atheism that stem from bitterness and anger.
A Necessary Predisposition
How does one approach the reality of suffering then? Even those sufferings that are logically explainable do not make sense to the very persons whose lives have been plagued by the experience. The above explanations are logical ones based on religious premises but logical arguments based on secular academics are just as inadequate.
In the midst of so many questions and so few answers, there are few consistencies that enable one to meaningfully approach the inevitability of suffering.
Harsh as it may sound, it appears true that if one were to cower before the inevitability of suffering, one leaves life to chance and both life and the experience of suffering disintegrates into aimlessness. That is even worse than having to suffer as a result of attempting to live life meaningfully.
No one doubts, that suffering is part of any meaningful and purpose driven existence, and time and again, grievous suffering at that. It was stated earlier that for many, suffering can be very painful when no meaning or significance behind that suffering is seen. Could a lack of meaning in suffering stem from a lack of meaningful existence? It may be part of the reason.
Attempting to live one's life meaningfully is not fool-proof but it reduces the possibility of our lives becoming aimless when we cower before the inevitability of suffering. Many people are afraid of pain.
Pain panics them into irrational thinking. Choices, decisions and behaviour become erratic and they fall from the frying pan into the fire. From pain to chaos. Courage is fear surpassed, not fear absent. Courage here means training oneself to live with the reality of pain and of suffering.
Taking such a stance one can be assured that one would suffer, but grievous as one's suffering may be, there is really little to lose. Enduring difficulty has the capacity to strengthen one to grow in self-confidence, in courage, in patience, in perseverance.
One learns to appreciate and to value life without taking life and people for granted. We begin to realize that unplanned though our sufferings may be, we profit from the experience of suffering.
Limitting Ourselves
What can potentially reduce our capacity to find meaning in our sufferings is the kind of environment that we have been born or socialised into. Our environment is secular.
Religion has been privatised. Conveniences and luxuries are almost instant, not to mention that ours has become a culture of deadlines, quick-fix.
Consumerism, materialism and individualism has crept in.
Ideas like sacrifice, abstinence, selflessness and moderation are pushed to the periphery and some of these ideas are associated with discipline and regimentation, good in themselves. Overall the idea of postponing self-gratification weakens the will. Our education system harps on the intellect and everything is subject to the explanatory power of science or logic failing which it is rejected.
Suffering, on the other hand, rarely gives us quick answers, quick meanings or quick solutions. Most of the time, it involves engaging in a process and we moderns find that unbearable.
Escapisms are more available today than times past. When people become soft resulting from such socialisation the requisite will for moral living is broken by the experience of suffering.
The pace of life has quickened so much that we don't make the time to listen to ourselves and to take stock. Then when suffering and pain enter into our lives, we find ourselves in a situation not even knowing ourselves well enough to know how to live with difficulty.
It doesn't become surprising that suicide rates and stress related illnesses are on the rise for our lifestyles may have made us so soft that we are unable to cope with life.
From The WORD Among Us, Lent 2006 issue, by Joseph Difato, Ph. D., Publisher.
Suffering, Redemption, and Hope during Lent
While many people tend to prefer the New Testament, the Old Testament is simply amazing. When looked at as a whole, this 'book' of the Hebrew Scriptures does something unique: It tells us how God's plan unfolded during the long years before Jesus was born--and it does it in a way that tells us a whole lot about Jesus in the process.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the four 'Songs of the Suffering Servant' that are found in the Book of Isaiah (chapters 42, 49, 50, and 52-53). In these songs, we meet an unnamed 'servant' who takes upon himself all of the infirmities and iniquities of the nation. Through his sufferings for the sake of others, this servant revealed a new insight into the mystery of human pain and suffering. Rather than seeing affliction as God's punishment for sins, this servant revealed a redemptive dimension: Suffering is not a curse from God but rather an opportunity to draw closer to him, to be lifted up to his presence, and to experience more of his grace.
With the help of the Holy Spirit and with hindsight, we can look at this Suffering Servant and see him as a prefigurement of Jesus. In fact, these songs are instrumental in helping us see that Jesus' death and resurrection are the keys to our forgiveness and our healing.
As we read and meditate on these four songs, we should, on one hand, ask the Holy Spirit to show us more about Jesus and all that his suffering has accomplished for us. But on the other hand, we should also ask the Spirit to show us how to approach our own times of physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering.
Lent is a time of special grace. So know that if you open the door of your heart to the Lord this season, you will be rewarded. You will sense his presence moving in your life, filling you with love, giving you God's peace, and showing you a different, more godly, way to live.
*
I wouldn't claim to know a great deal about human suffering. Definitely, I have more to learn. By the time I am 50, I would look back at this time in my life and wonder about what I was thinking at this precise moment. What I do know, is that, there are no easy answers to suffering. There is no general scheme of purpose, just as there is no general scheme of answers. All of us would like to think that our suffering serves a greater purpose, but who's to say that what it serves for us is not a great purpose in itself? To a certain extent, I do believe in the power of one. One person can make a difference, if not in the world, then at least in the social community he lives in or associates with.
When I die, just in case I die tomorrow, I hope at least, that there are people who have been genuinely touched by me in my short life at my wake. I hope that, at least, there would be people missing me when I am not there. There would be people mourning my death, and celebrating the life that I have lived, and the life that they still have. I hope that I would at least have touched their lives in some inexplicable, intangible way, short though it may be, and that they were better off knowing me, that my presence in their lives made a difference. I would hope for that, at least. I won't pretend that I can change the world, for who am I? What I do want, is that I live my life as I believe I should, that I did not crumble under pressure, that I stood by my principles and beliefs, or at least tried as hard as I could have, under circumstances, and that I die beholden to nothing, and to no one, with a clear conscience. That I tried my best to be a good person, a good daughter, a good sister, and a good friend. If I marry and have children, a good mother, and a good wife, as well. And that I left a legacy behind, for those who know me, and who would remember me. For I think life would be without meaning, if there is no reason to live life for, and if there is no one to touch, and no one to remember a life well lived.
Am at: My room, staring at the view
Listening to: Kirk Franklin's Now Behold the Lamb
When I die, just in case I die tomorrow, I hope at least, that there are people who have been genuinely touched by me in my short life at my wake. I hope that, at least, there would be people missing me when I am not there. There would be people mourning my death, and celebrating the life that I have lived, and the life that they still have. I hope that I would at least have touched their lives in some inexplicable, intangible way, short though it may be, and that they were better off knowing me, that my presence in their lives made a difference. I would hope for that, at least. I won't pretend that I can change the world, for who am I? What I do want, is that I live my life as I believe I should, that I did not crumble under pressure, that I stood by my principles and beliefs, or at least tried as hard as I could have, under circumstances, and that I die beholden to nothing, and to no one, with a clear conscience. That I tried my best to be a good person, a good daughter, a good sister, and a good friend. If I marry and have children, a good mother, and a good wife, as well. And that I left a legacy behind, for those who know me, and who would remember me. For I think life would be without meaning, if there is no reason to live life for, and if there is no one to touch, and no one to remember a life well lived.
Am at: My room, staring at the view
Listening to: Kirk Franklin's Now Behold the Lamb
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