SUFFERING.— A philosophico-moral problem, psychologically difficult, is posed by the fact that suffering accompanies the life of everyone. Christian Revelation has given to the “problem of pain” the only answer that calms the spirit and even sublimates it in the most bitter suffering. God does not delight in the death and sufferings of men (Wis 1:13), indeed, in a plan of providence that was frustrated by sin, He had decreed that man should pass from earthly life to heavenly life without undergoing dissolution; but on account of sin, death entered the world, along with all its painful consequences (Rom 5:12).
The sufferings that afflict humanity are physical (bodily ailments, from indigence, poverty, hunger and thirst, to the most atrocious diseases, up to death) and moral (temptations, aridity, anxiety, misunderstandings, adversities, up to hatred and persecution). There are all kinds of ways and degrees. And beyond individual sufferings, there are collective and social ones, such as wars, famines, and other public calamities.
Suffering is a natural consequence of human limitation, subject to the disintegrating action of the environment and the attacks of others’ freedoms, and in itself has no supernatural value. Yet for man it is a call, a stimulus, a moral tonic, as already demonstrated by the moralists of classical antiquity, especially the Stoics (cf. Cicero, *Tusculan Disputations*, II. I-III). For souls vivified by sanctifying Grace, every suffering acquires a value that is both meritorious and impetratory, drawing down divine favors, and also satisfactory and propitiatory, by which it expiates faults and averts from oneself and one’s loved ones many merited punishments. In moral life, suffering is a preservative against many sins, fostering detachment from creatures, and a light that better reveals the various values of life. Generally speaking, all else being equal, suffering endured with love and resignation increases the merit of actions and unites one more intimately to God, rendering the sufferer more like the Divine Savior, who willed to redeem the human race from guilt through suffering and the Cross.
The Catholic tradition has always recognized these values of suffering. Already St. Augustine observed: “From every side God calls men by the scourge of tribulation” (*Enarr. in Ps.* 102:8) and noted that suffering has different value according to the manner in which it is endured: “Not what one suffers, but how one suffers” (*De Civit. Dei*, I, 8). St. Francis de Sales affirmed that “Our Lord often does us a greater good through trials and afflictions than through happiness and consolations” (*Letter* 814). Indeed, through the test of suffering, virtue is affirmed and refined (1 Pt 1:7), gaining consistency like clay in the fire (St. Augustine, *In Ps.* 75:16). Hence St. Paul already congratulated the Philippians that God had granted them the grace “not only to believe in Christ, but to suffer for Him” (Phil 1:29).
In ascetical theology, the generous acceptance of suffering is of great value: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Mt 5:5). Suffering enters into God’s salvific designs, not only as an element of expiation, but to manifest the works of God (Jn 9:3) and to show that all evils are directed toward a good. Thus was the illness of Lazarus, ordained by Providence so that “the glory of God might be manifested” (Jn 11:4). The faithful must therefore accept suffering with a spirit of faith: without rebellion, but with resignation. Beyond this fundamental duty, there are degrees of greater perfection, when suffering is accepted with explicit conformity to the divine will, in imitation of the Savior, who declared that “he who does not bear his cross cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14:27). The highest degree is reached when not only is suffering accepted with full dedication, but it is embraced with joy for love of the Lord.
All the saints therefore loved suffering and exalted II. Ignatius of Loyola called “illness a gift no less than health” (*Constitutions of the Society of Jesus*, Part 3, Ch. 1, no. 17), and St. Jane de Chantal frankly affirmed: “For me I shall count it a great grace that not a single day of my life was without suffering; indeed, not a single hour, so that I might do penance for the many sins I commit every day” (*Letter* 310). In *The Imitation of Christ*, the Christian doctrine on suffering is summarized in the chapter *De regia via sanctae crucis* (II, 12).