I Don’t Understand Suffering

‘Suffering’ by Dariuszka

What Else Is There In Suffering?

02 March – This is the pastoral text of Fr Reuter: It’s Lent. When you are afraid of pain, suffering and death, you are kneeling beside Our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was afraid too. The lovely image by Dariuszka is accompanied by a verse from Emily Dickinson, one of my favorites, and the very first line defines to me what is pain and suffering: ‘My life closed twice before its close.’ She shot the photo so that the face is unrecognized, to signify anyone. The choice of subject is excellent – the female form. I would now put this one beside Michelangelo’s Pieta.

So there are things that Lent has been trying to lend me for the last 60 years or so but I have refused to learn, or have continued to ignore. I did not realize that when I’m in pain, someone has been there and showed me the way to take it – take it like a man, take it like a mortal man. Take it to where it will lead you – if you are to search successfully for the meaning of your life. If you are to be happy.

If you give pain, that is the meaning of life that you give to others, that is the meaning of life that others give to you. If you give love and others give you pain, your love will take the pain out of pain and help you grow more.