A Witness to Suffering

In his keynote address at “The Boundaries of the Human” conference in Rome two weeks ago, Cardinal Raymond Burke spoke about Blessed John Paul II and how his life and teachings provide a model for Christian suffering.

Blessed John Paul II lost his mother at a young age, and her passing was followed by the deaths of both his father and his dearest brother. He lost the people who were closest to him, and he also experienced the degradation of Polish culture and freedom during periods of Nazi occupation and Communism.

Blessed John Paul II is extraordinary…His own life is a testimony to suffering embraced in order to love more.

Despite experiencing such darkness early in his life, Blessed John Paul II emerged as a joyful disciple of Christ, full of a deep love for all of humanity. This carried him through his pontificate, which held its own burdens. As he recovered from an attempt on his life, Blessed John Paul II responded with a smiling forgiveness.  And when he reached old age, he courageously faced the world even though sickness and death were upon him.

Blessed John Paul II fully embraced his afflictions, and he gave the Church a beautiful gift through his witness to suffering.

In an Apostolic Letter written after his recovery from the 1981 assassination attempt, Blessed John Paul II addressed the Christian meaning of human suffering. He wrote that through suffering, man shares in the redemptive power of the Passion and death of Christ. Suffering is love, and in it man finds his vocation: 

Suffering as it were contains a special call to the virtue which man must exercise on his own part. And this is the virtue of perseverance in bearing whatever disturbs and causes harm. In doing this, the individual unleashes hope, which maintains in him the conviction that suffering will not get the better of him, that it will not deprive him of his dignity as a human being, a dignity linked to awareness of the meaning of life.

Suffering works to “unleash love in the human person,” Blessed John Paul II wrote, and when Christians suffer, they do so in union with the Church. They are united with the Blessed Mother, and saints like Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Ignatius of Loyola and all of those who have been sanctified through their suffering.

Let’s follow Blessed John Paul II’s example and embrace our crosses during this penitential season of Lent, as we meditate upon Christ’s Passion and anticipate His resurrection.