Pain, Suffering, To Suffer

See also: Trials, Misfortune, Unhappy, Curse.

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The moral and spiritual suffering of Jesus during the agony in Gathhsemane: "My Soul is sorrowful even to death". James Tissot, Brooklyn Museum.

God, in the Garden of Eden, had not given Adam and Eve suffering. Pain is a consequence of original sin. It can be a great source of Grace for those who endure it with patience and love of God.

In "The Gospel as it was revealed to me"

• You do not remove pain, oh holy friendship, for pain was the destiny of an incarnate God and it may be the destiny of man. But you make this pain sweet in its bitterness.
• "It is in suffering that we gain Peace and all Grace for ourselves and for the Neighbor", Explanations of the Virgin Mary.
• Is pain not always an evil? - No, friend, it is an evil from the human point of view.
• Knowing how to suffer for the Christ.
• The compared destinies of two sons Jesus and Judas and the parallel suffering of the two mothers. "The pains of mothers save their children, don't you know?..."
• Pain obtains Graces - The suffering of the mothers of saints.
• The ruins of the sons can be repaired by the mothers. And you will do it. Your pain, because it is good, is not sterile but fruitful. Through your suffering the Soul you love will be saved. You expunge for him, and you expunge with such a right intention that you are worthy of mercy for your son. He will return to God.
• It is not God who gives you this pain, but man. God allows it to test you.
• Guilty man realizes that in comparison with one who is without sin, his guilt stands out more, with his vices, and out of spite he avenges himself by making the good suffer. (Bartholomew)
• Even if pain comes to you, for pain is sanctification, it is the myrrh that preserves from the putrefaction of the flesh, you will always have within you the certainty that I love you, and that I love you even in this pain, and the Peace that comes from my love.
• There will always be pain and death on the Earth. Even the most pure suffer and will suffer, and even they will suffer for all. The propitiatory hosts for the Lord. - But why? I don't understand... - "Many things are not understood on Earth. At least know To Believe that these are things willed by perfect Love.
• Pain is not a punishment when one knows how to Preach and use it with justice. Pain is like a priesthood, Simon. A priesthood open to all. A priesthood that gives great power over the Heart of God. And great merit.
• Judas disputes that Jesus can really suffer: "Can a God suffer? He is above pain. The Father's love is for Him like... like an intoxicating wine. And an intoxicating wine is for Him the conviction that his Actions... are the salvation of the world. And then... can He have the physical reactions that we, humble men, have?"
• "I do not ask God not to suffer, but to know how to suffer".
• Mary: Her Spiritual Childbirth Torment: She says: "But, believe me, my daughter, there has never been and there never will be childbirth torment like my childbirth as a martyr through a spiritual Maternity accomplished on the hardest of beds: that of my cross, at the foot of the gibbet of my Son who was dying.
  
  What mother is forced to give birth in such a way, and to mix the torment of her tearing womb at hearing the groan of her Creature in agony with the internal tearing to overcome the horror of having to say: "I love you. Come to me who am your Mother" to the murderers of her Son (...)?"
• All suffering is soothed on the breast of Mary: Elizabeth tells her: "Let me place my hands on your breast." "Oh! if in your suffering you always asked me that!" (...) "And all pain calms and all hope blossoms and all Grace flows for those who come to me and lay their head on my breast."        
• Our Mother from Heaven ceases not to pray for us: "I pray for you. Remember it. The blessedness of being in Heaven, living in the radiance of God, does not make me forget my sons who suffer on earth. And I pray. The whole Heaven prays, for Heaven loves. Heaven is living charity. And Charity has pity on you.
  But, if there were only me, it would already be a sufficient prayer for the needs of those who hope in God, since I never cease to pray for you all: saints and depraved, to give joy to the saints, to give the wicked the repentance that saves."
  "Come, come, oh sons of my pain. I await you at the foot of the Cross to grant you Grace."      

In other works of Maria Valtorta

Autobiography

Degrees of suffering and degrees of faith:

"In lukewarm beings, illness provokes irritation and whining. These are the kinds of patients who, even when they have only one ailment and not even very painful, do nothing but complain about it and consider themselves the most unfortunate of all. They grumble Against God who has taken away their health. Even when they reach eighty years and more they are still saying: "Still, it's not fair that now that I am about to die I must suffer. He could have spared me a little longer." According to them it would rather be fair that others suffer from their tender [[Children, Childhood|childhood], moreover, they say, those who have always suffered are used to it... They grumble Against the Neighbor who never gives them sufficient care. A door left ajar is an assault on their precious health. A glass of Water offered a little late is a certain proof of wickedness. A slight bump Against their... so fragile person is a crime. A word uttered to try to encourage them is an unforgivable proof that we do not take their sufferings seriously. If one smiles at them it is mockery, if one cries one has no pity for their melancholy, if one speaks one aggravates their pain, if one is silent one offends them by our indifference. They grumble Against the members of their families, Against the nurses, the doctors... and grumble bitterly Against the priests who advise them to be patient. They grumble Against domestic animals. They grumble about the heat, the cold, the flies, the handkerchief that fell, the coffee that is too hot or not hot enough, the newspaper that was folded badly... They grumble and grumble like battery-powered machines. They live grumbling, made bitter by their own bitterness towards everyone, more than by the evil itself that strikes them. These are the people from whom there is the least to hope. Even less than from an atheist who has not yet known suffering...

In someone fervent, illness arouses a feeling of resignation. He did not desire it. And if he had been given the chance to choose, he would never have wanted it. But since God sends it to him... with a Face covered with tears he declares: "Oh God! Lord, too bad! If you spared me this cross, my God, it would be better. But since you sent it to me I keep it." And he keeps it. He preserves it. But he does not embrace it nor carry it either. He just stays there, with this weight on his back... and that's all. It is Jesus who, from time to time, must lift this weight from their shoulders to allow them to move forward...

In those who love God, illness brings joy. The reaction of surprise ceases after a few moments and does not return. The flesh suffers. But it alone suffers. Everything else is in joy. These beings have asked to suffer. They asked for it with the most ardent supplications, of an intensity not even known by those who are healthy and when they ask for their health to be preserved. As soon as they see God approaching in the distance bearing the cross, they go to meet Him, they exult, they kiss His holy hands that offer the cross and embrace the cross as the dearest thing. And they do not keep it without doing anything. After holding it close to their Heart, they put it on their shoulders and start walking singing... God goes before them and they follow Him. They put their steps in the Master's steps, not worrying if the path becomes steeper, thorny, rocky, not worrying if the brambles scratch their skin, the stones scrape their feet, the sun beats down and aggravates their wounds, the Water wets their clothes, the wind chills them, the night makes walking more difficult... They know that at the end of the path the sun will return! They know that at the end the steep path will turn into a smooth sea of glass and Fire leading to the city of the Lamb, that on this sea of splendor they will eternally sing the song of Moses and the Lamb. They know all this and they do not hand over the cross to the charitable Simon of Cyrene who would like to help them. They say: "No, Jesus, holy Love. One day you bore it for me. It is now my turn to bear it for my brothers. If your cross has opened a wound on me, where it weighs, and the blood flows from my hurt humerus, look, Jesus, the miracle worked by my poor blood on the hard wood; it makes flowers of Good arise!" Yes, the cross blooms when it is loved. Yes, the cross becomes a wing that generously carries us away, a wing as fast as an angel's wing..."("Autobiography" – pages 386 to 388)

Notebooks

• Catechesis of April 23, 1943: "Suffer, Maria, and tell the just to suffer also to supply for the second martyrdom that the Father does not want me to fulfill".
• Catechesis of February 18, 1947: "Remember also that man's life serves to expiate the evil he commits. In the best case — that is when no sin is committed knowingly —, it always serves as expiation or, if you prefer, as suffering consequent to original sin, God whom my Sacrifice and the reintegration into Grace that I have obtained for you have thus abounded to lessen; therefore, everyone is obliged to suffer to regain this degree of justice, given freely, which your first parents possessed with life".

In fundamental Christian texts

In the Bible

• But God also corrects man by the suffering that throws him upon a bed.
• Ascension of Elijah.
• Accept all that may happen to you and be patient when suffering comes. Do not forget that gold is tested by Fire; those who please God must also pass through the crucible of humiliation.

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church

• From the beginning, Jesus associated his Disciples with his life; he shared with them his Mission, his joy and his sufferings.
• Illness and suffering have always been among the most serious problems that test human life.