Suffering is an essential part of life: through the mother’s suffering in labor we were born; through the suffering to endure many different emotions and thoughts in adolescence we have grown. Without suffering or pain, we will be more fragile and partial. The disease called leprosy is nothing but the inability to feel pain, so that leper doesn’t know until his part is cut out.
John Paul 2 says that suffering teaches us to become true human beings who are intimately connected to one another by sharing their grief, anguish and pain with another human being. We have experienced what it means to suffer together which is nothing but learning compassion literally meaning suffering together. We might have been upset or angry to see the reoccurred tragedy on the campus. But this would be a way to reveal what we are afraid of or how our faith means to us. Furthermore, we may have to thank God to feel the deep pain and sorrow and to recognize fellow human beings’ suffering because we have the ability to feel pain and suffering.
I have a very special friend. She is my age. We grew up together at the same parish. Later we found each other at the convent and at the seminary. I felt very blessed to have a friend who dedicated the whole life to Jesus like me. She made her final vow in 2005 and two years later she was diagnosed stomach cancer in the stage between three and four. When I prostrated on the floor of the cathedral for the priestly ordination, I asked God to save her life. She successfully finished the first chemotherapy and a year and half later the second chemo and urgent surgery. Now she has to have the third chemo, but she is so fragile that she couldn’t handle it.
I often call her in Korea. Our usual conversation is pleasant, but we certainly talk enough about suffering and death. One day she said, “I have not thought that the suffering I endure is painful or like carrying the cross although I see it very hard sometimes. I asked myself why or how come and realized that I don’t stand before Jesus’ cross; rather, I have been hung up next to Jesus. So I would be able to see in a way Jesus sees.” It struck me and I became numb because I am like you, complaining and grumbling, asking God to remove or lessen my cross. But I never think of being hung up with my Lord.
Stripped of its leaves and giving every appearance of having died, the tree’s life tenaciously sprouts forth anew. And so Jesus assures us that no matter what horrendous suffering we endure, life will rise again in us through his power. The power of God is capable of finding hope where hope no longer exists, and a way where the way is impossible. It is a lesson from the tree.
My friend ends her last e-mail with the words from Prophet Habakkuk.
“For though the fig tree blossom not, nor fruit be on the vines.
Though the yield of the olive fail and the terraces produce no nourishment,
Though the flocks disappear from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls,
Yet will I rejoice in the Lord and exult in my saving God.
GOD, my Lord, is my strength;
He makes my feet swift as those of hinds and enables me to go upon the heights”
(Ha. 3:17-19)