I'm appreciating how the Lord guides me through Scripture and the writings of the saints. St. Raphael Arnaiz Baron (Spanish Trappist, 1911-1938) wrote these points on suffering in his spiritual writings. As a person who suffers high levels of pain--mostly nerve pain radiating from the spine into the head and various other parts of the body from a rare condition, Adhesive Arachnoidits, caused by an error in a 1987 spine surgery--I have much to learn about the spiritual aspects of suffering and pain.
I know that the saints traditionally have suffered heroically as well as stoically. Yet, in some of their more transparent letters, diaries, or in comments to friends who later shared what the saints mentioned, we sometimes also have very human responses in times of intense suffering. However, what St. Raphael Baron suggests, I consider to be a standard of the ideal, at least in what of the saints has been passed down over the centuries in hagiographical accounts of a transcendence over pain itself, or of being exultant and joyful in suffering.
Accounts by others writing of the saints lives and legends, or to some extent from saints' own diaries express their evolution of transcendent suffering. we read and hear of their often miraculous joy and overcoming of pain even when being drawn and quartered, or burned at the stake, or guillotined or while being shot by a firing squad, or also in drawn-out physical sufferings when there was little medication to alleviate pain. We also have examples of saints who suffered horrible persecutions of emotional and mental torment, even spiritual torments and doubts, but suffered in silence or with a type of surreal joy and triumph.
Thus, the suggestions and encouragement to hide our sufferings, seems to follow the earlier traditions of saintly suffering--in following Christ's example of all manner of suffering and pain even unto death on the cross. Christ--the Son of God Himself, an innocent victim sacrificed, beaten and exposed nearly naked, in humiliation and shame, tortured and ridiculed, abandoned by the bulk of his followers, then crucified amidst common criminals with cheering and jeering humanity looking on.
So writes St. Raphael Baron on how such as I and other suffering servants, victim souls of Jesus, ought deal with our suffering and pain. It is a worthy summation, even if yet of a time period of more stoicism than I certainly possess with the suffering heading to the 36-year-mark. Yet I find his suggestions encouraging and worthy in the ideal. And I plan to seriously try to at least point always to that of finding Jesus in pain, in all suffering, no matter the type or form or degree or level or longevity the suffering may be. I am going to present what the saint writes, separated as single statements to better digest and consider the various points.
- "To the contrary, blessed Jesus, let us carry interiorly, and without anyone knowing it, this divine secret, the secret you entrust to the souls who love you best, this particle of your cross, your thirst, your thorns."
- "Let us hide in the remotest corner of the earth our tears, our pains, our sorrows."
- "Don't let us fill the world with sorrowful groaning nor let the tiniest bit of our affliction reach anyone...."
- "Let us hide ourselves with Christ to make him a sharer, him alone, with what, strictly speaking, is his business alone: the secret of the cross."
- "Let us learn, once and for all, as we meditate on his life, passion and death, that there is only one way of coming to him: the way of the holy cross."
I love the ideal of the above listing and the points made. I would love to implement each one! Yet I am long-experienced in suffering of high-levels of pain, consistently and increasingly in the degree of pain this body must bear. For the most part, the first point is quite possible to effect, other than I certainly cannot pull it off without anyone knowing it--the secret of the particle of Christ's cross that He entrusts to me. And I know of others who cannot keep it secret--simply due to the fact that some aspects of pain and suffering are visible to others in various ways.
In me, it can be the white and ashen pallor, the sunken red eyes, the dark circles under the eyes, the posture when trying to stand or walk, the difficulty in sitting normally or standing in one place without needing to move about due to erupting pain. For others it can be a white cane, or other external apparatus necessary--such as prosthetic limbs. But even if there is not physical pain screaming throughout every fiber of one's body, there are other types of tremendous suffering that are visible in one way or another. Mental illness or mental disability can carry with it visible signs; abuse victims come to exhibit tell-tale signs, also. Drug addicts and alcoholics, gamblers--sooner or later there are external evidences of their sufferings.
So it is not always feasible or even possible to hide our tears, pains, and sorrows in the remotest corners of our earth. Nor, in some instances, ought we do so, especially the vulnerable. Those who suffer abuse at the hands of others are in our times encouraged to come forward to get help in confronting the abusers, to bring justice to bear, and to become freed of abusive situations. They also are encouraged to seek therapy in order to heal from the damage such suffering causes. So in the case of St. Bernadette who was a young girl when it was deemed best to send her away to a convent in which the Mother Superior resented her and mistreated her emotionally and somewhat physically, as well, the advice to hide her suffering would not seem best or even imitable for youth to follow.
However, for adults--for those on the spiritual path--to learn detachment and holy indifference and to suffer in silence various insults and slights for the benefit of learning detachment and to discern what needs to be countered and what is better left borne in silence is a matter left to the individual and his or her spiritual director, and through prayer and guidance from the Holy Trinity. (My late spiritual father was horrified that when early on as a Catholic, I took a great deal of emotional and mental abuse to the point of suffering even greater physical pain, from the first priest who was my spiritual advisor and gave private instruction for my confirmation as a Catholic.
Yes, the Spiritual Da, when he found out, said that I should have been out the door and away from that priest with the first instance of abuse! He then told me what St. Teresa of Avila so wisely wrote nearly 500 years ago: No spiritual director is better than a bad one. When my Da asked me why I would allow someone to be so cruel and abusive to me, I said that after reading some lives of the saints, I thought this was how new Catholics were treated to see if we had what it takes to become Catholics! Seriously--I had a view based upon some terrible ordeals that Catholics of the past were put through by their own!
Even now, at times, I wonder if I ought accept or keep trying to turn abusive situations from abusive persons into lessons for me in detachment or such as to turn what is negative into a positive good. But I am an adult, and I do not have young children in my care--who unfortunately did see when they were younger, the nastiness of some Catholics, first-hand. Even now, one knows of a person who has been nastily obsessed with negative attacks and innuendos of derision. But with that one, I learn more by turning it to good in my spiritual progression, as well as to better see the pitfalls exhibited that I wish to avoid.
As to St. Raphael Baron's third point--not to let our groaning fill the world with sorrows or allow even one bit of our affliction reach anyone--I find good in trying to not complain of pain and suffering, to not go on to others, such as when I am asked how I am feeling. I answer honestly, but I try to keep it brief. However, I do not do well with keeping it brief when the pain is intense, for I have little control of mind over the body and that includes keeping my answer short--or actually, any conversation or correspondence short. When the pain is extra intense, I really ought not answer if a call comes nor write in response to emails.
But in general, I find this third point to be very good advice and usually do-able, with certain exceptions such as extreme pain. Or, of course, we must tell our doctors or those who may be caring for the suffering person, about the suffering. This holds true for those who are in therapy or trying to receive help for inner issues that they are receiving help in delving into their innermost areas of afflicted mind and heart or psyche just the same as a physically pained person must be verbal and open with a pain doctor or an emergency room doctor or general practitioner.
I definitely have been working on this third point of the saint, and it is definitely a work-in-progress for me to discipline the mind over body and over habit of not being brief in answering how I am feeling or in using writing and on rare occasion, talking, to distract myself from pain. People do not need to hear more than a simple response from me, for as I've told those who know me, chronic pain is a broken record, or can be, and this pain is not going to go away but will gradually worsen. (I'm sure if the Lord has a plan for a miraculous remission of pain, I can then inform people of that grace. In the meantime, I am realistic--but still am very much wanting to implement this third point.)
Now, these last two points--the statements fourth and fifth--are the pith and treasure, in my view, of what is most possible and wise to put into full practice not only for those who suffer whatever temporary or permanent afflictions and trials--but especially for hermits, as these two points deal with being hidden in Christ!
As to the fourth--that the suffering--the secret of the Cross is His business alone, I've already commented that we do have to be practical and share with doctors and therapists, with police or whomever needs to know in a temporal sense, of some form of suffering, trial, pain, or abuse. And I think it can be very good and even holy to share the good of the secret of the cross in the spiritual facets, especially to share with others how Jesus knows us and loves us, and in Him we can share anything at all for He understands fully and has experienced deeply all types of suffering and pain either physically or mystically or both. He is the One to Whom we should always go with our suffering, and then He can help us in ways that no temporal being can.
But we also must share the secret of the cross--of suffering or also of the benefit of the cross of Christ in a spiritual and Christian sense, with others who suffer. And this may be done with discernment, of course, in learning to sense the best time and circumstances as well as the receptivity or not of those with whom we are sharing. And we also consider the ages and the experiential background of those with whom we share the secret of the cross--and if in that sharing, we also may share some portion of our own secret of the cross of which we mostly or even always share that secret with and in Jesus--God alone--solus Deus!
As for St. Raphael Baron's fifth point about suffering and how we deal with it temporally and spiritually, there is nothing I can find exception with, for no matter the time period or the situation or the ages of persons suffering, or the types of suffering involved, or the places and circumstances--there is only one way to come to Jesus, and that is the way of the holy cross. In life, we all will suffer to one degree or another, at some time or other, in whatever types and means and ways of suffering possible physically, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually.
And what the Virgin Mary told me years ago as she melded into union with her Son, above me where I lay at the foot of the altar: You will find Him in your pain! This is truth, directly from the mother of the Son of God and in union with Him, very much so, always. Thus, no matter the suffering, know that we will find Jesus Himself in the suffering we experience, and in finding Him in the pain, we are more united in Christ than otherwise. This reality is the joy of the cross.
God bless His Real Presence in us!
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