Paradox of Suffering

This morning in our chapel I read about yesterday's saint, Elizabeth of the Trinity, beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1984.  She was born and died (1880-1906) just a few years after Therese of Lisieux.  There lives overlapped and they were both French, but it's unlikely they ever knew or each other.  Like Therese her brief life was one of total self-giving in the embrace of suffering in union with Jesus as her spouse.

Unlike Therese, she desired to enter a Carmelite convent as a teen, but was forcibly delayed from entering until she was 21 by her mother who hoped she'd get married.  She endured this imposition with graceful obedience, remaining firm in her intention.  Of this she wrote, "Even in the midst of the world, one can listen to God in the silence of a heart that wants only to be his."

Two years later, in 1903, she developed adrenal insufficiency, or Addison's disease, for which there was no effective treatment and which led to a complexity of painful conditions.  Like Therese in her struggle with terminal illness, she was directed to write her thoughts, and in these writings and letters we have a valuable account of her spirituality.  As her illness progressed, she wrote to her mother: "The Father has predestined me to be conformed to his crucified Son.  My Spouse wishes me to be the surrogate human being in whom he can suffer again for the glory of the Father and the salvation of the Church.  This thought makes e so happy."  Although she continued to express joy in her sufferings, like Therese and Mother Teresa, she was also afflicted with feelings of desolation and abandonment and the prospect of death approached.  She died on November 9, 1906, the same year my mother was born.

In these two parallel lives of Elizabeth and Therese there is a pattern of youthful and energetic coming to terms with the most basic paradox of human life: the meaning of suffering. This is a question that is utter nonsense to most people -- in all ages,not just today.  And yet the flight from suffering is a headlong plunge into denial of reality, motivated by fear that often leads to division, blame, violence, and ultimately willfully causing the death one seeks to avoid.  These lives provide an alternate vision -- perhaps the only alternate vision -- and are worth pondering.