In checking up on things with Charlene’s cause, I have come across another little girl with a similar story: Venerable Alexia. At the age of 14 she was diagnosed with a terribly painful and debilitating bone tumor in her spine. It would send her down a path of 10 months of painful suffering, 4 surgeries and ultimately her death. She was said to pray, “Jesus, I want you to cure me, I want to well. But if you don’t want it, I want what you want Jesus.” She eventually was completely paralyisized by the time she died at only 14.
Hearing their stories, as tragic as they are inspiring, we are faced with the question: “why suffering?” What is the point? Suffering can really only be understood by faith, with the light of God’s revelation. It’s a result of man’s sin and the disorder that comes about. The catechism tells us that there is no one simple answer to suffering, but that only the whole of the Christian faith can answer and each part of the Christian faith answers suffering.
Jesus helps us enter into the mystery of suffering only when we can understand the sublimity of divine love.
Why did Jesus have to suffer? The answer is, he didn’t have to suffer. However, Thomas Aquinas says that it is the most suitable. Because in Jesus suffering many things that concurred other than just deliverance from sin. We know by how much God loves us and we are stirred to love him in return and this is the perfection of our salvation. Jesus shows us an example of how to suffer. He shows us to not sin again and finally it shows man’s dignity that as man was by death would die, so through a man die would defeat death.
Luke’s gospel shows us Jesus at prayer. So all the suffering is accepted in relation to faith. It is then only in Luke that we have the great verses of forgiveness where we excounter the mystery of suffering when we understand the sublimity of God’s love for man. Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.