SENTINEL WATCH June 13, 2005 Issue

DOES TO LIVE MEAN TO SUFFER?

MERRAN WILLIAMS

Natural Disasters that kill and injure millions. Children orphaned when their parents die of AIDS. People forced to spend their lives in slavery. Sometimes it seems as if suffering is more natural to the human condition than health and joy. But suffering is not something we should accept as an inevitable part of life, to be embraced, or even just endured.

Earlier this year, I went on an early-morning walk up a mountain with my sister and her fiance. It was a beautiful autumn day, and we enjoyed the sunshine, saw several kangaroos, and finally reached the top to see a panoramic view of Canberra city. But as we sat catching our breath, my sister's fiance became very unwell. He wasn't able to walk back down the mountain, so I went by myself to get the car.

Starting back, I thought how wrong it was to be in agony on such a perfect morning (or in fact, on any morning!). This was shortly after the illness and subsequent death of Pope John Paul II, and I recalled remarks made by some commentators at the time, that suffering should be welcomed as a way of understanding the pain Jesus went through on the cross. That it is sometimes part of God's will for us.