The Inner Side of Love
Only a few short years before he became pope, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had the opportunity to spend some time at the Benedictine Abbey of Monte Cassino where, over the course of three days, he was interviewed by journalist Peter Seewald. Over the course of their conversations, Seewald raises the question of suffering: ‘"Suffering,’" John Paul II believes, ‘is a part of the mystery of being human.’ Why is this?”
This is a big question. Seewald is leaning into one of the biggest problems that every person has to address in their life - the problem of pain. The problem of grief. The problem of suffering.
Why do I have to suffer?
Why does someone I love have to suffer?
Why do people who do bad things seem to skate through life while people who try to live honestly continually get knocked down by one hardship after another?
How would you respond to the question of suffering? I think for many of us, there can be a great temptation to try to push suffering aside. We can try to obscure suffering or do away with it entirely. We live in a hyper-sterilized culture where so often suffering is filtered through social media or news agencies in a way that tries to give context and commentary to death or destruction or violence. It is rare to simply witness a devastatingly painful event and simply exist within the horror of the moment without receiving some kind of prior warning before a video plays or hearing an endless stream of “what should happen next” opinions after the clip has ended.
Even people who have some modicum of faith may fall into the vortex of platitudes as they try to comfort those in pain with empty words about “God’s will” that may do more harm than good.
Sitting in pain is hard. It takes a tremendous amount of effort and discipline to lean into that experience without giving into an urge to automatically attribute meaning to an event or to flee as far as possible from what is making us uncomfortable.
So how did Ratzinger respond? His response is somewhat surprising. Well - if someone is unfamiliar with his work or his close friendship with John Paul II, it may be surprising.
Cardinal Ratzinger: Today what people have in view is eliminating suffering from the world. For the individual, that means avoiding pain and suffering in whatever way. Yet we must also see that it is in this very way that the world becomes very hard and very cold. Pain is part of being human. Anyone who really wanted to get rid of suffering would have to get rid of love before anything else, because there can be no love without suffering, because it always demands an element of self-sacrifice, because, given temperamental differences and the drama of situations, it will always bring with it renunciation and pain.
When we know that the way of love–this exodus, this going out of oneself–is the true way by which man becomes human, then we also understand that suffering is the process through which we mature. Anyone who has inwardly accepted suffering becomes more mature and more understanding of others, becomes more human. Anyone who has consistently avoided suffering does not understand other people; he becomes hard and selfish.
Love itself is a passion, something we endure. In love experience first a happiness, a general feeling of happiness.
Yet on the other hand, I am taken out of my comfortable tranquility and have to let myself be reshaped. If we say that suffering is the inner side of love, we then also understand it is so important to learn how to suffer–and why, conversely, the avoidance of suffering renders someone unfit to cope with life. He would be left with an existential emptiness, which could then only be combined with bitterness, with rejection and no longer with any inner acceptance or progress toward maturity.
God and the World: A Conversation with Peter Seewald (Ignatius Press, 2002), by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger,
This brief response in no way can completely answer the problem of pain, but I do think that it is an amazing start. Ratzinger recognizes our human urge to avoid or eliminate pain from our lives. This pain, however, should not be so easily tossed aside or obscured. As Ratzinger notes, “Pain is part of being human.” Whether we like it or not, suffering exists in our world and there is absolutely nothing that anyone on this planet can do to eliminate it from our shared journey on this rock hurtling through space. Pain can be alleviated through medication, proper counseling, and even time, but no matter how hard we try, it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Some religious traditions attempt to do away with pain through mental exercises and changes in perspective, but I think that if we listen to what Ratzinger is saying to us, this approach is actually doing more harm than good. We are human beings. If pain is a part of being human, as Ratzinger claims, to pretend that it doesn’t exist is to do away with part of who we are. This does not mean that we should idolize pain or turn into some kind of masochistic cult. Instead, to recognize pain as part of being human simply means that we are corporeal beings - we are not angels or beings that are pure spirit - we have bodies, and as such, we live in a world where pain exists. So what do we do with this?
Ratzinger sees pain as the “inner side of love” and if we eliminate suffering we in turn eliminate our capacity to love. There exists an intimate connection between suffering and loving. Why? Because both love and suffering are deeply transformative. When someone undergoes a difficult time in their life it changes them. It is hard to undergo suffering and not come out on the other side a different person. In the same way, when someone is In the midst of a truly loving relationship they are being transformed and changed in ways that maybe they aren’t entirely aware of at the time. Our hearts soften as we grow in patience. We learn new ways to sacrifice and widen our hearts when new challenges arise. We embrace humility through the gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) proddings of a loved one who challenges us to grow rather than stay within the stagnant world of pride. These moments of love make us better...they make us more human. When we are touched by true love it can’t help but change us.
Ratzinger’s response shows that in suffering, love exists and in love, suffering exists. If we want to love well we need to learn how to suffer well… and this can be hard.
In both love and suffering we have a choice to make - what are we going to do in the midst of this moment? One helpful piece of advice that was given to me is to practice following a three step process that can eventually become a natural part of how we engage both loving and suffering. This approach isn’t really meant for those kinds of quick painful moments that come from stubbing our toes or scraping our knees; instead, if we find ourselves in the midst of great sorrow, depression, and pain, these words may provide a realistic way of living in those very human experiences of suffering.
Accept. Offer. Act.
When we find ourselves in the midst of suffering or love, we first need to accept the situation as it stands. This is a moment of suffering. Accept it as it is. Be present in that suffering. We can’t change anything about this experience within this moment, but we can accept that it exists and that I exist in it.
Second, offer this moment to God in the same way that Christ offered his greatest agony to his Father... “into your hands I commend my spirit!” In this step we give everything that we are and everything that we experience in the pain, grief, sadness, and suffering as an offering to our Father.
Finally, we act. Once we are able to truly exist within a moment of suffering and offer it to our Father, we can then begin to see the meaning of this time of pain and address it in a way that can help us mature in love and ultimately become more human.
If you find yourself struggling with an incredibly deep depression or a painful experience, rather than run from it and pretend that it isn’t real, this is an opportunity to accept, offer, and act within that moment.
Again, all of this is not a complete answer to the question of suffering… but I have found both Ratzinger’s words as well as this three step approach as an incredible aid of how to suffer well...and in turn, how to love well.