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JUNE 19, 2008
Comfort the sorrowful
Part five of a series on the Spiritual Works of Mercy
Handel’s Messiah leads us through a whole range of human emotions as it beautifully proclaims the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ.
Of the 56 excerpts from the Bible set to music by George Frideric Handel in the Messiah, one of the most moving is the text of Isaiah 40:1-5. Based on the King James translation, it begins with the words, “Comfort ye, Comfort ye, my people.” After the first London performance of the Messiah, Lord Kinnoul congratulated Handel on the “entertainment” he had offered. Handel retorted, “My Lord, I should be sorry if I only entertain them; I wish to make them better.”
Indeed, Handel has done far more than entertain through this musical masterpiece which, according to Patrick Kavanaugh (“The Music of Angels,” p. 80), “has brought more people into the Christian faith than any other piece of music in history.” What Handel does is what the fourth Work of Mercy counsels us to do: “comfort the sorrowing.”
Can sorrow and suffering have meaning?
In a society like ours that has seen such astounding technological and medical advances, the experience of suffering or even the mere threat of it deeply disturbs our emotional equilibrium, raising questions and doubts about the meaning of life. In our “quick-fix” world, when you can’t fix it, you panic. Even for those with the gift of faith, suffering tests our soul but ultimately we can find meaning within it, by gazing on the Cross of Christ. Without faith, finding meaning in the face of suffering is almost always impossible. St. Paul writes (1 Cor 1:18), “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
Jesus addresses the problem of suffering in the second Beatitude (Mt 5:3), “Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Jesus promises that those who mourn will find comfort in the Kingdom of His Father. He assures us that He will bind us more closely with Himself in times of sorrow.
Even more eloquent than His words were the tears that He shed at the death of His friend Lazarus and the comfort that He extended to Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha. His comfort overcame the sense of desolation and isolation that sorrow entails. As Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis writes in “Fire of Mercy” (p. 191), “God does not console us by abolishing our solitude but by entering it and sharing it. A promise of this kind of consolation is the pledge of a summons to a Presence that can radically transform mourning from within. The consolation meant by Christ is that of the Father who throws open his arms to his children.”
Avoiding sorrow does not work
Those who have found meaning and comfort in the Lord are able, in turn, to comfort others. St. Paul sees this as a magnificent part of God’s loving providence (2 Cor 1:3-5), “Praised be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation! He comforts us in all our afflictions and thus enables us to comfort those who are in trouble, with the same consolation we have received from Him. As we have shared much in the suffering of Christ, so through Christ do we share abundantly in His consolation.”
Those who have known the consolation of God know that suffering cannot be entirely avoided. As Pope Benedict XVI writes in his encyclical on hope (#37), “We can try to limit suffering, to fight against it, but we cannot eliminate it. It is when we attempt to avoid suffering by withdrawing from anything that might involve hurt, when we try to spare ourselves the effort and pain of pursuing truth, love, and goodness, that we drift into a life of emptiness, in which there may be almost no pain, but the dark sensation of meaninglessness and abandonment is all the greater. It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing throughout it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love.”
Only those who have discovered meaning in their own sorrow know how to comfort the sorrowful. They know from the inside, not from some ivory tower, the questions that sorrow arouses in the heart and then the amazing way Christ resolves those questions, not always with answers for the mind but often with fire for the heart.
Innocent suffering or justly deserved?
When it comes to suffering, one size does not fit all. There is a great difference between the suffering of innocent children and the punishment that fits a crime. In our age, millions of innocents die of abortion, acts of terrorism, and other acts of horrific violence. On the other hand, rationalizations abound that justify violence on the false pretext of “a right to choose,” “the will of a vengeful God,” or some other cleverly concocted lie. There is a great need for mercy, but not at the expense of truth or justice.
The Book of Job, in the Old Testament, explores the problem of innocent suffering. Job’s comforters fail in their mission because they are sure that his suffering is the result of his own sin; they are convinced that a good God would never allow for innocent suffering. Of course, Jesus’ death on the Cross contradicts such worldly logic, as do the deaths of innocent children and many others who could in no way be blamed for their pain and sorrow.
Today, we face the opposite problem of Job’s comforters, namely an unwillingness to admit that some suffering is justly deserved, that the weight of guilt is a healthy response of the conscience to wrong choices that harm others and offend God. Comfort cannot be given at the expense of the truth. In this regard, John Paul II wrote in His encyclical on the “Gospel of Life” (#58), “The acceptance of abortion in the popular mind, in behavior and even in law itself, is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming more and more incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake. Given such a grave situation, we need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception… no word has the power to change the reality of things.”
Whether the suffering is the result of guilt or not, every sufferer needs the mercy and comfort of God. In the case of the guilty, such comfort can only come after a conversion of heart. To comfort those in sorrow due to their own guilt, then, we must learn to admonish sinners and to speak the truth in love.
Copyright 2008 The Catholic Sun.
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