Tag: testimony

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Good pain widens possibilities. Bad pain just hurts.

Suffering is unavoidable. But sometimes it can lead to healing.

US Catholic /Alice Camille/ Published September 7, 2021

Eighty years ago C. S. Lewis wrote The Problem of Pain. The title makes me laugh. Does anyone need to be convinced that pain is a problem? What Lewis was after, of course, is the solution to pain. A dedicated Christian apologist, he sought an explanation for suffering that respects both God’s reputation for goodness and the searing reality of our pain. If God is good, why is there so much suffering? If God can make a world free from suffering by willing it, why the cross?

Some theological conundrums are theoretical. How many angels dance on a pinhead? Whatever answer you posit to such a question, it doesn’t change what you decide to eat for lunch. But when it comes to suffering, we all have skin in the game. It matters what we say about a God who can do anything and still chooses to hang on a cross.

The church maintains that suffering can be salvific. Suffering acts like a spiritual salve on the world’s wounds. Suffering, patiently embraced on Earth, can even rescue souls from anguish on the other side, as spiritual masters have taught. As St. Paul frames it, we can unite our pain to that of Christ on the cross, and the two become one in the great work of divine rescue. This is not to say the crucifixion isn’t sufficient to cover the sin of the world. Your friend’s chemotherapy and my sister’s depression aren’t events that humanity has been in aching need of. Yet when we unite our pain mystically with the pain of Jesus, our tears are given an exalted meaning and purpose.

Because truly: What else are we going to do with all this agony? Still, in seeking a theological compartment that dignifies the legacy of pain, we unwittingly open a door to eccentric practices that seem to glorify pain itself. Saints for centuries donned hair shirts, slept in stress positions, whipped themselves, or stayed in abusive marriages hoping to save their errant spouses from condemnation. Most of us today are convinced this sort of elective suffering isn’t at all equivalent to Jesus submitting to the cross. Is there a line we can draw between suffering that saves and pain that’s just plain unnecessary?

A year ago I broke my shoulder. It was a funny break—not funny ha ha but funny strange. During an unspectacular stumble on a footpath, I put out my right arm to break the fall, the shoulder taking the impact. Pain radiated through to my fingers and down my side. In struggling to my feet, the arm was unresponsive. A passerby tied my scarf into a sling for me. The useless arm didn’t hurt, but the pain in my back was like a madman with a knife riding an elevator up and down my spine, stabbing randomly and gleefully without pity. It wasn’t good.ADVERTISEMENT

At urgent care the doctor reviewed the X-ray and offered the grateful opinion that the arm wasn’t broken. “Sometimes these things just resolve themselves,” he said encouragingly. “You should probably see a specialist to be sure.” This was unfortunately hard to do during a spiking pandemic, with hospitals overflowing into tents and medical personnel at a premium. Also, I was losing my insurance in two weeks, relocating to another state. If the arm wasn’t broken, it would have to wait.

It took 10 weeks to arrive at the new address, find a doctor taking new patients, and snare an appointment. And then it took another month to be referred to a specialist, who took a second X-ray and again pronounced the arm unbroken. Four months past the fall, I could raise the arm through most of its range, and it didn’t really hurt. But I hurt—constantly. I moved through waves of pain by day and was drilled with pain all night. The specialist ordered an MRI “to see what may be going on.” Acquiring that appointment took another month.

It matters what we say about a God who can do anything and still chooses to hang on a cross.

So it was five months into a season of anguish when the doctor’s assistant phoned. “Don’t move your arm, and don’t lift anything,” she advised. “Your shoulder’s broken.” The MRI revealed a most clever fracture, so perfectly aligned an X-ray couldn’t detect it: a break of the humerus bone which, as I said, isn’t as funny as it sounds. Part of the bone was still attached to the tendon so that, with each movement, the fragments pulled apart like accordion bellows. This created the silent music of my suffering.

Secured by a body harness, I now endured right-sided immobility to allow the bone time to mend. When released from captivity, the arm hung from the shoulder like an oddly curved fish. Then came physical therapy to restore function. With it I learned the vital distinctions between good pain and bad pain. The five months spent dragging around a broken shoulder had been good for nothing. The bone hadn’t knit together, and the suffering had been wasted. With the proper exercises I felt muscle burn, which was good pain. Stabbing twinges were not. Soreness and aches meant progress; sparkling or drilling pain, not so much. The anguish before physical therapy hadn’t been purposeful. The pain of therapy was salvific. It was giving my arm back to me. Good pain, I came to understand, tends toward strength, healing, and restoration. It widens possibilities. Bad pain signals increased injury and harm. It narrows our focus and darkens hope.

Here’s a cold fact: None of us escapes suffering. When it comes to our woundedness, movement will hurt whether we’re rehabbing the injury or not. So why not invest our pain in the direction of hope? This is what makes Good Friday so good: The sacrifice of Jesus doesn’t pour into a grave but rather opens the door of the tomb. In the same way, no one undergoes surgery or difficult medical treatments for the sake of suffering but in hope of restoring health or extending life.

Useful pain and sacrifice tend toward discernible good. People aren’t named martyrs for throwing themselves in harm’s way. A martyr’s passion promotes some higher purpose. We become living martyrs of charity if we downsize our lifestyles to tithe a portion of our earnings to the cause of justice. Such a sacrifice gives life. By contrast, remaining in a toxic situation, even out of love or loyalty, is an unhealthy and destructive sacrifice.

Why not invest our pain in the direction of hope?

When we lose someone to death, we suffer tremendously. We can use that sadness, perhaps by reaching out to others in a grief support group. Isolating and focusing on the crater left by a loved one’s absence, meanwhile, is an unsalvific use of our pain. Hurting is inevitable either way. Isn’t it better to redeem this inescapable investment in grief?

Sickness and death are unavoidable. We’ll all walk through this bitter valley of shadows with people we love. The reason the church identifies a sacrament to anoint the sick is because sickness has something to reveal to us. Some will turn illness into a testimony of what they believe life is about. They’ll spend their most mortal hours forgiving and seeking forgiveness, demonstrating compassion and caring, witnessing to their confidence in God. This kind of suffering rescues not only those who are sick but potentially everyone around them.

If there is glory in suffering, if we can speak of such things as glorified wounds, they’re the kind that testify to something beyond the pain endured. Since no one has a choice about whether to suffer, isn’t it a good idea to learn how to carry our pain well? 

This article also appears in the September 2021 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 86, No. 9, pages 47-49). Click here to subscribe to the magazine.

Image: Shutterstock.com/Antonio Guillem

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Sermon Notes – July 11, 2021 – There is Hope

“There is Hope”

Father Peter Fitzgibbons

 July 10 – 11, 2021

Gospel:  Mark 6:7-13

I came here 18 years ago.  God bless you for doing that penance on Earth.  You are gaining in purgatory here on Earth.  I remember an article in the local paper about a gentleman from Misenheimer.  Unfortunately, he received a cancer diagnosis.  This was in the paper, so it’s public knowledge.  This man decided not to go with conventional treatment, but with alternative medicine like living in a yurt in Misenheimer.  And, as they say in medicine, he did not have an optimal outcome and died shortly thereafter.  I don’t know what he was clinging to, but he had some hope and the knowledge that he wouldn’t have to go through the rigors of chemo, radiation, and surgery.  If the diagnosis was dire, maybe this was one thing that unconventional medicine could do for him.  At one time, shark cartilage was all the rage for people with cancer.  It didn’t help the patient or the shark one bit.  But, it gave cancer patients a glimmer of hope…there was something there, and they grasped at it.  When we are afraid and hurt so much, we want something to heal us. 

There is so much evil, anger, and strife in the world.  We blame our co-dependent behavior on mental illness.  But, we don’t have to be like that.  None of us have to be like we were. . .wicked.  A lot of Protestant sects are dying out.  They try to make each other more relevant by legitimizing mental illness which is a diagnosis for gender dysphoria.  They are co-signing these behaviors.  Our good Lord told us that “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  Follow Him, and you will find peace in your soul.  Our Lord offers hope.  This hope is not theoretical or intuitive, but a certainty.  The hope He offers us is a promise.  We have a program that our Lord has given us, and we know exactly what we must do.  If we do what He asks us to do, these things will happen.

God’s promise has been demonstrated over history.  For example, if you take your medicine, you will see positive results.  If I take a tiny, little pill in the morning, my blood pressure is fine all day.  This is a demonstrable result.  If I don’t take that pill for a long time, bad things will happen to me.  Our Lord gives us hope to enable us to carry our crosses day-by-day.  Some crosses are predominate and have always been with us, while others change over time with old age and infirmities.   Whatever crosses we bear, whether it is gender dysphoria or addiction, the good Lord gives us the grace to triumph over them. This is not a wish, and it’s not a hope as the world sees hope.  It is a certainty that if you do what Christ says, you will get what He promises. 

Your crosses are many, and I know they are heavy.  Our faith gives us not only a hope, but a way of making that hope a reality, bringing peace to our soul, making sense of the sufferings we endure, and giving us the strength to bear whatever cross our good Lord has asked us to bear for love of Him, for our salvation, and the salvation of others.  This is the faith.  This is the Church and the deposit of faith that gives us hope.  There is no other way.  If you look at history, everyone who has tried something different has failed.   In the words of G.K. Chesterton, “It’s not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting, but that it has been found difficult and left untried.” 

You have hope, and you are demonstrating that hope by your presence here today.  You come for God’s grace through the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass so that you can carry your daily crosses and be good followers of Christ.  When you demonstrate your hope, you are teaching others, because they see it in you.   It’s a day-to-day thing.  Give that hope to someone else. 

As a young man, I read the biographies of the saints and how their lives were transformed.  I don’t read fiction. . .I’m a little old for fairytales.  I like to read about what people did so that I can learn from them.  Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founded the Jesuit Order.  Now, I was trained by the Dominicans, so this is a stretch for me to say this.  What did he do?  Saint Ignatius was a professional soldier…a hit man.  He was a hired gun.  Give him a lot of money and, although he wasn’t Italian, he would put the whack on people especially because of their religion.  And, look at what happened to him. He had a great conversion. The head of the gestapo in Rome, Italy, was Herbert Kappler.  He put the whack on people. . . a lot.  After the war, a priest visited him, and he became Catholic.  Dr. Bernard Nathanson performed over 10,000 abortions.  He also converted to Catholicism after a priest visited him. 

My correspondence is different from most.  I received a letter in the mail the other day from the local, state-run, residential community known as the Albemarle Correction Facility, a medium security prison that I visit.  This one man, who didn’t know me, reached out to me.  The envelope was addressed to “Priest Peter Fitzgibbons.”  Close enough…at least he’s getting there.  He told me that he had grown up Catholic, but had fallen off the wagon a bit. . .or a lot.  He’s a “state employee” now and eats state-issued fish.  Ugh!  If you’re out in the parking lot when they are cooking fish, and the wind is just right, you know it.  I’m a hospital chaplain, so smells don’t usually bother me, but that one does.  Anyhow, this inmate wants to come back to the Church.  He’s had enough.  There are a couple of other inmates that I’ve brought in to the Faith.  They also were at a point where they’d had enough and reached out to me in hope.  You know who touched them in prison?  It wasn’t me…I’m only there once a month.  Other inmates who’d had enough and came back to Jesus.  They saw hope realized in other people. 

Our testimony to the world is the faith that we have been given, the faith that we have been called to hand down, and the faith that we teach by example.  We are living testimonies of the power of Christ by carrying our cross every day.  We may fall down, but we have the strength to get back up and carry on.  This is the hope and reality we can pass on by our actions.  It is how we teach and how we give hope to others.  We can give other people hope with their struggles just as you found hope with the crosses you carry.  But, we can’t if we are angry and bitter.  What’s wrong with you?  Jesus was a man of peace.  Our good Lord loves them and wants to transform them.  You are not your sins.  You are not your crosses.  You are children of God.  God has given us the truth, the means, and the infallible teaching of how to achieve the daily transformation we need in order to get to heaven.  Sometimes, these transformations are amazingly quick, and at other times they are sustaining.  “Well, Father you have been a priest for a long time.”  Yes.  “I see you haven’t changed much.”  But, can you imagine what I’d be like without my prayers every day, my confessions, and daily Mass?  Can you imagine what I’d be like?  I’d rather not…You cannot unsee some things.  Our transformation is always happening in us and won’t be complete until we die. 

How will you apply this message to your life?  Renew your hope in Him so that you can teach others by your example. 

You can read all of Father Fitzgibbons’ sermons by going to https://annunciationcatholicalbemarle.com/ and clicking on “Blog” then “Categories” and then “Sermon Notes.”  From a cell phone, click on “Blog” then “Menu” and then “Categories” (located at the end of page).  There is also a search box if you are looking for a specific topic.

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Daily Devotion – How Others See Us

“Because they are lazy, therefore they cry out, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’” – Exodus 5:8 NASB

When Moses asked to let the Israelites go, Pharaoh evaluated this request in light of his own experience and worldview. To him, Moses’ explanation seemed absurd. He could not conceive that the God of the Hebrews could be real and make this request. The only possible explanation was that the Israelites simply did not want to work.

Pharaoh had his own agenda. He was counting on the Israelites to provide the labor for his designs. Moses’ request conflicted with his agenda. And he didn’t believe the explanation.

Many people react in similar ways to God’s Word. The Bible reminds us that the things of the Spirit are folly in the natural. People can’t “understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14 ESV).

As you ponder the way some people respond to the Gospel, remember that this is a spiritual issue, discerned in the Spirit in ways people in the natural may never understand. They are likely to project onto us their own expectations and worldview. Or they may judge us or question our motives.

Remember these facts as you interact with people in the world. Remember how foolish and unrealistic your beliefs and actions might seem.

Ask God to give you discernment about your life and testimony. Pray for His anointing. Seek to apply His principles. Pray for those you know who need the Lord. Pray that He might open their eyes that they might see.

Prayer

Father, I commit these people to You: ________. Open their eyes that they might see the truth. Use me. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Extended Reading

Exodus 5

//Inspiration Ministeries//