Love Is the Answer to the Question of Suffering

Love is the answer to the question of suffering
All around us, people are in pain. Emotional, physical, relational, spiritual—whatever its source, the pain feels the same. Even the most riches people, highly spiritual men, sincere Church goers, devoted believers are in pain and experience suffering. Robert Schroeder in his book entitled “John Paul and the Meaning of Suffering” wrote that none of us can avoid the sting of suffering. Regardless of our age, race, religion, occupation, and IQ, suffering is always there following us around like black cloud that rains down misery. It hurts us and the one we love. Our late pope John Paul II would also affirm this   saying that “ suffering is a condition of our membership in the human race. It co-exists with man in the world”. Indeed suffering is an inevitable reality that accompanies one upon his birth. It is like a shadow that which is embedded in our being, always following us. We cannot escape suffering, because to live is to suffer, according to the l;ate pope. No wonder many of us, from different walks of life, are asking why is this so? Why suffer and die? Why experience pain? Why we can’t live without being hurt? Why do others suffer much and other less? If God is so good, why I hurt so badly? Why? Why?
In the movie about John Paul II which entitled “Have No Fear,” the late pope beautifully answered this universal human question with so much affirmation and optimism. According to him, “Love is the answer to the question of suffering.” Certainly, John Paul is also a victim of this human condition. He knew what it is to suffer intensely. In his entire life, he’d been trying to counter all the things that had happened to him, even to the point of paralyzing him. In fact, death took his entire family. He worked in Poland’s stone quarries. Three years in his pontificate, he was shot by his assassin in Rome. Later in his life, he came to experience Parkinson’s disease. Yet, he endured all of these.. According to...