An Approach to Suffering in Pastoral Care Part 1: Addressing the Pain

In life, most of us spend some time with a serious illness, which often becomes what ends our time on earth. A person who is seriously ill experiences three interrelated challenges: pain, loss of purpose, and concern about their relationship with God. When it comes to giving pastoral care, a gentle discussion about three topics can be of great help to them: (1) possible reasons for pain, (2) ways to discover purpose, and (3) receiving consolation from God’s goodness. Part 1 of this article, below, will discuss reasons for pain.

Illness brings with it physical pain, which can be overwhelming. With both original sin and personal sin in view, pain is shown to be a kind of punishment. Yet, it is also something to suffer on behalf of others, and it is even something that can unite us to God. Having some understanding of these reasons for pain can do much to help a patient endure the discomfort.

First, pain is a kind of general punishment on humanity, since it is a consequence of original sin. Suffering can easily feel personally punitive as well, so it is best not to use this point to start a conversation with someone who is suffering. A pastoral minister is generally not in a position to judge whether someone is suffering due to their own sins. However, in some situations (such as obesity or liver disease caused by lack of self-care), it can help to explain that pain can serve as a guide to what is virtuous.¹

It would be good to start first by asking about the patient’s life-story, and eventually helping them identify what they could do differently. Additionally, it also may happen that a patient presses the issue of why we suffer (as I have experienced in hospital ministry). In this case, I would be sure to include punishment in the explanation of suffering, as we learn from Adam and Eve, yet not in a way that is personally accusatory towards the patient.

So, we may indeed suffer as a personal correction, but we also may suffer for the sake of others—and this can happen in several ways. For one, it may be in order to offer the pain on behalf of someone else. Now, it is generally helpful to offer our pain to God, that is, to bring our experience to Him through thoughts and words of prayer, since He is allowing the experience for some good reason. Since that reason is often mysterious to us, we may also think of someone or something else to offer our pain for as an intercessory prayer. In any case, it is essential to keep an inner dialogue with God, since He is the only fulfillment of our desire for healing and peace. Focusing on Him, we have certain hope to receive that fulfillment in Heaven.

Secondly, suffering also works on behalf of others as an invitation for them to act lovingly.² A patient’s experience of pain and sense of loss is used by God to draw others to love that person. In turn, this draws both people to Himself, the very Source of Love. Additionally, if we suffer well (i.e., by being patient), we give good witness to other people of two essential truths: the reality of hope and the worth of life—and this witness can also lead them toward God.

Lastly, it is often comforting when our own illness can be used to alleviate that of others. For example, by serving to produce medical knowledge through study, or being incorporated into licit experimental treatments.

Pain can also work to redirect our souls toward God.³ This can come about through forced detachment from the goods of this world, goods which include our own well-being. Detachment is painful, but it also invites us to look beyond ourselves to God, Who is of supreme value, and ask an essential question: is the eternal life of Heaven worth accepting the loss of health on earth? For someone with a serious illness, it may be helpful to hint at this question by referencing the infinite goodness and beauty of God and how He uses suffering to bring us to Himself.

This brings us to how suffering can unite us to God in Jesus Christ. It’s important for a patient to know that the Lord Jesus took on our human suffering, even all of the abandonment, humiliation, and torture of His Passion and death, in order to bring us to the Father. Even more, He identifies Himself with us as we suffer today, as well as in every moment of history! He intimates this remarkable truth in a key parable that describes the Last Judgment; that at the end of time, the Lord will tell the assembly of nations:

I was hungry…I was thirsty…a stranger…naked…ill…in prison…whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.⁴

In this parable, Jesus is speaking as the Universal King before the people of all history. Thus, His reference to “brothers” is a reference to every one of us when we suffer. It can be a significant comfort to know that, in this way, suffering identifies us with Christ Himself. And this identification is especially deep for Catholics, since we are graced to receive Christ’s very Body in the Holy Eucharist. Our bodies become part of His—in a real, spiritual way—so that He knows our own suffering firsthand.

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

¹Dr. Paul Chaloux, “Why All People Suffer”, (Manchester, New Hampshire: Sophia Institute, 2021), pgs. 21-27.

²Chaloux, “Why All People Suffer”, pgs. 39-49

³Ibid., pgs. 29-37

⁴Matthew 25:35-36, 40