Pope John Paul II
Apostolic Letter "Salvifici Doloris"
(On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering)
I. Introduction
1. Declaring the power of salvific suffering, the apostle Paul says:
"In my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for
the sake of his body, that is, the church" [1].
These words seem to be found at the end of the long road that winds
through the suffering which forms part of the history of man and which
is illuminated by the word of God. These words have as it were the
value of a final discovery, which is accompanied by joy. For this
reason St. Paul writes: "Now I rejoice in my suffering for your sake"
[2]. The joy comes from the discovery of the meaning of suffering,
and this discovery, even if it is most personally shared in by Paul of
Tarsus who wrote these words, is at the same time valid for others.
The apostle shares his own discovery and rejoices in it because of all
those whom it can help -- just as it helped him -- to understand the
salvific meaning of suffering.
2. The theme of suffering -- precisely under the aspect of this
salvific meaning -- seems to fit profoundly into the context of the
holy year of the redemption as an extraordinary jubilee of the church.
And this circumstance too clearly favors the attention it deserves
during this period. Independently of this fact, it is a universal
theme that accompanies man at every point on earth: In a certain sense
it coexists with him in the world and thus demands to be constantly
reconsidered. Even though Paul, in the Letter to the Romans, wrote
that "the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until
now" [3], even though man knows and is close to the sufferings of the
animal world, nevertheless what we express by the word "suffering"
seems to be particularly essential to the nature of man. It is as
deep as man himself, precisely because it manifests in its own way
that depth which is proper to man and in its own way surpasses it.
Suffering seems to belong to man's transcendence: It is one of those
points in which man is in a certain sense "destined" to go beyond
himself, and he is called to this in a mysterious way.
3. The theme of suffering in a special way demands to be faced in
the context of the holy year of the redemption and this is so, in the
first place, because the redemption was accomplished through the cross
of Christ, that is, through his suffering. And at the same time,
during the holy year of the redemption we recall the truth expressed
in the encyclical Redemptor Hominis (Redeemer of Man): In Christ
"every man becomes the way for the church" [4]. IT can be said that
man in a special fashion becomes the way for the church when suffering
enters his life. This happens, as we know, at different moments in
life, it takes place in different ways, it assumes different
dimensions; nevertheless, in whatever form, suffering seems to be, and
is, almost inseparable from man's earthly existence.
Assuming then that throughout his earthly life man walks in one
manner or another on the long path of suffering, it is precisely on
this path that the church at all times -- and perhaps especially
during the holy year of the redemption -- should meet man. Born of
the mystery of the redemption in the cross of Christ, the church has
to try to meet man in a special way on the path of his suffering. In
this meeting man "becomes the way for the church," and this way is one
of the most important ones.
4. This is the origin also of the present reflection, precisely in
the year of the redemption: a meditation on suffering. Human
suffering evokes compassion; it also evokes respect and in its own way
it intimidates. For in suffering is contained the greatness of a
specific mystery. This special respect for every form of human
suffering must be set at the beginning of what will be expressed here
later by the deepest need of the heart and also by the deep imperative
of faith. About the theme of suffering these two reasons seem to draw
particularly close to each other and to become one: The need of the
heart commands us to overcome fear, and the imperative of faith -formulated, for example in the words of St. Paul quoted at the
beginning -- provides the content, in the name of which and by virtue
of which we dare to touch what appears in every man so intangible: For
man, in his suffering, remains an intangible mystery.
II. The World of Human Suffering
5. Even though in its subjective dimension, as a personal fact
contained within man's concrete and unrepeatable interior, suffering
seems almost inexpressible and not transferable, perhaps at the same
time nothing else requires as much as does suffering, in its
"objective reality," to be dealt with, meditated upon and conceived
as an explicit problem; and that therefore basic questions be asked
about it and the answers sought. It is evident that it is not a
question here merely of giving a description of suffering. There are
other criteria which go beyond the sphere of description and which we
must introduce when we wish to penetrate the world of human suffering.
Medicine, as the science and also the art of healing, discovers in
the vast field of human sufferings the best known area, the one
identified with greater precision and relatively more counterbalanced
by the methods of "reaction" (that is, the methods of therapy).
Nonetheless, this is only one area. The field of human suffering is
much wider, more varied and multidimensional. Man suffers in
different ways, ways not always considered by medicine, not even in
its most advanced specializations. Suffering is something which is
still wider than sickness, more complex and at the same time still
more deeply rooted in humanity itself. A certain idea of this problem
comes to us from the distinction between physical suffering and moral
suffering. This distinction is based upon the double dimension of the
human being and indicates the bodily and spiritual element as the
immediate or direct subject of suffering. Insofar as the words
"suffering" and "pain" can, up to a certain degree, be used as
synonyms, physical suffering is present when "the body is hurting" in
some way, whereas moral suffering is "pain of the soul." In fact, it
is a question of pain of a spiritual nature and not only of the
"psychological" dimension of pain which accompanies both moral and
physical suffering. The vastness and many forms of moral suffering
are certainly no less in number than the forms of physical suffering.
But at the same time, moral suffering seems as it were less identified
and less reachable by therapy.
6. Sacred scripture is a great book about suffering. Let us quote
from the books of the Old Testament a few examples of situations which
bear the signs of suffering and above all moral suffering: the danger
of death [5], the death of one's own children [6] and especially the
death of the firstborn and only son [7]; and then too: the lack of
offspring [8], nostalgia for the homeland [9], persecution and
hostility of the environment [10], mockery and scorn of the one who
suffers [11], loneliness and abandonment [12]; and again: the remorse
of conscience [13], the difficulty of understanding why the wicked
prosper and the just suffer [14], the unfaithfulness and ingratitude
of friends and neighbors [15]; and finally: the misfortunes of one's
own nation [16].
In treating the human person as a psychological and physical
"whole," the Old Testament often links "moral" sufferings with the
pain of specific parts of the body: the bones [17], kidneys [18],
liver [19], viscera [20], heart [21]. In fact one cannot deny that
moral sufferings have a "physical" or somatic element, and that they
are often reflected in the state of the entire organism.
7. As we see from the examples quoted, we find in sacred scripture
an extensive list of variously painful situations for man. This
varied list certainly does not exhaust all that has been said and
constantly repeated on the theme of suffering by the book of the
history of man (this is rather an "unwritten book") and even more by
the book of the history of humanity, read through the history of every
human individual.
It can be said that man suffers whenever he experiences any kind of
evil. In the vocabulary of the Old Testament, suffering and evil are
identified with each other. In fact, that vocabulary did not have a
specific word to indicate "suffering." Thus it defined as "evil"
everything that was suffering [22]. Only the Greek language, and
together with it the New Testament (and the Greek translation of the
Old Testament), use ...
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