The problem of suffering
Suffering, an inescapable burden of human existence but also a factor of possible personal growth, is “censored”, rejected as useless, indeed opposed as an evil, always and in every way to be avoided. […] More than anything else, it is the problem of suffering which challenges faith and puts it to the test. […]
When the prevailing tendency is to value life only to the extent that it brings pleasure and well-being, suffering seems like an unbearable setback, something from which one must be freed at all costs.
Excerpts from: ST. JOHN PAUL II.
Evangelium vitæ, 25/3/1995
Christ teaches us the dignity of suffering
[In the light of the Cross] suffering becomes sacred. Before – and even for those who forget that they are Christians – suffering seemed pure misfortune, pure inferiority, more worthy of contempt and disgust than deserving of understanding, compassion and love. It was the suffering Christ who gave man’s pain a superhuman character, an object of respect, care and worship […].
There is still more. Christ not only shows the dignity of suffering; Christ launches a call to suffering. This voice, children and brethren, is the most mysterious and the most beneficial that has ever crossed the stage of human life. Christ invites suffering to emerge from its hopeless uselessness, to be, together with His own, a positive source of good, a source not only of the most sublime virtues – from patience to heroism and wisdom – but also of the expiatory, redemptive and beatifying capacity proper to the Cross of Christ.
Excerpts from: ST. PAUL VI.
Speech, 27/3/1964
When suffering becomes fruitful
While it is true that human suffering always remains a great mystery, it nevertheless receives meaning, or rather fruitfulness, from the Cross of Jesus. […]
Know that the suffering of the just and the innocent is particularly precious in the eyes of the Lord, more so than that of the sinner; the latter, in fact, suffers only for himself, for self-expiation, while the innocent makes suffering a capital of redemption for others.
Excerpts from ST. JOHN PAUL II.
Speech, 24/9/1979
The fruitfulness of the Church depends on the cross
All the fruitfulness of the Church and of the Holy See depends on the Cross of Christ. Otherwise, it is only appearance, if not worse. […]
For example, a priest who personally carries a heavy cross because of his ministry, yet every day goes to the office and tries to do his job to the best of his ability with love and faith, this priest participates and contributes to the fruitfulness of the Church. Similarly, a father or mother of a family who lives in a difficult situation at home, with a child who is cause for concern or a sick parent, and continues his or her work with commitment, that man or woman are fruitful with the fruitfulness of Mary and of the Church.
Excerpts from: LEO XIV.
Homily, 9/6/2025
The redeeming power of suffering
Christ is the only one who is truly sinless and, what is more, who cannot sin. He is therefore the One – the only One – who absolutely does not deserve suffering. And yet He is also the one who accepted it most fully and decisively, accepted it voluntarily and with love. […]
Thus, through Christ, the meaning of suffering changes radically. It is no longer enough to see it as punishment for sins. It is necessary to discover in it the redemptive and salvific power of love.
Excerpts from: ST. JOHN PAUL II.
General Audience, 9/11/1988
Crucified with Christ
He is also a Victim and for us since He substitutes Himself for sinful man. Now the exhortation of the Apostle, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,” requires that all Christians should possess, as far as is humanly possible, the same dispositions as those which the divine Redeemer had when He offered Himself in sacrifice: that is to say, they should in a humble attitude of mind, pay adoration, honour, praise and thanksgiving to the supreme majesty of God. Moreover, it means that they must assume to some extent the character of a victim, that they deny themselves as the Gospel commands, that freely and of their own accord they do penance and that each detests and satisfies for his sins. It means, in a word, that we must all undergo with Christ a mystical death on the cross so that we can apply to ourselves the words of St. Paul, “With Christ I am nailed to the cross.”
Excerpt from: PIUS XII.
Mediator Dei, 20/11/1947
A particle of the treasure of Redemption
It is suffering, more than anything else, which clears the way for the grace which transforms human souls. Suffering, more than anything else, makes present in the history of humanity the powers of the Redemption. […]
Those who share in the sufferings of Christ preserve in their own sufferings a very special particle of the infinite treasure of the world’s Redemption, and can share this treasure with others.
Excerpts from: ST. JOHN PAUL II.
Salvifici doloris, 11/2/1984
Partakers in the expiation
The expiatory passion of Christ is renewed and in a manner continued and fulfilled in His mystical body, which is the Church. For, to use once more the words of St. Augustine, “Christ suffered whatever it behoved Him to suffer; now nothing is wanting of the measure of the sufferings. Therefore the sufferings were fulfilled, but in the Head; there were yet remaining the sufferings of Christ in His Body.” […]
Rightly, therefore, does Christ, still suffering in His Mystical Body, desire to have us partakers of His expiation, and this is also demanded by our intimate union with Him, for since we are “the Body of Christ and members of member” (1 Cor 12:27), whatever the Head suffers, all the members must suffer with it.
Excerpts from: PIUS XI.
Miserentissimus Redemptor, 8/5/1928
All can share in the Redemption
In bringing about the Redemption through suffering, Christ has also raised human suffering to the level of the Redemption. Thus each man, in his suffering, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ. […]
Christ does not explain in the abstract the reasons for suffering, but before all else He says: “Follow me!” Come! Take part through your suffering in this work of saving the world, a salvation achieved through my suffering! Through my Cross. Gradually, as the individual takes up his cross, spiritually uniting himself to the Cross of Christ, the salvific meaning of suffering is revealed before him.
Excerpts from: ST. JOHN PAUL II.
Salvifici doloris, 11/2/1984
Inserting minor hardships into Christ’s great suffering
As for prayer, so for suffering: the history of the Church is very rich in witnesses who spent themselves for others without reserve, at the cost of harsh suffering. The greater the hope that enlivens us, the greater is the ability within us to suffer for the love of truth and good, joyfully offering up the minor and major daily hardships and inserting them into Christ’s great “com-passion”.
Excerpt from BENEDICT XVI.
Homily, 6/2/2008
