Christ, man of suffering. Christ’s suffering may be gauged quantitatively, and is enormous according to this yardstick. However, the supreme value of Christ’s pain is rooted above all in its quality. It has quality based on three pillars: Jesus is the perfect man, who experiences and lives suffering with perfection; Jesus is the Son of God, and thus it is God himself who suffers in him; Jesus is the Redeemer of the world and of humanity, who takes on the pain and transforms it through God’s salvific power. This is why in Christ’s life, especially in his Passion and Death, pain is a historical but also a mystical reality. It is solidarity with people and at the same time the judgement and justification of the sinner; that is, the mystery of salvation. Saint Luke’s account of the Passion takes us by the hand to the prayerful contemplation of Christ in the different episodes of this mystery of pain. Let us contemplate Jesus’ silent pain, which he manifests at the Last Supper when faced with Judas’ betrayal (Lk 22:22), or during the inopportune discussion of the disciples on ranks and first places (Lk 22:24ff). Let us look at his intense, debilitating pain in Gethsemane, to the point of sweating blood due to his loneliness, due to his having been forsaken by men and by his very Father, due to the burden of the world’s sin. Let us contemplate his ineffable pain following Peter’s denial of his love, the dignified pain in the face of love mocked by the soldiers with blasphemy and baseness, the noble pain of the innocent man condemned by the chiefs of the people and by the ruling power, the holy and pure pain due to the dishonor inflicted upon him when he is believed to be a criminal, the physical pain of the nails that pierce his hands and feet, and the ultimate pain of his agony. Christ, "a man of pain and accustomed to suffering." Christ, who in his body and soul collects all pain and sorrow, as in an earthen bowl.

P. Antonio Izqeuirdo, L.C., © Dicastery for the Clergy

Pain, a hidden treasure. People today are afraid of pain. They want to eliminate it, to uproot it from human and even animal life. It would appear as if pain were purely evil, an abominable evil, a black hole in the great human universe that devours anything that enters it. It is as if the great battle of contemporary history were being fought against pain rather than for people. We must reflect on this, because at times we do succeed in destroying pain, but in such a way that we also destroy something of the human being. Parents don’t want their children to suffer and so they give them everything, they let them have their own way always. But with this attitude, aren’t they damaging them in the long run? Elderly people and the terminally ill are given medicines to alleviate their pain, which cause them to lose consciousness to a large extent. Aren’t they thus being deprived of their freedom and nobility of spirit before pain? I’m not in favor of suffering as such, and it should be alleviated as much as possible, but I am in favor of the human assumption of pain. There are frequent cases of young people and adults who, when faced with failure at school or at work, when faced with disappointment in love or a corruption scandal, prefer to put an end to their life rather than coping with the painful situation. Why? Because the treasure hidden in pain is unknown, it has not been discovered. For humans, it is a hidden treasure of humanization. For Christians, it is a hidden treasure of assimilation of Christ’s lifestyle, of its redeeming value. John Paul II was bold enough to speak of the Gospel of pain: of the suffering of Christ, together with Christ. It is the suffering of the Christian. We are called to live out this Gospel in the small sorrows of life, we are called to preach it with sincerity and love.k.

P. Antonio Izqeuirdo, L.C., © Dicastery for the Clergy