The Mystery of Suffering Read online

  “How grateful we should be to have van Zeller’s book back in print. He was a brilliant writer whose spiritual reflections reflect a life of monastic contemplation. The Mystery of Suffering is not meant merely to be read but to be pondered.”

  Lawrence S. Cunningham

  John A. O’Brien Professor of Theology (Emeritus)

  University of Notre Dame

  “Hubert van Zeller embedded in my soul not just the poetry, but the reality that there can be no eternal beatitude without suffering, no crown without the cross. With his frank, practical, even workmanlike Benedictine spirituality, van Zeller showed me the operation of grace even in my pious failures. May this new, attractive edition of the book do for you what it did for me.”

  Al Kresta

  President of Ave Maria Radio

  “While suffering has the potential to turn us inward, it also has the potential to lead us closer to Christ. Hubert van Zeller’s spiritual classic provides us with a timeless framework on how to seek for and find Christ in the midst of our suffering.”

  Deacon Joel and Lisa Schmidt

  Speakers and writers at ThePracticingCatholic.com

  Previously published as Suffering in Other Words: A Presentation for Beginners (Springfield, IL: Templegate Publishers, 1964).

  Nihil Obstat: Ralph Russell, O.S.B.

  Censor Deputatus

  Imprimatur: B. C. Butler, Abb. Pres.

  September 23, 1963

  Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture passages have been taken from The Holy Bible: Douay Rheims Version. Published in 1899, it is in public domain.

  Verses marked “NASB” are from the New American Standard Bible. Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

  Verses marked “NABRE” are from the New American Bible, Revised Edition. Copyright 1970, 1986, 1991, and 2010 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington DC. Used by permission of copyright owner. All rights reserved.

  ____________________________________

  Foreword © 2015 by Al Kresta

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews, without written permission from Christian Classics™, Ave Maria Press®, Inc., P.O. Box 428, Notre Dame, IN 46556, 1-800-282-1865.

  Founded in 1865, Ave Maria Press is a ministry of the United States Province of Holy Cross.

  www.christian-classics.com

  Paperback: ISBN-13 978-0-87061-296-1

  E-book: ISBN-13 978-0-87061-297-8

  Cover image of The Mourning of Christ by Sandro Botticelli reproduced by permission of bpk, Berlin / Alte Pinakothek, Bayerische Staatsgemaeldesammlungen, Munich, G / Art Resource, NY.

  Cover and text design by David Scholtes.

  Printed and bound in the United States of America.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Van Zeller, Hubert, 1905-1984.

  [Suffering in other words]

  The mystery of suffering : a spiritual classic on trust in divine providence / Hubert van Zeller, O.S.B. ; foreword by Al Kresta.

  pages cm

  Originally published under title: Suffering in other words : a presentation for beginners : Springfield, Ill. : Templegate, 1964.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-0-87061-296-1 (alk. paper) -- ISBN 0-87061-296-4 (alk. paper)

  1. Suffering. I. Title.

  BT732.7.V3 2015

  231’.8--dc23

  2015014531

  For Doctor James Furrie,

  who knows it all from experience.

  Contents

  Foreword by Al Kresta

  1. The Principle of Suffering

  2. The Mystery of Suffering

  3. Imperfection in Suffering

  4. Loneliness in Suffering

  5. The Problem of Evil

  6. Suffering as a Punishment

  7. The Sufferings of the Race

  8. So What Do We Do Now?

  9. Resignation

  10. Willingness

  11. Choice

  12. The Cross: Symbol and Reality

  Foreword

  In a letter written just before her death, St. Thérèse of Lisieux wrote that she has “a great desire to suffer.” I don’t. That’s why the book you now hold in your hands by Benedictine monk and sculptor Dom Hubert van Zeller shouted, “Kresta, this book’s for you!”

  Originally titled Suffering in Other Words: A Presentation for Beginners and published in 1964, this book was placed in my hands at the lowest moment of my life, revealing to me Catholicism’s “open secret” of the redemptive possibility of suffering: “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (Lk 24:26, NABRE). This book, then, is for those aspiring disciples of Christ who, at any age, are still sheepish about avoiding a gift the saints assure us is for our good and God’s glory.

  Dom Hubert van Zeller (1905–1984), a friend of apologist Fr. Ronald Knox and novelist Evelyn Waugh, counted suffering a mark of discipleship:

  If it was right for Christ to go by the way of suffering to the final possession of his glory, it is right also for us. We are members of his body. The limbs must go the way of the head, the parts may not choose one way of going to the Father while the whole chooses another. What Christ endures, we endure. (see p. 1)

  St. Thérèse of Lisieux understood this. Me? Not so much. That is why she is a saint and I’m still a plebian.

  Breaking My Spiritual Logjam

  It’s not that I haven’t been given opportunity to understand this spiritual principle. On February 18, 2003, as the United States was gearing up for Operation Iraqi Freedom, I was under attack from bugs. A virulent form of Group A streptococcus bacteria, necrotizing fasciitis, a.k.a., the “flesh-eating bacteria.”

  The previous week illness had kept me from work. On Friday, a friend brought Viaticum to my bedside. I told him I wasn’t certain what was ailing me. But I had a hunch that the combined effects of excess food and drink, neglect of prayer, and the benign neglect of loved ones in pursuit of my own ambitions had created a spiritual logjam. If grace was to flow smoothly, this logjam needed to be purged from my spiritual circulatory system. I also remember thinking that it would probably require a blast of suffering to shake things loose. If and when it happened, I didn’t want to waste a moment of that suffering, as the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen regularly advised. I wanted to suffer heroically.

  It wasn’t until much later that I finally realized that we are not called to be heroes but saints. Heroes prove themselves competent, courageous, and brilliant. They get monuments built where future generations can come with their children.

  Saints are different. We look at them and say, “Wow, isn’t Christ something?” The virtues of the saints are not their possessions. They know, and want us to know, that it emerges from above them. There are many self-made heroes; there are no self-made saints.

  Suffering as “Divine Discipline”

  Popular opinion would have us believe that suffering has no purpose, that “dung happens,” and suffering bears no rational connection to our misbehaviors. Clearly, not all suffering is a direct consequence of personal sin, but our examination of conscience should at least explore the possibility.

  We endure life’s trials much better when we sense their purpose. If “dung happens,” then life becomes a tragedy as we flounder about without purpose. In contrast, the saints in scripture, from Job to Paul, saw suffering as a form of divine discipline. “Daddy spanks” promises a more meaningful possibility for our lives than “dung happens.”

  V
an Zeller is even blunter:

  If we want to be saved, we must accept the idea that our sins will need to be burned off us, either in this life or in the next, by suffering. . . . So before I can appreciate the doctrine of suffering as a punishment, I must appreciate the doctrine of sin as a reality, as a personal liability. (see pp. 55–56)

  The anticipated suffering came the following Monday night. A tidal wave of horrific, feverish, painful symptoms swept over me, downgrading the previous Friday’s illness to mere annoyance. By the time I was admitted to Saint Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, my condition was critical. Opinion believed it likely that I would learn St. Thérèse’s lesson in purgatory rather than on earth, and soon.

  Sepsis, blood poisoning, was killing me by the hour. Doctors told me they might have to remove my leg to stop the infection’s spread. So I prayed with my wife, was anesthetized, and was wheeled into surgery.

  Consciousness returned four or five days later. My left leg had been amputated above the knee. My days were filled with more surgeries, various infections, constant interruptions, mind-numbing pain medication, and a host of personal indignities from lying in a hospital bed for ten weeks with an open wound.

  Ironically, my desire to not waste a moment of my suffering became a source of anguish. Discouragement descended upon me when I realized my abject failure to, in a sustained and consistent way, ritually and routinely offer up my suffering in imitation of Christ. Within minutes of starting, distractions or lack of resolve would weaken my attention. My eyes would drift aimlessly, eventually fixing on the flickering television, which was situated high up in my hospital room. I imagined myself an old cow staring blankly at a gate. In time, I’d recall my pledge to pray and start over again, only to fail the fidelity test time and again.

  Suffering and Saint-Making

  It was at this point that my oldest friend handed me a copy of The Mystery of Suffering. Hubert van Zeller’s tone was refreshingly honest; his writing basic without being condescending or obvious. Sally, my wife, combed other spiritual writings for insight to share during daily visits. She and this book became a tag team wrestling me and discouragement.

  Discouragement arrived disguised as “trying to analyze and be honest” about my glaring shortcomings and imperfections in “offering it up.” From St. Ignatius of Loyola, Sally wisely reminded me that discouragement was never from God because it cut off all the bright rays of divine hope. The logic was clear: discouragement could not be from God because he didn’t sabotage his own purposes. He wasn’t blocking his own rays of light.

  Van Zeller agreed. He didn’t ignore the fact of failure but distinguished between two different responses: discouragement and disappointment. “It calls for considerable courage to be disappointed in oneself without being discouraged about oneself.” The distinction is not an obvious one. He wrote:

  It depends on whether the outcome of the trial is defeat and self-pity or the will to persevere despite the evidence of weakness. . . . Disappointment does not waste suffering. Weakness does not waste suffering. The only thing that wastes suffering is unwillingness to suffer. (see p. 27)

  Darkness lifted. I was willing even if I wasn’t competent. Then van Zeller redirected my understanding of “offering up” my suffering. St. Catherine of Siena said that what we counsel about prayer can be applied equally to suffering: “God does not ask for a perfect work, but for infinite desire.” Van Zeller drew out the saint’s thought:

  Imperfections in endurance, like distractions in prayer, are merely the shadow, inescapable in our fallen human state. . . . The substantial element in pain bearing, as in praying, is the will to love God. (see p. 28)

  Suddenly I realized that my desires weren’t too strong; they were too weak. I had settled for performing a pious routine of “offering it up” when what God wanted was a gnawing hunger for him even as he disciplined me with fierce hugs. Our Father squeezes us because he loves us.

  Beautiful Failings

  Through this book, van Zeller embedded in my soul not just the poetry but the reality that there can be no eternal beatitude without suffering, no crown without the cross. Even though I fall bearing my own cross, I needn’t fret; even Jesus fell thrice under the weight of his cross striding toward Calvary to make all things new in spite of stumbling. With his frank, practical, even workmanlike Benedictine spirituality, van Zeller showed me the operation of grace even in my pious failures. May this new, attractive edition of The Mystery of Suffering do for you what it did for me.

  I can’t yet say with St. Thérèse that “I have a great desire to suffer.” I’m not ready to enlist, but when conscripted, I hope not merely to endure my cross but to embrace it for the joy of knowing, as I can know in no other way, the one who endured that cross for my sake.

  God does not “ask for a perfect work but for infinite desire.” Infinite desire mixed with willingness to suffer makes for a controlled spiritual combustion. Suffering rightly in this world purifies the soul and renders our will less brittle and more pliable, apt to be shaped to choose God and desire God above all. In other words, this is the point, the goal, the destination of suffering.

  Al Kresta

  President of Ave Maria Radio

  1

  The Principle of Suffering

  The principle of Christian suffering is an open secret. It is there, written out for us, in the twenty-fourth chapter of St. Luke’s gospel. “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into his glory?”(Lk 24:26). If it was right for Christ to go by the way of suffering to the final possession of his glory, it is right also for us. We are members of his body. The limbs must go the way of the head; the parts may not choose one way of going to the Father while the whole chooses another. What Christ endures, we endure; what Christ enjoys, we enjoy. There is only this difference: he does it in his degree, we in ours.

  Admittedly this difference is a very considerable one and will show itself in each separate person’s experience, but it does not alter the principle, which our Lord himself lays down in the words quoted above. He had laid down the principle earlier, when he preached the cross to his disciples, but he needed to reaffirm it afterward, with the full weight of the Resurrection to back up the doctrine, before the disciples could really grasp the significance. It was as a suffering Messias that he was to be remembered; it was as a suffering Messias that he had been foretold; it was as a suffering Messias that he was to be followed.

  “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross. . . . and I, if I be lifted up, crucified, will draw all things to myself . . . whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me” (Mt 16:24, Jn 12:32, Mt 10:38, NABRE). Not only was cross-bearing to be the condition of Christian discipleship, it was to be also the theme of Christian preaching. St. Paul’s “We preach Christ crucified” (1 Cor 1:23) can be extended to the whole Christian apostolate. Certainly wherever Christ has been preached apart from his crucifixion, the preaching has come to nothing. In the same way, wherever Christians have thought to live the Christian life without reference to suffering, they have failed as Christians.

  This is not to say that the whole of Christ’s teaching is contained in the single subject of the cross. Nor is it to say that the Christian’s whole obligation is summed up in suffering. It is to say that just as Christ was obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross, so we have to follow his example: fidelity and submission to be judged in terms of willing sacrifice. The terms submission, sacrifice, suffering, do not mean the same thing. But they can come to express the same thing. They can arise out of love and be employed in the service of love. So it would not be far out to say that love is the principle of Christian suffering.

  There then is the statement of the issue. What follows in these pages will merely present various aspects of the material which anyone can find for himself if he reads through the gospels looking for it. Nothing that is said in this book has not been either said or implied in th
e gospels. One or two things have to be assumed, however, if what is written does not give rise to misconception. An opening chapter can be used to make the position clear.

  First to be borne in mind is the doctrine of divine providence. It would be the greatest mistake, for instance, to imagine that God wants us to lie down under every suffering that comes—judging it to be an infidelity if we made the least effort to ease our situation. It is true that in answer to a particular call of grace a soul may feel drawn to such an act of heroic surrender. But in the ordinary way it would be wrong to equate the Christian ideal of sacrifice with supine acceptance. Neither stoicism (the bite-the-bullet-and-don’t-cry-out approach) nor fatalism (the no-use-doing-anything-about-it-because-God-has-decreed-it approach) are Christian perfection. The Christian ideal is shown to us in the garden of Gethsemane: our Lord asking that the suffering might pass from him, while at the same time being ready to bear it if this is the Father’s will.

  Suffering and the providence of God have to be understood in faith. Even with faith—which anyway is an active, positive, constructive virtue—it is difficult not to conclude that God both likes to see his creatures suffer and takes very good care to provide inescapable sufferings for them. But divine providence does not mean this at all. If it did, we would not only find it hard to believe that he was a loving father but also would be led to argue that we pleased him only by being miserable. Both these propositions are wildly unchristian. Providence in relation to our sufferings means simply this: that when we have to suffer, we can safely assume that God has allowed this particular trial for our sanctification. The word providence is from the Latin and means “seeing beforehand.” He sees beforehand what is best for us, and we accept what he sends. Divine providence extends equally to things pleasant. God “provides”: he gives the grace to enjoy, he gives the grace to endure. Now one grace, now another: it depends on which grace he sees we need more of at this particular moment.