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Rejoicing in Suffering

The Witness of Father Daniel A. Lord, S.J.

by Dawn Eden 

A friend of mine, raised Southern Baptist, who – after spending some time as an Episcopalian – was received into the Catholic Church this year, called yesterday to thank me for the confirmation gift I sent him. It was This Tremendous Lover, Dom Eugene Boylan’s classic guide for those wishing to deepen their participation in the Mystical Body of Christ.

As has happened to many a newly minted Catholic, my friend now finds himself experiencing the joyful wonder so aptly described by fellow convert G.K. Chesterton, who discovered that “the Church is much larger inside than it is outside.” He told me that Boylan book reminded him of one of the greatest things Catholicism offers – something he was unable to find in the world he left behind.

“Protestantism,” he said, “has no theology of suffering.”

That’s not strictly true, of course – Protestantism, to borrow Whitman’s phrase, is large and contains multitudes. But once one discovers what the Church has articulated about the meaning of membership in Christ’s Mystical Body, such as Pius XII’s encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi, biblical teachings about suffering shine forth in their full meaning. This is particularly true with regard to St. Paul’s words in Colossians 1:24 (the key text for John Paul II in his apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris): “[I] now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for his body, which is the church.”

Fulton J. Sheen observed in Calvary and the Mass:

This does not mean our Lord on the Cross did not suffer all He could. It means rather that the physical, historical Christ suffered all He could in His own human nature, but that the Mystical Christ, which is Christ and us, has not suffered to our fullness. All the other good thieves in the history of the world have not yet admitted their wrong and pleaded for remembrances. Our Lord is now in heaven. He therefore can suffer no more in His human nature but He can suffer more in our human natures.

So He reaches out to other human natures, to yours and mine, and asks us to do as the thief did, namely, to incorporate ourselves to Him on the Cross, that sharing in His Crucifixion we might also share in His Resurrection, and that made partakers of His Cross we might also be made partakers of His glory in heaven.

Pope Benedict XVI makes a similar point in his encyclical Spe Salvi, quoting Bernard of Clairvaux’s expression that “God cannot suffer, but he can suffer with.”

When I envision what this understanding of the meaning of suffering looks like in the life of the believer, my thoughts turn to Father Daniel A. Lord S.J. (1888-1955). A youth leader, author, songwriter, and dramatist, he inspired countless Catholics to live out their faith, including Dorothy Day (who gave her first-ever talk at his Summer School of Catholic Action) and Father Benedict Groeschel (who was “profoundly influenced” by his work). Yet, his greatest witness came through his acceptance of the illness that would claim his life.

Even in health, Lord had never shied away from contemplating the Last Things. A pamphlet he wrote in 1940, Death Isn’t Terrible, aimed to help the faithful understand that “the whole Christian viewpoint should be colored with the sunrise of Easter.” When he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in January 1954, he chose to take it not as a tragedy, but rather as an opportunity to renew the message.

In an article for the July 1954 Catholic Digest titled “My Good Angel of Death,” he wrote that the diagnosis was a relief, for he had dreaded “a sudden and perhaps sacramentless death.”

“I cannot but feel,” he went on, “that the dread of cancer is greatly exaggerated. ... Since we all must die, God seems kindly when He sends a messenger in advance with a gentle but emphatic warning. Surely we can all use a little time to get ready for the Judgment. The realization that one has cancer sharpens one’s whole outlook on life; the earth is more beautiful, the sky a little clearer, and every moment of the day precious, a thing to be hoarded.”

Through his words and actions, he carried that Pauline message of rejoicing in sufferings, right up to the day he died – January 15, 1955, fifty-five years ago today. In a talk he gave during his final months, which you can hear online (on an LP that includes a radio interview), he encapsulated the gratitude he felt to his Creator:

God’s that wonderful Saviour who walked the highway looking for you because He loved you. And when He couldn't find you, He climbed up on a Cross, hoping that He could see you from that elevation. And then He died rather than let you die.

 

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(The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Headline Bistro or the Knights of Columbus.)