Giving pain a purpose: Redemptive suffering

Suffering is simply a fact of life. The world is filled with challenges, injustices, and unexpected changes. We also experience others’ suffering — much of it beyond our control. My own trials are small compared to those others endure, but I often reflect on redemptive suffering through the lens of my Catholic faith.

The suffering in my life stems from both poor choices and unexpected circumstances I could not have predicted. The Church reminds us that Christ can redeem all suffering. I have come to understand that this requires a firm faith in Jesus Christ. Without trust in Him, our tragedies can feel wasted; when we invite Him into our pain, however, that suffering can become redemptive for us and for others.

It can be confusing when we read St. Paul’s words: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of His body, that is, the Church” (Colossians 1:24). While the pain and suffering Jesus endured on the cross is perfect and complete for our salvation, what is “lacking” is our personal participation in His living Body. As Catholics, we are His hands, feet, and voice in the modern world. When we endure hardship while proclaiming the Gospel or serving others, Christ works through our wounds to reach those in need.

The average person doesn’t wake up in the morning saying, “What a beautiful day. Let’s go find some suffering.” We naturally avoid discomfort because we are wired for survival, comfort, and emotional self-preservation. That instinct is not a character flaw; it is part of our design to keep us alive. Modern culture reinforces it by promising ever greater comfort and protection from pain. Rather than confront the realities of human vulnerability, our culture has created a vast system for numbing, labeling, and escaping discomfort.

Let’s not forget Satan’s role in our suffering. The great Deceiver can’t control our trials, but he desperately wants to distort our response to them. It is Satan who whispers, “If God truly loved me, He would not allow me to feel this pain.” His goal is to isolate us from the Father with feelings of ingratitude, resentment, and anger, tempting us to blame the Creator. We must remember that suffering is a spiritual battlefield where the soul must actively choose between God and the enemy.

I struggle daily to offer my ordinary trials — family, finances, health, and strained relationships — for the good of the Church. For the past three years, I have led a Catholic men’s faith group serving our combined parishes. More times than I can count, I have stood before those men and emphasized the importance of “offering our suffering to God.” I have also stated that growth in holiness requires “a sincere detachment from the world,” a process that can itself involve suffering. Yet a recent health crisis involving the severe suffering of a family member forced me to question whether I truly believed what I had so often proclaimed. My philosophy of “giving it up” to God suddenly felt much harder to practice than to preach. Only after continuous prayer and returning to St. Paul’s words did a ray of hope begin to strengthen my faith: “Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6).

We find a beautiful answer to this in the writings of Servant of God Cora Evans. In her mystical work The Refugee from Heaven, she describes how Jesus, while dying on the Cross, looked out and saw future generations approaching like vast ocean waves. Within each wave, He saw souls who were willing to offer up all their trials—their physical illness, mental anxiety, poverty, and grief—to unite with the very suffering He was enduring for our salvation. By accepting our suffering and anchoring it to the Cross, we recognize the depth of His sacrifice and allow Him to redeem our pain.

We must also remember the severe torment suffered by the Blessed Virgin Mary as she watched her only Son tortured and publicly executed before her eyes. She carried this heavy knowledge throughout her life as a mother. When presenting the infant Jesus in the Temple, the holy prophet Simeon warned her of the immense sorrow she would experience, “and a sword will pierce through your own soul also” (Luke 2:35). Mary did not run from this painful path; she endured it with perfect faith, showing us what it looks like to stand in deep pain without letting the enemy win the soul.

We may long for a world without suffering, but that is not the reality of the human condition. The question, then, is not whether we will suffer, but how we can give that suffering purpose. When we unite our daily trials, illnesses, and heartbreaks with Christ’s Cross, we allow Him to sanctify our pain and weave it into His eternal victory. Through this offering, we stand firm in faith, cooperate with the Advocate, and labor for our salvation and the salvation of the world.