Father Al’s thoughts on suffering

Excerpt from “To Live is Christ”

The Psalms are the prayers of the Holy Spirit. Fully one-third of them are an expression of human suffering and a cry for help to God. Under the impulse of the Holy Spirit, the psalmist cries out in anguish, he sighs, he groans, he points to the terrible suffering, the danger, the fear, and the humiliation in his life. We learn from this that it is proper and even pleasing to God for us to express our pain, fear, anxiety, and sadness. We are permitted to sigh, groan, and even to cry out in our pain. We do this before our friends. And we do this before God. But, we do it lightly and easily — in order to ease the pain, release the pressure, and lighten the load. But quickly, we turn our gaze from the suffering itself, and took at God with faith and love. Then, we remain with our gaze fixed on the beauty of the face of God in contemplation, and lose ourselves in God through prayer. In this way, we can say, “Although suffering is in me, I am not in it. I am in God.” In this way, we learn too how to “suffer without suffering.”