If you’re a Catholic, you’ve probably been told as a child whenever you started to complain about something to “offer it up!” This saying might sound harsh and insensitive but, taken the right way, it is beneficial advice that has withstood the test of the ages.

This saying refers to offering up your suffering, handing it over to God whose Son took on your suffering and the suffering of the world on the Cross. No one goes through life without suffering. It can be physical, emotional, mental, or psychological. And it can be intense, maybe the most intense experience of your life.

If you cannot escape suffering in life, how can you deal with it? That is the question!

Some people live by what’s been called the Pleasure Principle. Giving themselves over to a life of luxury and pleasure to avoid suffering, like the rich man in the Gospel of Luke (16:10–31) who “dined sumptuously each day” while his poor neighbor, Lazarus, “would have gladly eaten of the scraps” that fell from his table. The Pleasure Principle has led some people today to go even further by using drugs and alcohol as a way of alleviating their suffering. But as any therapist can tell you, a life of addiction to pleasure, for its own sake, just makes things worse.

Some people even try to avoid suffering through suicide or euthanasia. But the mere fact that some are willing to take such a drastic step to avoid suffering raises the question: Is suffering such a great evil that it even outweighs life itself?

Since we are bound to endure suffering during our lives, we might as well try to find meaning in it. Suffering is like the wind that tosses and buffets us through life. It is only when we see suffering, not as an obstacle, but as an opportunity for growth that we can become stronger. Like a kite in the wind, suffering enables us to rise higher, becoming more human and more compassionate. Life is a mixture of good and bad, and we have to take the bad with the good.

In today’s world, people often seek meaning in achievement or success: write a best-selling book; score a big political victory; manage a billion dollar company. A sense of achievement when you have done a good job is a beautiful thing, provided it is achieved with integrity of spirit. But, there is more to life than achievement.

As Christians, we are offered a better way: to live like Christ. To put on the life of Christ, as written in the Gospels, involves suffering, the sufferings of the people of God who follow Him and His own suffering as well. It is not a futile suffering without meaning. It is the kind of suffering that sets us free.

Human suffering was at the heart of the life of Jesus: healing the sick, consoling the afflicted, feeding the hungry, freeing people from all kinds of ailments such as deafness, blindness, fevers, and leprosy.

Suffering was not only at the heart of Jesus’s life, it is at the heart of his teaching. The eight beatitudes, the deepest guide to Christian renewal, were addressed to people who were beset by various sufferings: the “poor in spirit,” the “afflicted,” and the “persecuted,” among others.

And, at the end of His life, Jesus was brought to face the suffering of the Cross. Although He had done nothing to deserve the suffering He endured, he did not try to avoid it, but willingly offered Himself up as a sacrifice for our sins and the sins of the world.

If we strive to live like Jesus, we can find meaning in our suffering. We can cast aside the feeling of being victimized. We can overcome the subconscious need to complain about our sufferings, or to transfer the blame to others. We can shift our intense focus away from what ails us to what ails others. We can be compassionate.

St. Paul could say: “I rejoice in my sufferings for ( the lord’s ) sake.” (Colossians 1 : 24 ) Yes, St. Paul, like so many others who put on Christ, was able to find joy and meaning in his suffering.

You too can find meaning in your suffering through Christ.

—Fr. Hugh Duffy