Clarification: Are you Saying We must Deny our Suffering?

[[Dear Sister, you are not saying a person must hide or deny their illness or suffering are you? I know you read [Joyful Hermit's] blog and she seems to believe you (or maybe it's someone else she reads) are saying that one ought to hide their suffering or illness.]]

Yes, I read Joyful Hermit's blog and if she is referring to my position on the place of suffering in a hermit's witness, she seems to have seriously misread or misunderstood it. In any case, I am certainly not saying one must hide or deny their illness and suffering --- although there will assuredly be times when revealing these is not helpful and may even be harmful or destructive to the witness one is called to give. One must know (discern) when such times are and be able to act appropriately. What I have said very clearly instead, is that one's illness must not define them. It will condition or qualify everything but it cannot be allowed to dominate (note the link to lordship or sovereignty in this word). I have also said that one's illness or suffering must become transparent to the love and life of God. In part this means a hermit's illness or suffering will not obscure the witness to the life and love of God a Canon 603 hermit will give to others. In part, it means it will remain unseen and unspoken of until and unless it can serve the witness to the mercy, love, and life of God we are each called to manifest to others. And in part, it therefore means learning to witness to realities that allow us to transcend our suffering, not by leaving it behind or denying it, but by allowing it to be transfigured in light of the grace and mercy of God. Please note the distinction between sovereignty (defining) and servanthood (conditioning) in these two manifestations of illness or suffering.

We read accounts of the Risen Christ's appearance to others after Jesus' passion and death. We use images of the risen Christ on crucifixes today. Both of these are important in understanding what this learning will look like. Consider that when Jesus appeared to his disheartened and terrified disciples he was not without wounds and scars, even in his risen state. Thomas was invited to put a hand in Jesus' side. Even so, it is not the wounds and scars that dominate the picture. When we look at a crucifix with the risen Christ, the cross and all it represents is clearly present, but it does not dominate what we see or what we are called to believe. In each of these examples of Christian suffering and redemption, it is life, love, and joy that are dominant. The cross conditions everything and, as it should for Christians, it will always do so; after all, with Paul, we believe in a crucified Christ as the source of authentic life and hope. But the cross does not define who Jesus was nor who he is today as God's own Christ. In all of this, the cross is a servant of God's life and love, and it is this life and love which is dominant.

Illness is an incredibly important reality that we must learn to live with and accommodate appropriately, while not allowing it to swallow us up in the process. One of the crucial ways of doing so is by learning to live from and for the life and love of God. This is a difficult process and takes time to achieve. Anyone with a chronic illness knows the ways we learn to accommodate (and, alternately, sometimes even collude with) it. Illness limits but we anticipate these limits and the disappointments that accompany them and, unfortunately, over time we may even begin to limit ourselves. Illness does not do this; we do. Eventually, we will have a whole host of limitations associated with illness and suffering --- many of which can be unlearned and transcended. But it takes something really powerful to encourage and enable us to do this. In my experience, it is the unconditional love of God mediated to me by others as well as in prayer which makes this possible. Yes, there will be significant work in spiritual direction and perhaps even in therapy or in the kind of inner work (PRH) I have spoken of before, but more and more, one's suffering assumes the place of the cross in representations of the risen Christ --- important ("critical" -- pun intended!) but not dominant. A hermit's vocation (and there are a number of us with chronic illnesses!) is to make evident this kind of transparency to the love of God.

I do hope this helps to clarify my position for anyone for whom I failed to be clear. Let me know if it raises more questions.