when tragedy strikes.featured

I have devoted my life, our family life, to joy. To delighting and marveling in the gifts of God’s creation and sharing intimately the ways joy unexpectedly seeps into every crevice of our lives.

But for joy to be deep and unwavering, it must be rooted in truth. And since no life is without suffering, no day passes without another tragedy stealing someone beloved, we must find its rightful place in our story and understand how our reaction to it can begin to move us beyond panic and despair to healing and restoration. To community and relationship.

As humans created by God for beauty, fullness, and deep relationship suffering is shocking. It demands us to endure what we were not built to endure. It destroys our innocence and lays waste to our strength.

Yet in our broken world, it is unavoidable. Relentless. When the weight of suffering presses down, we ache to push it away. To run as far as we can. To protect ourselves and our loved ones. 

There is something innate about this desire. Our longing to be healed and comforted, to live in the beauty for which we are created, is ingrained in the core of our being. But there is no distance and no wall and no speed that will outrun suffering. And there is a serious danger in trying.

By telling ourselves a story of false security, we are tempted to direct all our efforts toward personal financial security or optimum health or a political entity that promises to mimic the home we lost. We stockpile food and supplies and catchphrases meant to separate us from those who disagree. We attempt to insulate and isolate ourselves.

In doing so, we remove ourselves from the heart of suffering, which is the heart of God. We distance ourselves from society and community, finding smaller and smaller circles in which to exist. 

But we know the story we are telling is a lie. It comes with an insatiable need for more. More money, more supplies, more distance. And when our self-assurances come crashing down, the temptation to despair can be crushing. If we gave everything we had and failed, what hope do we have left?

I have found the most effective response to suffering is not to deny it or attempt to remove it. It is telling the true story. 

Salvation history is a litany of God calling us back to himself. To fullness and healing. In the horror of slavery. In the agony of exile. Israel is called to live in the promise of the covenant even when everything before their eyes denies a reality where it will be fulfilled.

Christ himself, our God made flesh, did not avoid hunger, weariness, pain, or torture. He embraced the entirety of our human suffering.

He did not avoid the suffering of others but sought it out. He dined with those society rejected. He embraced lepers. He healed demoniacs. He spent his life among the poorest, humblest, and most reviled members of society. Forgiving their sins and calling them to true healing through unfettered relationship with God. 

The Catholic Catechism describes his relationship with the suffering saying, “His compassion toward all who suffer goes so far that he identifies himself with them: ‘I was sick and you visited me'” (CCC 1503).

Through his ministry, passion, and commission to the apostles, he has tied himself so intimately to those who suffer that we cannot draw close to him without drawing close to the suffering. We cannot embrace him without embracing the sick. We cannot be in fullness of relationship with him without recognizing his face in the neglected. 

Once we recognize that our lives and our salvation are intimately tied to suffering, it is tempting to view life as a valley of pain that we must simply struggle through in order to achieve fullness of life. But healing and joy are not reserved exclusively for the epilogue. And this life is meant for much more than a private pursuit of piety that allows us to fashion blinders to those around us.

Christ’s suffering changed what it means for us to suffer. The Catechism explains, “[s]uffering, a consequence of original sin, acquires a new meaning; it becomes a participation in the saving work of Jesus” (CCC 1505).

Sharing in Christ’s cross is the path to our new covenant. A new humanity. In which we are invited not just to care for creation but to actively participate in the healing and remaking of our world. Of each other. Of ourselves.

In the Eucharist, we are joined to Christ through his crucified body and blood. Joel Clarkson describes the effect of this union: “[b]y partaking of the formal sacraments of the church, and through letting those sacraments reorient our vision of the world, we participate in the coming Kingdom by drawing the someday of it into the here and now. We are not simply pointing toward a reality which will eventually have victory over this reality; through sacrament, we are entering a new reality in this very moment in our history.”¹

Even with the assurance of redemption and Christ’s closeness in our suffering, I have struggled with paralysis when faced with the immense weight of the world’s cruelty. With grief that is devastatingly familiar. That plays out in every page of our history, in every corner of our world, in every street of our community.

These stories are a part of our human story. No matter how we try to justify or explain them, we cannot make them less horrific. And we cannot write the wounds out of our human body. The scars will remain.

Faced with crisis after crisis in clanging succession, I ache to catch my breath. In desperate need of relief, it is tempting to pretend that a crisis passes as quickly as the next one captures the news cycle.

But life is not about avoiding suffering. We cannot turn away from Christ suffering in those around us. From voices that continue to wearily yet fervently cry for the healing only justice and mercy can bring. 

When tragedy strikes, I am tempted to publicly rail against the injustice and those standing in the way of what appears to be the most obvious solution. And certainly righteous anger, the pursuit of justice, and untiring advocacy are essential to our participation in Christ’s work of making all things new.

But on most subjects, I am not an expert. I do not understand the nuance or complexities necessary for effective action. And I don’t want to add to the cacophony of overnight experts who rush past the acute suffering of those closest to a tragedy in a race to further their cause. No matter how worthy it is.

This does not change my duty to respond to tragedy, but it does inform what my response will be.

I remember that Christ is closest to those who mourn, and through prayer I try to place myself with him by their side. Not concerned with what will happen an hour or a day or a year from now, but honoring their suffering in this moment by holding quiet vigil.

I tell a story that imagines the intricacy of their needs. The need for someone to bring them food. To shut out the glaring camera lights and noisy microphones. Praying that these needs are met and contributing to them when I find a way.

I allow my heart to break. To experience horror at the number of child-sized coffins that should never be needed. The families and communities and daily errands forever changed in the face of cruelty.

It is in this closeness, in the reorienting of my attention to the hurting rather than the cause, that I often find the way in which I am called to act.

Knowing our own story helps us recognize our place in the story of humanity. We are created with unique gifts in a specific place and time. The entirety of our personal history and our selves join to inform our vocation and contribution to the story of salvation. 

We are called to people and causes that root themselves deeply and last a lifetime. That can be furthered by talking about our experience or sharing our expertise.

My work with refugee families in college gave me an intimate glance at the deep wounds of being torn from home and the challenges of resettlement oceans away from everything and every one familiar and dear. Our travels through the years have deepened my love for the rich beauty of the human family.

Because my heart has been shaped and softened by these experiences. Because I have hugged a weeping mother who fled at night with her four children to find only three with her the next morning. Because I have written letters on behalf of a father trying to reunite with his wife and children from half a world away. The support of refugees, immigrants, and the displaced through advocacy and direct aid will always be especially close to my heart. 

We are called to support people and causes that are immensely personal and important by contributing behind the scenes so other voices and experiences can take their place at the forefront.

My white, southern heritage has given me a firsthand view of the fearful attempts to silence and soften the atrocities of slavery. To talk over those who speak about the insidious racism still present in our society. It has left me with no doubt that these voices must be heard and these cries for justice must be met.

My voice is not the one that needs to speak on this topic so I listen to those telling the stories I never heard and the ones I would still miss. I believe them. I trust them. I give to the causes they support. And I pray that my actions and prayers will be a penance for these atrocities to heal the wounds of sin.

At times our call is quiet and hidden. At times it is bold and public.

The one thing that is certain is that we are never called to sit idle in the face of suffering. To release ourselves from the burden of our shared humanity. Because we belong to each other.

God may not be calling you in the same ways or to the same things. But he is calling you somewhere. He created you as you are for a reason. Sit in quiet prayer, discern where and how he is calling you, and go wholeheartedly.

¹ Clarkson, Joel. Sensing God. NavPress Publishing Group, 2021.