The Problem of Suffering

Homily for the Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Clive Staple Lewis, or C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) as he is more usually remembered, was at heart an Oxford Man. He was the beloved children’s author of The Chronicles of Narnia, and had a deep connection with the historic university town for thirty years. He even paid homage to it in his 1919 poem ‘Oxford’. But Lewis’s renown would eventually take him away from his “sweet city lulled by ancient streams”, to another cloistered environment: Cambridge. He became Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1954 and it was whilst in this role that he would take his final bow. This November marks the 57th anniversary of his death. Nearly sixty years later, C.S. Lewis remains a profound influence on English literature and thought.

In his memoir, “Surprised By Joy,” Lewis confessed: “I had been far more anxious to avoid suffering than to achieve delight”. A reluctant theologian, Lewis’s most profound work emerges from his non-fiction musings on the nature of pain. Whilst the image of a snow-covered lamppost will be entrenched into our cultural consciousness for centuries to come, and the Narnia stories live on for generations of children, Lewis’s exploration of human suffering is arguably where his genius lies.

In his essay “The Problem of Pain,” the author tackles some of life’s hardest questions.: how to remedy the concept of an all-loving God with the existence of pain. Lewis explores the transformative power of suffering. He writes: “Pain provides an opportunity for heroism; the opportunity is seized with surprising frequency”. If struggle is a learning opportunity, then only through hardships, can we confront our inner resilience. Lewis’s own confrontation came with “the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet” – an elusive and unsought God; yet believers or atheists alike can draw wisdom from his allegory of transformation.

Lewis’s most profound confrontation with pain came with the death of his wife. A long-time bachelor, C.S. Lewis would not experience romantic love until the age of 58 years old. It began as a pen pal friendship.  More and more drawn to each other, Lewis would agree to a civil marriage contract with American Joy Davidman Gresham so that she could escape an abusive marriage and secure her citizenship in the UK. However, the intellectual companionship soon blossomed into a love Lewis would consider the greatest tragedy of his life.

Lewis’s love was one acknowledged and strengthened by the onset of terminal illness. When Joy was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer, the couple sought a Christian marriage. Published in 1960, the same year of his wife’s death, “A Grief Observed” would go on to document Lewis’s struggle to come to terms with Joy’s loss. In this he describes his feelings of bereavement: “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid”. In many ways, the deeply personal vent of “A Grief Observed” illustrates the experienced reality behind Lewis’s theorization of suffering explored in “The Problem of Pain.”

This terrible loss tested his faith and made him question his very existence, and yet Joy’s death deepened Lewis’s fascination with the human condition. Concluding in “A Grief Observed” that the trials of pain and loss provide a gateway to gratitude, the text offers a mature and at times extremely raw, account of how to overcome despair. Lewis’s ultimate resolution is the realization that the only antidote to fear is to believe that as Julian of Norwich said centuries ago, “all shall be well”.

The Scriptures for this Sunday also explore the issue of pain and suffering despite our belief that God loves and cherishes us. The question is usually phrased thus: “How can a God who is love allow the pain and suffering that we all experience at some time in our lives.” Some grow angry with God as pain and suffering enter their lives. The reading from the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah records this kind of response as Jeremiah shouts at God: “You duped me, you seduced me, you conned me into being your prophet knowing that it would result in derision and reproach.” Others have offered us a different kind of response as does St. Paul in today’s reading from the Letter to the Romans: “Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice.” Offer it up! Finally we are confronted with the reality of Jesus’ suffering and death which he revealed to his disciples in today’s Gospel text. “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”

Consider the story of a woman who is experiencing grief at the loss of a beloved brother, of an artist who plummets into the depths of despair when he loses his sight and can no longer paint, of a man who has recently lost his beloved wife, and a woman who has experienced the death of one of her children. All four of them had found one another and had shared their stories of their suffering. One day, while they were gathered together bemoaning their situation, they happened upon Jesus who was sitting on a park bench weeping. Through his tears, he said to them, “I bear the burden of a woman who has lost her brother, the burden of a young girl whose baby has died, a painter who has lost his sight, a young man who has lost a love in which he delighted.” And as Jesus spoke, the four moved closer. And then they embraced each other. And they grasped Jesus’ hands and held him to them. And Jesus spoke again. Jesus said, “My dominion is the dominion over the heart. I cannot prevent pain but only heal it.” “How, then, do you do that?” said the woman. And he answered, “Only by sharing it with you.” And, suddenly, he was gone from their sight. And what of the other four? Out of their pain came compassion for one another, sharing and selflessness. They learned to love by loving, learned how to heal by healing, and realized that in the end, the only thing left is love.

(Much of this homily comes from two articles off the Internet: “C.S. Lewis on Suffering,” The Cambridge Review and a homily by Fr. Thomas Hanly for the 22^nd Sunday of Ordinary Time – A Cycle)