Year XVI -N.10/ 2000

In the time of Pain For thousands of years humanity has attempted to besiege the apparently inexpugnable citadel of pain.

Old Egyptian wisdom reported the defeat of reason with the moving lines of the “3.024 Berlin Papyrus” (2200 A.D.), meaningfully entitled by the researchers “Dialogue of a Suicide with His Own Soul”; this dialogue leads to a vision of death as the only way-out, and views it as a release, a cure, myrrh scent, a sweet evening breeze, a budding lotus flower. The doggedness of theodicy, that is of the attempt to defend God against the attack of “atheism”, which plays on pain itself, has always had to face the lapidary alternatives supplied by the Greek philosopher Epicurus, as transmitted to us by the Christian author Lactantius is his writing “De ira Dei” (c. 13). In this regard, a statement made by the French atheist thinker Jean Cotureau is emblematic “I do not believe in God.

Should God exist, he would be evil in person. I’d rather nagate him than saddle him with the responsibility of evil”.

And for the very purpose of defending God against this infamous charge, humanity has made every possible effort, by resorting to the “theodicy” we were referring to above. This is how dualism was brought up, by introducing, next to a kind and rightful God, another divinity which was negative and unfriendly, a god of evil (by way of an example, we mention Manicheism and many other extremist apocalyptic theories).

Thinkers appealed to the so-called “compensation theory”, which as a matter of fact is also well established in the Bible, as we shall see: the crime-punishment concept suggests that each distressing experience represents the expiation of guilt, if not ours of others.

Other thinkers, on the other hand, embrace an entirely pessimistic point of view: reality is intrinsically negative because of its creatural limits. By contrast, there has also been an equally radical optimistic interpretation of reality, which views evil simply as “nonbeing”, an appearance which is overcome by discovering the deep peace of “being”. Within this approach we find pantheistic outlooks, such as that of the Graeco-Roman Stoicism, or of the Indian Brahmanism, which views evil as maya, that is “an illusion”. This line of thought also comprises evolutionistic ideas which regard pain as a residue of a world which is still under construction, and therefore imperfect.

The Jewish-Christian scriptures themselves, that is the Bible, tackle the questions generated by pain according to different perspectives. Chapters 2-3 of the Genesis resort to human freedom, which in the tragic loneliness of its choices, may sow violence, oppression, devastation, abuse and tears. We have Job’s extremely loud voice which, through a tragic journey between spoliation and protest, finally discovers the transcendental project. We have the mysterious God’s Servant, the “Man of Sorrows” celebrated by Isaiah (c. 53), who sees in the misery of the innocents a seed of fertility and not of death. And, above all, we have Christ’s figure who constantly meets with the degeneration caused by evil and takes it upon himself by going through the dark tunnel of passion and death.

However, our purpose here is - much more humbly - to provide two lines of interpretation and behaviour when faced with the lacerating experience of pain, while we are fully conscious, in any case, of the mystery it involves.

The first consideration is aimed at highlighting the symbolic value of pain and sorrow. Suffering is never only a physical issue, but “symbolically” involves both body and spirit.

It can generate at the same time desperation and hope, darkness and light. The great medieval mystic Meister Eckhart (1260 ca.-1327) stated that “nothing is more bitter than suffering, nothing is sweater than having suffered”. Because of this symbolic attitude towards human suffering, the approach to the sick cannot be partial.

On one side, there is no doubt as to the need of medical treatment: after all, halfway through Mark’s Gospel we have the account of a number of cures effected by Jesus, and the French theologian René Latourelle wrote that “the Gospels without miracles are like Shakespeare’s Hamlet without the prince”. No other experience, more than pain, can make us aware of the fact that we do not have a body but are a body which is the evidence of a deeper interior reality. Quite interesting, from a symbolic point of view, are the evangelic accounts of the curing of lepers: by infringing all the ritual and sanitary prohibitions of the time, Jesus “touches” them, and with this gesture he almost seems to take upon himself the disease, thus sharing its weight and bitterness.

No other experience, more than pain, can make us aware of the hollowness of words of sympathy spoken without real participation. In this regard, Job is extremely clear: the friends who try to comfort him in a cold and formal way are called by him “lie plasterers” (13, 4). In fact, the sick person finds that, at the end of the day, he is left alone with his disease. And it is at this stage that some sort of alliance should start between patient and doctor (or nurse, relative, assistant, chaplain and so on). This is the second consideration we wish to bring up. In the biblical account of the creation of Eve, it is said that man only overcomes his solitude when he has “a helpmate beside him” (ke-negdò). This solidarity is difficult to create, but it is essential. The relationship between the person who cures and the person who is cured should not be as cold and detached as it often is: it should involve genuine communication, dialogue, availability to listen, truth spoken with participation. The person who suffers should be helped to free him/herself from the conditionings of a culture centring around strength and male chauvinism. Even Christ, when faced with the Passion night, begs to be freed from the cup of suffering (Mark 14,36) and admits that his “soul is sad even unto death” (Mark 14,34), and bitterly discovers that on that occasion he cannot rely on the affectionate sympathy of his disciples. “Can you not wait with me even for un hour?” (Matthew 26,40).

The French catholic poet Paul Claudel stated, “God has not come to explain suffering, he has come to fill it with his presence”. The theologian Hans Küng points out that “God does not protect us against all suffering, but he supports us each time we suffer”. In this regard, we quote a “laic” figure, the writer Ennio Flaiano (1910-1972). In 1942 he had a daughter, Luisa, who when only eight years old started showing the signs of an epileptoid encephalopathy, and who lived until 1992, lovingly looked after by her mother. Well then, in 1960 the Abruzzo writer had thought of a novel-film of which only a draft remains. In this, he imagined the return on earth of Jesus, troubled by journalists and reporters, but, as for the past, only showing concern for the last and for the sick. Meanwhile, “A man lead his sick daughter to Jesus and told him ‘I do not want you to cure her, but to love her’. Jesus kissed that girl and said ‘Verily I tell you, this man has asked for something which I am able to give’. Having said this, he disappeared in a glory of light, leaving behind the crowd to comment on his miracles and the reporters to describe them”.

(traduzione Interpres - sas Giussano)