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Suffer the Children
By a freelance journalist who is a wife and mother of three teenagers

The season of Lent provides me with a great opportunity to teach my children about one of the most profound yet difficult mysteries of our faith: the role of suffering in our lives. It’s a hard sell in an age where we’re bombarded with messages about how pain — no matter how slight — is the ‘enemy’ and must be eradicated as quickly as possible. Drug stores are stocked with products designed to take away every little twinge, TV ads proclaim the glories of being unencumbered by even minor annoyances, fortunes are made on the promise of purging all residue of anguish from our lives. The message is intense, and it’s everywhere.

The underlying sentiment, of course, is that suffering is always ‘bad’ and that being ‘happy’ is the ultimate goal of our existence. And since (secular logic tells us) we can’t be happy when something is bothering us, any discomfort — however trivial — is an attack on the ‘happiness quest’ and must always be greeted with an overwhelming counterattack geared at restoring our blissful state. This runs the gamut from spawning the culture of ‘easy credit’ where no whim goes ‘un-indulged’ to convincing consumers we can’t live without drugs that prevent the anguish of yellow toenails. All before the watchful eyes of our impressionable youngsters.

The result is a generation of kids that think ‘suffering’ means having to muddle through with last year’s cell phone (the one that doesn’t even play movies!) or settle for carry-out pizza instead of going out for cheeseburgers and milkshakes on Saturday night. My three teenagers are part of this generation, and though they understand in the general sense that it was Christ’s suffering that opened the gates of Heaven for us, they often have trouble seeing how that concept applies to their own lives. My job is to establish that connection.

And let’s be honest — it’s an especially difficult task for us mothers, because shielding our children from pain is programmed into our DNA. We can’t stand to see them suffer and would do anything to spare them. So we have to do one of the hardest, most ‘non-Mom’ things that goes against our very nature — we must put intellect before emotion, step back, look at the bigger picture, and acknowledge that suffering really will make our children better people. It’s a vital part of God’s plan for them and thus our duty to point out the many ways in which enduring anguish builds and sustains our Christian faith.

So during Lent, I try to emphasize that suffering manifests the struggle of good over evil, and wherever there is conflict, there will be pain. We are all called to take up that cause, not run away from it and seek comfortable sanctuary in whatever distraction offers numbing refuge. And I try to remind my kids that suffering also unites us in our humanity, giving us the incredible power to comfort one another even as we endure our own pains and hardships. It brings us together as a family of believers, fragile as individuals but strong in community.

And on a practical note, suffering puts things into perspective. You can’t fully appreciate springtime’s blossoms until you’ve shivered through the bitter cold of winter. That lesson is sorely lacking in our modern society where ‘having it all’ is a constant pursuit. The very things my children bristle at ‘doing without’ for the 40 days of Lent — chocolate, TV, a favorite video game — are luxuries that millions throughout the world will never know in their lifetimes. I want them to feel that deep and sincere gratitude that comes from realizing how much we have even when we’re ‘making sacrifices.’

And ultimately, without understanding suffering, we can’t begin to understand the sacrifice of the Cross. Such selfless giving makes no sense by the standards of modern times. “Couldn’t Jesus just snap his fingers and we’d be forgiven?” a young voice asks. Well, yes, he could have — and he chose not to, that’s the point. That’s what I want my teenagers to remember and to ponder and to contemplate as they skip their afternoon snacks or say an extra rosary in commemoration of the season. Jesus took up the cloak of suffering and wore it willingly for love of us, giving it a dignity and meaning beyond our comprehension. And no age or era or attitude can take that away.

I hope that in the weeks between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday, my kids will pause to think about the ‘bigger picture’ and their place in it. And I hope they’ll see through the empty promises of a ‘pain free’ society and embrace instead the timeless message in Romans 5:3-5:

“We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.”

Thus when the days of Lent are through, the glory of Easter will be especially sweet — a taste of the everlasting joy that awaits all of us when the days of our own suffering are complete and every tear is wiped forever away.