Suffering
Early in May 2025, Jude Brady offered a reflection entitled “To Love Is To Suffer”. While not a unique statement, his thoughts come from the perspective of one seriously ill, facing uncertainty, and grateful for the opportunity to reflect on loss. He asks, “have you suffered over people you love?” The question is daunting and merits some thought. What does it mean “to love is to suffer.”
The human condition does not want to suffer. Yet, we want to love. We may truly need to love. We formulate affection and fondness for people, let alone places and things, times and memories. For now, expanding Jude’s thought, let me lump all these under “love.”
The Rule of Benedict (4:47-49) says, “always (day by day) keep death before your eyes”. Criticized by some as a doomsday downer, the concept of “memento mori” provides the paradox of living life with purpose when coupled with the instructions to “relieve the lot of the poor, clothe the naked, visit the sick and bury the dead, help the troubled and console the sorrowing.” (4:10-189). Jude’s is the perspective of one watching his own and others’ diminishment. With a wonderful turn of phrase, he advises those witnessing others’ losses to “not to let your goodbye be so painful you avoid saying hello.” In truth, a part of visiting the sick is accepting the sufferings of life – and they are many.
So, what about “to love is to suffer!” It is important to consider suffering as different from pain. Though used interchangeably in daily language there are substantial distinctions. Pain is neurologically mediated, often localized, and remedied by different measures. Suffering is more an emotional reckoning over a situation or hardship. It is draining of well-being, not localized in one body part, and often lingers.
We do suffer watching loved one’s setbacks, poor decisions, financial reversals, squabbles, death, emotional or physical absence. We grieve and suffer what was said and not said. We have anticipatory grief of their and our own diminishments and death. So why does love cause suffering? Perhaps, our distress is in part nostalgia.
Nostalgia is that paradoxical sweet and sad sentiment induced by loss or challenge, either actual or threatened, when considering what is, what was, and what might have been. The Greek root of nostalgia is the “return of pain” nostos algos. I think, also, Jude was referring to what used to be called “pining away” or “pining” for someone or something separated by distance, circumstance, or death. The now almost obsolete word “pine” here derives from Latin via old English Poena meaning pain. The same root as penal, subpoena, penalty, impunity, and pain.
Nostalgia, pining, reflection, and appreciation of things hoped for and once loved but now never again duplicated. Yes, to love is to suffer. By similar token, to suffer one must first love.
Thank you, Fr. Jude.
Richard H. Fitzgerald
