By Colten Maertens-Pizzo

On April 20, 2023, Pope Francis addressed the annual plenary assembly of the Pontifical Biblical Commission and expanded on the theme “sickness and suffering in the Bible.” Tasked with proper interpretation and defense of Sacred Scripture, the commission writes on the intersection between ancient and modern issues such as the perennial issue of sickness. In his address, Francis astutely recognizes that the commission’s current theme is universal, because “human nature, wounded by sin, carries inscribed within it the reality of limitations, frailty and death.” Importantly, Sacred Scripture provides a deep meaning for sickness and the suffering that accompanies it, which modern ways of thinking sorely lack.

The modern way of approaching sickness and suffering, according to Francis, sees these experiences as a nuisance to be “countered and annulled at all costs.” All too often the modern person neglects the existential value of his or her suffering by leaving it unexamined. Tragically, this isolates the sick person and threatens to destroy his or her hope for healing and thereby the very possibility for healing. Contrary to modern thinking, sickness and suffering have tremendous existential value. The sick person “can either allow suffering to lead him to withdraw into himself … or he can welcome it as an opportunity for growth” in mind and spirit.

Sacred Scripture properly examines both sickness and suffering by offering a corrective lens to see the deeper meaning that sickness can have for people. As the commission explains and Francis affirms, the Old Testament writings implore man to live with sickness through the strength offered by God. The New Testament expands upon this message by explaining what this strength looks like in the Person of Jesus Christ. According to Francis, “It is not by chance that Christ’s public activity is marked in large part precisely by contact with the sick. … [He loved] the weak, to the point of identifying with them, when he says: ‘I was sick and you took care of me.’” Consequently, his healing ministry cannot be neatly separated from either his mission or his teachings. Sacred Scripture, for this reason, “does not offer a banal and utopian answer to the question of sickness and death.”

Modern thought wrongfully treats sickness and suffering as problems to be solved. However, neither sickness nor suffering is a merely factual problem. They can be analyzed and measured, but neither the analysis nor measurements fully account for their personal dimension. Scripture can account for this through Christ’s identification with the sick exemplified in the Passion. Not so ironically, then, the Cross offers spiritual insight into the body’s limitations and frailty. As Francis explains, Jesus’s healing ministry culminates in his acceptance of death on the Cross and from there expands our understanding of the meaning of sickness.

As Francis previously mentioned, suffering provides a means for growth in mind and spirit. Although he does not explicitly state that suffering also provides for bodily growth, his message contains the beginning of such an approach to sickness. Current research suggests that the human body actively needs some exposure to stress to bolster its overall health. Immunological studies immediately come to mind, alongside the strange ways that living things use death to facilitate and maintain their life. Everything from the mechanics of apoptosis to the antifragility of the human bodily constitution show that life includes death. Unfortunately, much of this knowledge remains merely factual and never transforms from scientific understanding into a deeply personal lived experience.

Thankfully, Sacred Scripture offers a framework to accomplish this. Francis rightly points out that “the way in which we live pain tells us about our possibility of loving and letting ourselves be loved.” Importantly, the message of Jesus Christ as expressed through Sacred Scripture provides a proper corrective to the problem of modern thought. Only the acknowledgment that life includes death can sufficiently pull sickness and suffering out from under the microscope where modern thought has put them and let people live and love.

Colten Maertens-Pizzo works for the Archdiocese of Chicago Catholic School System.

Christian Realism Explores the Existential Value of Suffering