| Life involves suffering. Too often we forget this or don?t like to be reminded of it. But suffering and pain are as much a part of our lives as are joy and celebration.
Easter was celebrated this past weekend. For Christians it was a day of celebration. Jesus Christ was resurrected; He rose to heaven to be at the right side of his Father -- a glorious event. But as Father John Neuhaus reminds us in ?Death on a Friday Afternoon,? the darkness of Good Friday preceded the light of Easter Sunday. Jesus had to go through extraordinary suffering and pain before he could fulfill God?s plan for him. Jesus? suffering was as crucial to the salvation and redemption of Christians as was His final death and resurrection. It is not only His joyous resurrection that allows us to be cleansed from sin, it was His suffering that enables us to be born again.
Writing in the New York Sun last week, George Weigel said that ?Embracing suffering is a concept alien to us. And yet suffering embraced in obedience to God?s will is at the center of Christianity.... The Christ of the Gospels reaches out and embraces suffering as his destiny, his vocation -- and is vindicated in that self-sacrifice on Easter.?
Weigel then explained that John Paul II, in the weakness and suffering accompanying his current illness, is a ?tremendous encouragement to the elderly, the sick, the disabled and the dying, who find strength and hope in his example.? The Pope has been suffering through a huge physical struggle. But at bottom he is a ?Christian pastor who is going to challenge us with the message of the cross,? Weigel wrote, ?the message of Good Friday and Easter -- until the end.?
Terri Schiavo is part of the unfortunate army of the sick, disabled, and dying. She is suffering in obedience to God?s will. It is an Easter story, although a very painful one. But the legal establishment and mainstream media elite do not understand suffering in this religious context. So it appears they would rather do away with her.
Inexplicably, the U.S. court system is determined to take Schiavo?s life. I say inexplicably because the courts have chosen to disregard the morality of life, the religious belief in life, the culture of life. Inexplicable because all Americans of faith believe that in situations like this we should, as President Bush has said, err on the side of life. But the courts have chosen to disregard this thought -- this belief.
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