“I remember that at the door of a church, I asked a woman: why do you come here, and she answered: to ask, to ask. May my son pass, may this person be cured. Almost no one said: I come to give thanks”. “When the mystery of pain visits us, when suffering and pain come, one asks oneself many questions”.
Thus begins the parish priest of Santa María de Caná, Jesús Higueras (Madrid, 1963), a reflection on suffering, illness, contradiction, in a conversation with Mater Mundi TV.
It is not from now, but we have rescued it, because we are facing a capital issue, which was echoed, for example, by St. John Paul II, in the book ‘Crossing the Threshold of Hope’. The Polish Pope responded to a question from the recently deceased Italian journalist and writer Vittorio Messori, which is very similar to what Jesús Higueras is commenting on.
Messori put on the table how we can continue to trust in “God, who is supposed to be a merciful Father, (...) in the face of suffering, injustice, sickness and death”. And St. John Paul II said that “the scandal of the Cross remains the key to the interpretation of the great mystery of suffering”.
”Why does God allow this suffering?”
Pastor Jesús Higueras reflects: “Why does God, being Father and being good, allow this suffering? Why, if he says he is watching over me, how is it that this has happened to my daughter, my family is broken, or I am dying?.
“These are moments when you feel fear and insecurity, because you have lost control of your life. It is a moment, moreover, when you are not able to bear the pain, and it is a pain that overcomes you by far.”.
Jesus Christ on the cross became so much in solidarity with our pain that he went so far as to say: ‘My God, why have you forsaken me’, as if to say: I identify with all those who in their cross and in their pain do not feel close to God.
It is the proof: “you are my Friend even in bad times”.”
Jesús Higueras continues: “There are many people who, when they are suffering, say: I don't know if praying helps me, because I feel God is far away. It is the moment of the test. It is the moment to say: well, Lord, you were not my friend only for the good times, you are my friend also for the bad times”.
And he gives the example of a bad season, in which we call a friend, I unburden myself to him, I lean on him... “If I really have him as a friend, I want to lean on him”.
Jesus experiences every drop of human pain
So how do you pray when you are having a very bad time in life," asks Jesús Higueras, ordained a priest in 1990.
“To me, what has helped me, and what I have seen is this: what Jesus does on the cross is to experience in his heart every drop of pain that every human being has experienced in the history of mankind. The cross of Christ is us. If I suffer, Christ suffers; if I am beaten, Christ is beaten....”
The Gospel says: “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was naked, I was in prison, I was sick... When, Lord? Every time this happened to ...., it was happening to Me”.
“Jesus, what hurts me, hurts You, we are partners in pain.”
“The cross of Jesus is us,” adds Father Higueras. “Therefore, when I am suffering..., if I have a tumor, I say to Jesus, Jesus, you have this tumor too, what hurts me, hurts you, we are companions in pain. Only he can understand me who has gone through what I have gone through. A mother who has lost a child can only be understood by another mother who has lost a child, a person who has lost the love of her life, a person who has an illness that makes you very thirsty, can only be understood by another person who has gone through the same thing...”.
He wanted to experience in his flesh what we experience in our flesh.
“Because God is love and because God understands, in order to understand us he became human, and he wanted to experience in his flesh what we experience. And of course, when we suffer and look at the Cross, Jesus tells us, but let's see, if I am suffering with you, if what hurts you, hurts Me, what happens to you happens to Me, your pain is my pain, and it is neither more nor less”. This is how Jesús Higueras reflects and prays.
“God has not come down to Earth as a tourist.”
Indeed, “you meet a God who has not come down to Earth as a tourist, to say to you guys that I love you very much, that when you come to heaven I will fix everything for you. But because I love you very much, I come down to the sand for you, I am in solidarity with your destiny.
If you go hungry, the hunger you go through, I will go through it; if you sleep on the ground, I will sleep; the food they give you, I will take it; the pain you have, I will have it; your displeasure will be my displeasure..., “because all that, transforms it in the Cross into a space of redemption and salvation”.
Bitter with pain, some turn away from God
There are people that pain destroys them, it makes them bitter, they are people whose life breaks into a thousand pieces, and they do not know how to pick them up. And pain becomes a cause of scandal and estrangement from God.
But there are others who “look at the Crucified One, and stand at the foot of the Cross, and look at Jesus Christ, with blood, with thorns, but not only the pain of the body of Christ, but the pain of the soul of Christ... And Christ experiences in his heart every instant of pain of every human creature”.
“If you want to, you can become a co-redeemer.”
“Then you find a consolation, a strength, a reason for your suffering,” Don Jesús stresses. “Because if you want, you can become a co-redeemer, and therefore your suffering is no longer an absurdity, a God who has forgotten you, who leaves you there suffering because you have won the black ball in the lottery of life..., but God is asking you to climb the Cross with him, and to offer your pain united to his. Because then, if you unite it to His - this is a gift of the Holy Spirit, it is not so easy - but if you remember to unite your pain to His, then your pain becomes redemptive”.
When one is upset, when one is sick, when one is alone, when one does not know what to do, concludes the parish priest of Çaná, “one must go to the foot of the Cross, and say: Lord, You are there for me, You are going through what I am going through, You came through, and I, leaning on You, will also come through.
“Not everything ends at the Cross.” “Suffering is not a curse.”
The final words of Jesús Higueras solve all the unknowns.
“We say it in the Creed: for us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and was crucified for our sins. And he rose again! The hope is that not everything ends at the Cross.
St. Paul said, it is certain doctrine. If we suffer with him, we shall reign with him.
If God allows suffering to strike me in my life, concludes don Jesús, “it is because God somehow wants that suffering to become glory, for me and for those I love: for your children, for your parents, for your family....
“Therefore, since Christ went up to the Cross, suffering is not a curse. Suffering is a space to meet God, and to grow in love.”.
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