In recent weeks I have been stopped by people on different occasions. They had the same request. “Could you pray for me please? I have cancer.” Several had tears in their eyes. All showed signs of strain and tension.

Those kinds of requests are a reminder of the deep and personal challenge to faith that so many are going through every day with health problems. It is likewise a reminder of the challenge for all of us to be of service to all of those who are suffering.

We all know first-hand that being sick is our own personal sorrowful mystery. Even the simplest illness like a three day cold or a mild flu leaves us wondering when this will end. Sometimes, when it is over, we look back and wonder why we made such a fuss. Still, the suffering involved was real.

But as illness becomes more complicated and the suffering more drawn out or more intense perhaps even with the prospect of death itself, the suffering leads the one who is afflicted to an ever deeper spiritual challenge.

Everyone eventually faces the question, is my suffering meaningless? Is it just my individual pain in this vast universe that is felt only by me and then vanishes? Or is there a meaning to suffering that is spiritual and ultimately contributes to my good? Either way, how can a God who is all good and whom we believe to be “in control” of all things allow this to happen to me?

Of course that is only one half of the suffering brought on by illness or injury. The other half is the suffering of those who love the person who is ill or injured. They too feel anguish, especially because there is nothing they can do directly to alleviate the pain or the fear experienced by a loved one. There is that feeling of helplessness in such a moment that is its own form of suffering.

Our answer about the nature of suffering begins with Jesus Himself. Since we look to conform ourselves to Him and to follow His example in all things, we look to His suffering as well. That draws us to ponder Jesus beaten by the soldiers and then nailed to the cross to die for us.

When considered with strictly earthly and human reasoning, the suffering of Jesus makes no sense. His Father in heaven could have found other ways to save us from our sins. Why would the Father ask this of His Son who was innocent of our guilt?

But Jesus made clear time and again that He trusted His Father and that His will was one with that of His Father. His suffering was a witness to His acceptance of the chalice that the Father entrusted to Him.

That means that while we may not fully understand suffering when it comes, like Jesus we must work to accept it as part of God’s will. That alone would make it to be of great value. And because the Father willed that the suffering of Jesus be linked to the forgiveness of sins and the purification of the world, suffering itself has an unseen but very real value for each of us and for the Church.

Suffering and illness also have another value. They deepen and purify our love and our trust of God. It is easy for spouses to love each other when things are going well but the true love of husband and wife is tested and confirmed by challenges and hard times.

So too, we should remember to offer our sufferings to God in trust. Through the eyes of faith we see that that is when God is most present to us with His helping grace and His forgiveness of our sins.

I pray often for the sick among the faithful of the Diocese of Rockford. I pray also for their families and for the health care workers who take care of them. I pray especially that all of those who ask for prayers might see in their patience and affliction the way of the cross leading to their share in Christ’s resurrection. For each of us that lesson is hard, but it is at the heart of our faith in Jesus.