Often while we were playing together and things got too dull, someone would change the whole scene with something like, “Let’s play like I can become invisible when I want to, and you can’t see me.”

That would go on for a while until one of the other kids got tired of your being invisible and would say, “Well, let’s play like I have this ring, and when I turn it to the sun you are no longer invisible.”

Sooner or later the next kid would up the ante with something like, “Let’s play like I can read your minds and stop you from becoming invisible or even holding your ring up to the sun.”

Before the day was half-over we usually got tired of fantasy, and there was nothing left but real, live sandlot softball.

Real Life

And when our lives got that serious we couldn’t play Let’s Play Like. There was no, “Let’s play like I am the world’s greatest catcher or pitcher or hitter.” Not in real life.

In real life, what you are, you really is, and no mind-game would change the fact or the pain of it all.

Whether you liked it or not, life was pretty simple: Strike Three and you’re out!

An Old Dilemma

I haven’t amused myself with Let’s Play Like for a long time, until recently as I continued to try to put new words on an old dilemma in my life, one that comes up particularly during Lent, namely the question of suffering.

But when I play a childhood game with things this serious, I prefer to ask “what if” instead of “let’s play like.”

What if? If you go deep enough into our best Catholic spirituality, you will find more than a hint of the theological implication that there is some kind of connection between us in our suffering now and Christ in that same suffering now. And when I say, “more than a hint,” I am not just talking about my own impressions.

Over the last two years I have been praying a lot about this topic, and I have been studying a lot, too.

The thing that started me on my whole journey into the mystery of suffering and pain was Catherine Doherty’s impassioned reminder to us in Madonna House, through her many letters and books, that at the center of our Madonna House vocation is the call to assuage the loneliness of Christ.

And one of the very first ways Catherine taught us we are to do that is to personally assuage the loneliness in each other, rich or poor, believer or unbeliever.

Books

I have taken her teaching more seriously each year, and this has led me back to some of my favorite books, such as, The Mysteries of Christianity by Msgr. Matthias Scheeben (1835-1888). He is considered the von Balthasar of the 19th century. And I have also done a bit of reading on this topic from Hans Urs von Balthasar.

Of course I have reread Mystici Corporis Christi (The Mystical Body of Christ) by Pius XII, 1943, and Redemptor Hominis (The Redeemer of Man) and Salvifici Doloris (The Power of Salvific Suffering) both by Pope John Paul II.

And all of this has led me to a deeper focus on the Gospel of Matthew 25:31-46 where Jesus images for us the Final Judgment and how it is that he experienced personally what we did or did not do to our brothers and sisters personally while we were on earth. There is therefore an obvious and real connection.

And whereas most of us are at home with the connection when we think of it in terms of Christ’s past suffering and death, not many of us are at home when we imply that the risen Son of God could in any way possibly suffer now!

Beyond Comfort

And even though we must modify the meaning of the actual word “suffering” whenever we speak of God or of the Risen Lord, the fact remains that our saints push us beyond our own spiritual comfort when it comes to this notion of suffering and pain in Christ. And somehow we have to get used to it.

Because, until we do, if our saints are any measure, there is something essential missing in our relationship with Christ and thus with each other. And there is also something essential missing in the understanding of our own personal emotional life history where we discover much about our personal suffering.

Yes, we Christians must always be plummeting the depths of this incredible mystery of suffering and pain, in Christ’s life, in our own lives, and in the lives of everyone on earth.

For in this mystery lies the key to the past, present, and the future, both temporal and eternal. And, if to get there means we end up playing some childish game now and then, perhaps that’s the way through the impasse. At least it is how I am making my way through it for now.

For example, some have heard the new proverb, which Catherine Doherty often quoted to us—“Pain is the Kiss of Christ.” And most people I know have the normal response: “If so, would you please tell Christ to stop kissing me!”

What If?

But what if? What if when Pain pushed its way “into God’s heart” through Jesus Christ, something happened to Pain itself which is so significant that it has changed the very nature of pain completely— so much so that now it is not pain but really is the kiss of the Living God? Yes, what if?

What if my suffering and pain, though really mine, are not only mine? What if my suffering now is Christ’s way of inviting me into his suffering and pain now and that of the whole world, the kind he talks about in Matthew 25: 31-46?

And what if all pain and suffering is somehow Christ’s and our experience of them is his way of inviting us into that mystery, that new creation wherein Pain is his kiss?

Being Like Him

And what if our being like him in our pain and suffering is the way in which he wants us to be one with him like he is now in saving and redeeming everyone all over the world?

And what if our common union with his pain and suffering and that of the whole world is the only way Christ assuages our suffering? Yes, what if?

Such “what ifs” might not answer theological dilemmas, but they might somehow bring us closer and closer to the heart of the Incarnation, to the mystery of Christ’s pain and suffering, which is surely the answer to all pain and suffering.

Perhaps “what if” is one of the ways we can break through the cultural and emotional barrier between us and the real meaning of pain and suffering.

Perhaps it can help us see why so many of our saints tell us that to not be able to suffer with Christ is to not be able to love as Christ loves. Or others who tell us that we can take upon ourselves the pain and suffering of those who have neither the energy nor the faith to do so, and that that is how we love Christ and them.

I believe it is fairly obvious that as the conditions throughout the whole world worsen, something very deep and healing must happen to our understanding of pain and suffering. And if it doesn’t, perhaps the whole world will be deprived of the key to everything.

And what if we can’t find the language for such astounding leaps of faith without the risk of childish games? Maybe the great saints never played games in order to arrive at some of their incredible mystical insights, such as  “Pain is the Kiss of Christ.”

A Divine Kiss

What if they saw that the real connection in all of this is so really Christ that what the world suffers now he somehow suffers now too, and thus Pain is a divine kiss and not a heavenly curse?

And what if that is what Christ meant when he said that what we do and don’t do to each other now we do to him now?

I saved the greatest “what if” of all until last! What if that is what love really is and that’s why pain is a kiss and not simply pain anymore and that all the other stuff we use to try to avoid it is the real fantasy?

Yes, what if it were really as clear and simple as what if? Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Let’s play like…