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    The Mystery of Suffering
    The Mystery of Suffering
    The Mystery of Suffering
    Ebook111 pages1 hour

    The Mystery of Suffering

    By Hubert Van Zeller and Al Kresta

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    In The Mystery of Suffering—a timeless classic first written in 1963—celebrated British Benedictine monk, author, and sculptor Hubert van Zeller (1905-1984) offers an eloquent response to the question of human suffering: Those who endure suffering with hope and trust in Divine Providence will embark on an ever-deeper path to holiness that leads to eternal glory.

    Van Zeller believed that those who surrender to the pain and embrace it as a way to identify with the Passion of Christ discover its deeper meaning, replacing fear with trust, resistance with peace, and defeat with the “triumph of grace.”
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAve Maria Press
    Release dateSep 18, 2015
    ISBN9780870612978
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      The Mystery of Suffering - Hubert Van Zeller

      "How grateful we should be to have van Zeller’s book back in print. He was a brilliant writer whose spiritual reflections reflect a life of monastic contemplation. The Mystery of Suffering is not meant merely to be read but to be pondered."

      Lawrence S. Cunningham

      John A. O’Brien Professor of Theology (Emeritus)

      University of Notre Dame

      Hubert van Zeller embedded in my soul not just the poetry, but the reality that there can be no eternal beatitude without suffering, no crown without the cross. With his frank, practical, even workmanlike Benedictine spirituality, van Zeller showed me the operation of grace even in my pious failures. May this new, attractive edition of the book do for you what it did for me.

      Al Kresta

      President of Ave Maria Radio

      While suffering has the potential to turn us inward, it also has the potential to lead us closer to Christ. Hubert van Zeller’s spiritual classic provides us with a timeless framework on how to seek for and find Christ in the midst of our suffering.

      Deacon Joel and Lisa Schmidt

      Speakers and writers at ThePracticingCatholic.com

      Previously published as Suffering in Other Words: A Presentation for Beginners (Springfield, IL: Templegate Publishers, 1964).

      Nihil Obstat: Ralph Russell, O.S.B.

      Censor Deputatus

      Imprimatur: B. C. Butler, Abb. Pres.

      September 23, 1963

      Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture passages have been taken from The Holy Bible: Douay Rheims Version. Published in 1899, it is in public domain.

      Verses marked NASB are from the New American Standard Bible. Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

      Verses marked NABRE are from the New American Bible, Revised Edition. Copyright 1970, 1986, 1991, and 2010 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington DC. Used by permission of copyright owner. All rights reserved.

      ____________________________________

      Foreword © 2015 by Al Kresta

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews, without written permission from Christian Classics™, Ave Maria Press®, Inc., P.O. Box 428, Notre Dame, IN 46556, 1-800-282-1865.

      Founded in 1865, Ave Maria Press is a ministry of the United States Province of Holy Cross.

      www.christian-classics.com

      Paperback: ISBN-13 978-0-87061-296-1

      E-book: ISBN-13 978-0-87061-297-8

      Cover image of The Mourning of Christ by Sandro Botticelli reproduced by permission of bpk, Berlin / Alte Pinakothek, Bayerische Staatsgemaeldesammlungen, Munich, G / Art Resource, NY.

      Cover and text design by David Scholtes.

      Printed and bound in the United States of America.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Van Zeller, Hubert, 1905-1984.

      [Suffering in other words]

      The mystery of suffering : a spiritual classic on trust in divine providence / Hubert van Zeller, O.S.B. ; foreword by Al Kresta.

      pages cm

      Originally published under title: Suffering in other words : a presentation for beginners : Springfield, Ill. : Templegate, 1964.

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN 978-0-87061-296-1 (alk. paper) -- ISBN 0-87061-296-4 (alk. paper)

      1. Suffering. I. Title.

      BT732.7.V3 2015

      231’.8--dc23

      2015014531

      For Doctor James Furrie,

      who knows it all from experience.

      Contents

      Foreword by Al Kresta

      1. The Principle of Suffering

      2. The Mystery of Suffering

      3. Imperfection in Suffering

      4. Loneliness in Suffering

      5. The Problem of Evil

      6. Suffering as a Punishment

      7. The Sufferings of the Race

      8. So What Do We Do Now?

      9. Resignation

      10. Willingness

      11. Choice

      12. The Cross: Symbol and Reality

      Foreword

      In a letter written just before her death, St. Thérèse of Lisieux wrote that she has a great desire to suffer. I don’t. That’s why the book you now hold in your hands by Benedictine monk and sculptor Dom Hubert van Zeller shouted, Kresta, this book’s for you!

      Originally titled Suffering in Other Words: A Presentation for Beginners and published in 1964, this book was placed in my hands at the lowest moment of my life, revealing to me Catholicism’s open secret of the redemptive possibility of suffering: Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory? (Lk 24:26, NABRE). This book, then, is for those aspiring disciples of Christ who, at any age, are still sheepish about avoiding a gift the saints assure us is for our good and God’s glory.

      Dom Hubert van Zeller (1905–1984), a friend of apologist Fr. Ronald Knox and novelist Evelyn Waugh, counted suffering a mark of discipleship:

      If it was right for Christ to go by the way of suffering to the final possession of his glory, it is right also for us. We are members of his body. The limbs must go the way of the head, the parts may not choose one way of going to the Father while the whole chooses another. What Christ endures, we endure. (see p. 1)

      St. Thérèse of Lisieux understood this. Me? Not so much. That is why she is a saint and I’m still a plebian.

      Breaking My Spiritual Logjam

      It’s not that I haven’t been given opportunity to understand this spiritual principle. On February 18, 2003, as the United States was gearing up for Operation Iraqi Freedom, I was under attack from bugs. A virulent form of Group A streptococcus bacteria, necrotizing fasciitis, a.k.a., the flesh-eating bacteria.

      The previous week illness had kept me from work. On Friday, a friend brought Viaticum to my bedside. I told him I wasn’t certain what was ailing me. But I had a hunch that the combined effects of excess food and drink, neglect of prayer, and the benign neglect of loved ones in pursuit of my own ambitions had created a spiritual logjam. If grace was to flow smoothly, this logjam needed to be purged from my spiritual circulatory system. I also remember thinking that it would probably require a blast of suffering to shake things loose. If and when it happened, I didn’t want to waste a moment of that suffering, as the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen regularly advised. I wanted to suffer heroically.

      It wasn’t until much later that I finally realized that we are not called to be heroes but saints. Heroes prove themselves competent, courageous, and brilliant. They get monuments built where future generations can come with their children.

      Saints are different. We look at them and say, Wow, isn’t Christ something? The virtues of the saints are not their possessions. They know, and want us to know, that it emerges from above them. There are many self-made heroes; there are no self-made saints.

      Suffering as Divine Discipline

      Popular opinion would have us believe that suffering has no purpose, that dung happens, and suffering bears no rational connection to our misbehaviors. Clearly, not all suffering is a direct consequence of personal sin, but our examination of conscience should at least explore the possibility.

      We endure life’s trials much better when we sense their purpose. If dung happens, then life becomes a tragedy as we flounder about without purpose. In contrast, the saints in scripture, from Job to Paul, saw suffering as a form of divine discipline. Daddy spanks promises a more meaningful possibility for our lives than dung happens.

      Van Zeller is even blunter:

      If we want to be saved, we must accept the idea that our sins will need to be burned off us, either in this life or in the next, by suffering. . . . So before I can appreciate the doctrine of suffering as a punishment, I must appreciate the doctrine of sin as a reality, as a personal liability. (see pp. 55–56)

      The anticipated suffering came the following Monday night. A tidal wave of horrific, feverish, painful symptoms swept over me, downgrading the previous Friday’s illness to mere annoyance. By the time I was admitted to Saint Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, my condition was critical. Opinion believed it likely that I would learn St. Thérèse’s lesson in purgatory

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