Catholic Priest Set on Fire: A Reflection on Human Suffering

What is the reason and meaning behind human suffering?

Father Kuprys was offering Mass when a man attacked him and set him on fire. Many Christians are experiencing horrible suffering throughout the world today. In heaven God will wipe away every tear, and there will be no more suffering and death (Rev 21:4). But what is the role and reason for human suffering?

P>KNOXVILLE, TN (Catholic Online) - Imagine that you are sitting in church and following along at Mass. Perhaps you sense the presence of heaven and its King in your midst. Perhaps you do not, and you are just going through the motions. But you know that you are participating in something good and holy. You then watch a man get up from the pew and walk toward the altar. His action is out of place, and you wonder about it. The man pulls something out from under his coat. To your relief, it is a harmless looking bottle. Then he sprays it on the priest, clicks open a cigarette lighter and ignites the liquid. You watch horrified as Father's head become engulfed in flames.

This incident is not fiction. Something very similar happened in the Baltic Nation of Lithuania this past Thursday. Father Remigijus Kuprys began his day much like any other. He dressed in his vestments and prepared to offer the sacrifice of the Mass, but the day was about to take an unexpected turn and change his life. While Father was offering the Mass in the town of Jonava, a man approached him, sprayed a flammable liquid on him, and, using a cigarette lighter, set him on fire. By God's grace they were able to put out the flames, and Father has been released from the hospital. But his head and face are completely covered in bandages. 

So many of our Christian brothers and sisters are experiencing horrible persecution throughout the world today. Though this incident is apparently different. Lithuania is mostly a Catholic Nation. The attacker, whose name has not been released, is a local resident. It was reported that he had verbally disrupted other Masses, but his motives are unknown. Yet, this attack, like so much of the violence we hear about these days, is especially heinous.

Father Kuprys and many Christians around the world must be asking God why such horrible evil and suffering have come upon them. But it is not just them; we also ask the same question, for we are haunted by the same reality. Therefore, let us take this opportunity to briefly reflect on why we suffer.

Blessed John Paul II addressed this question in his Apostolic Letter, On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering. On the first page we read, "Suffering is particularly essential to the nature of man. . . . It is one of those points in which man is in a certain sense 'destined' to go beyond himself . . . ."  Suffering, then, is linked to our nature and our destiny.

Human existence, as we know it on the natural level, is not our end; it is like a grain of wheat. Jesus said, ". . . unless the grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat. But if it dies, it produces much fruit" (Jn 12:24). So what is our destiny? Saint Paul answers this question. He writes, "[God] likewise predestined us through Christ Jesus to be his adopted sons. . . " (Eph 1:5). 

If we are destined to become like Him, what does this entail?  The answer requires a consideration of God's nature. God is a relational being. According to paragraph 221 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and He has destined us to share in that exchange." We share in that exchange when we are baptized into God's family and become His adopted children.

The way that we return His love is by giving ourselves away, that is, by giving ourselves back to Him. Jesus chose to give himself away completely. He poured his divinity into our nature. He then poured Himself out for us on the cross. Then he humbled himself even further, becoming "ground wheat." He loved the Father and us perfectly. In his book, Lord Have Mercy, Scott Hahn says that Jesus' life, passion, death, and resurrection are manifestations of God's inner life and love in space and time. 
 
But we are weak and rebellious. We do not want to give ourselves away completely and sacrificially. Sacrifice entails suffering, and we fear suffering. So in our weakness we avoid it and often disobey God in process. Our disobedience began in the Garden of Eden. Paragraph 398 of the Catechism states, "Seduced by the devil, [Adam] wanted to 'be like God,' but 'without God, before God, and not in accordance with God.'" Although we rebel against God and fail to enter into an exchange of love with Him, Blessed John Paul II informs us that God uses even our weakness for a higher purpose.

Referring back to his Apostolic Letter, the late pope writes that Jesus descends to the ultimate limits of human weakness and impotence, but at the same time in this weakness he is lifted up, confirmed by the power of the resurrection. This is the gospel paradox of weakness and strength. So God turns our weakness into our strength (2 Cor 12:9-10).

On page 25 of his letter he writes, ". . .this means that the weaknesses of all human sufferings are capable of being infused with the same power of God manifested in Christ's cross. In such a concept, to suffer means to become particularly susceptible, particularly open, to the working of the salvific powers of God offered to humanity in Christ. In him God has confirmed his desire to act especially through suffering, which is man's weakness and emptying of self, and he wishes to make his power known precisely in this weakness and emptying of self."

We will never be able to love and obey God unless we first acknowledge our weakness and admit His absolute authority over us. Yet, even if we admit God's authority over us, why should we trust, let alone love, a God who permits so much suffering? We can understand that our disobedience causes much of our own suffering, but this does not adequately explain why a good God would permit evil to crush the innocent with the kind of ferocity we are witnessing today.

The explanation to the question of evil is a spiritual one. God permits evil because He desires to share His inner life with us. Paragraphs 306-311 in the Catechism state that by creating us in His image and likeness, God gave us the intellect and the freedom to choose our destiny and act upon it. He gave us this power, so we would be able to participate in His Divine life. In other words, God permits evil because He respects the freedom and dignity He gave to us when he created us in His Image. Evil, then, springs from rebellion against God (ours and the fallen angels); and it mysteriously affects all of creation. However, good can be derived from it.

So God gives our human suffering a great and noble purpose. This is what Blessed John Paul II is telling us in his letter. On page 27, he informs us that the redemptive mission of Jesus continues. The redemption, which Jesus accomplished through perfect love, remains open to our loving participation and can even be expressed in human suffering. Jesus raised human suffering to a higher level by endowing it with the power to become redemptive. As Saint Paul writes, we complete the suffering of Jesus in our own bodies (Col 1:24). Thus, when we unite our suffering to Jesus as an act of love, we are participating in his ongoing redemptive mission because we are members of His Body, the Church. 

A large part of the answer to suffering, then, has to do with our nature and our destiny. However, even this explanation is of little value unless Jesus has truly risen from the dead and has prepared a special place for us in his Father's house. Consequently, in a certain sense, it seems that our consolation in this life ultimately depends on the reality of heaven, for it is only when we get to heaven that God will wipe away every tear, and there will be no more suffering and death (Rev 21:4). 

Mother Angelica of EWTN gave us an idea what this biblical verse means in a series she did on heaven. I was fortunate to hear some of it recently. She said something like this: every injury, cruelty, injustice, illness, anxiety, unfulfilled need or longing that we have experienced in this life and united with Jesus' suffering will become a great blessing in the next life. And God will turn our deepest sorrows into unimaginable joy. We pray that Father Kuprys and all our suffering Christian brothers and sisters find consolation in the hope of their noble destiny and the promise that awaits them. 

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Michael Terheyden was born into a Catholic family, but that is not why he is a Catholic. He is a Catholic because he believes that truth is real, that it is beautiful and good, and that the fullness of truth is in the Catholic Church. However, he knows that God's grace operating throughout his life is the main reason he is a Catholic. He is greatly blessed to share his faith and his life with his beautiful wife, Dorothy. They have four grown children and three grandchildren.

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