On Suffering and the Opioid Crisis

“Ma’am, using the chart on the wall how would you classify your level of pain?” (smiling face, troubled face, frowning face, face with tears,…) As caregiver for my mother at the end of her life, I heard this question asked many times of Mom on her trips to the hospital emergency room. I would listen as she gave her most current answer. Sitting with her in the quiet of the room as she would try to rest, I often found myself silently staring at the line of faces and wondering, “How would I classify my level of pain?”

At a recent conference on the opioid crisis in East Tennessee, I listened as a medical professional reflected on how our focus on pain management as the most important criterion for gauging the progress of medical treatment has played a major role in this tragic crisis afflicting our society. It seems that a prevailing thought is that pain must be both avoided and medicated at all costs. “Using the chart on the wall, how would you classify your level of pain?”

I am not a medical profession and make no pretensions to be one, but in my role as a pastor, I do find myself walking into hospital rooms and emergency rooms. I also encounter people in physical, emotional, and spiritual pain in a variety of settings. The lens through which I weigh and evaluate is not medical and biological but rather theological, ethical, and pastoral. Our Christian faith has something valuable to say and much to teach about pain.

As Christians, we neither search out pain nor do we give in to despair when it arrives. In this world and during our journey within it, we understand that there will be pain, hurt, suffering, loneliness, and injustice. A good Catholic prayer that teaches this truth is the “Hail, Holy Queen” as it reminds us that there will be “valleys of tears” in life. Our Lord himself has taught us that part of discipleship is learning to accept our own crosses and carry them. But it is important to note that we do not embrace pain just to embrace pain as pain alone. If that were the case, then we would all be lost. Rather, our Lord asks us to encounter pain with faith, specifically the faith of the cross. The cross is the seal that God has placed upon the pain of our world. It is the seal that testifies that God has entered into the pain, the hurt, and the wound of our world. Nothing is now outside of or distant from God. Through the cross, pain has now been placed within a broader and more infinite horizon—the salvific action of God in Christ Jesus.

When met with faith, pain itself can become a sanctifying path of encounter with God in Jesus. This is the equation laid out in the Letter to the Hebrews. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace in time of need” (Hebrews 4:15-16). The equation laid out here is neither to avoid pain when it comes nor medicate completely over it but to trust that our High Priest himself knows the reality of pain and is there to walk with us even in its midst. When this is realized, boldness and mercy and grace are gained.

I believe that there is a spiritual dynamic to the opioid crisis. I think the crisis reveals a deep unease in our society that is not yet able nor willing to deal with the “valleys of tears” that are encountered in life. How does this begin to change? How can we, ourselves, begin to make a change? Here, I am reminded of a quote by St. Paul VI in his apostolic exhortation, “Evangelii Nuntiandi,” but we must be warned, it is not an easy answer.

“Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.” We cannot give what we do not have. We must be willing to walk the journey ourselves in faith and trust when those “valleys of tears” are encountered in life and then—and only then—can we both listen in empathy and have some authentic words to share with the people we encounter who are within the valley themselves. We will be witnesses to what God has done in Christ Jesus.

Walking with my mother during her last years of life was the most painful thing I have ever experienced, but now, I would not trade it for anything. That time with her, those small moments of joy, laughter, and love remain and they comfort. It is the paradox of the seal of the cross. We are made better Christians and disciples because of having to walk through the valley of tears that come our way and by realizing our High Priest is there and that he walks with us.

Maybe avoiding pain is not always the best solution? Maybe encountering pain with faith leads to a grace and an authenticity we have yet to even imagine?

“Using the chart on the wall how would you classify your level of pain?”