When Pain Popped Into My Mind Sitting at My Desk One Day

Many of us spend inordinate amounts of time at work sitting at our desks. My days vary, but sometimes I might be glued to a chair and computer screen for hours on end. When you don't get up from time to time - and sometimes I'm so concentrated on my work I don't - you pay a price, sometimes even a painful one. When that happens - if pain strikes from your sedentary inaction - you ideally turn your attention to Our Lord and "offer it up" for the poor souls in Purgatory. A small gesture, perhaps, but really "Catholic 101," wouldn't you say?

Anyway, this particular day of research and writing, glued to chair and screen, I took a mental break and thoughts about pain flooded my mind in its state of temporary respite:

We all suffer pain from time to time, some more than others: sickness, various physical pains, from injury, from growing old, from chronic conditions pepper our days; mental and spiritual pain like the death of a loved one, struggling to earn a living in spite of one’s best efforts, disappointment in the actions of a child, even fear for their souls.  Even being frustrated in our efforts to do God’s will may be a form of pain.  Nevertheless we are taught that God gives us or permits pain.

Why should I be in pain, when another scarcely knows what a day of sickness means? Why should my labors be thwarted, my studies be prevented, my works rendered fruitless by days of weary inactivity, or by the thwarting actions of my fellows? I want to do so much for God, I see so many splendid ways of furthering His glory and yet I may not. How little we realize God’s strange ways!

Pain exists to lead us closer to God and to keep us close to Him.  Pain serves us in our journey to heaven.  It’s a hard lesson to accept, especially when we see the pain of a loved one.

Random thoughts tied together in those few moments of respite, perhaps, but they brought to mind my poor suffering Aunt, recently widowed. We visited her in her assisted living residence recently. She can hardly see because of macular degeneration, has severe back pain from osteoporosis, just got over a dreadful bought of depression brought on by all this, exacerbated by the loss of her dear friend, with whom she developed a close relationship, who simply, suddenly, died without warning. Yet our visit found my dear Aunt asking about all of us who visited, coherent thoughts and words flowing from her almost 90-year old mind.

Puts any pain I've ever experienced in context, to say the least.

With all this in mind, here's a prayer about the pains that come to all of us from time to time:

Dear Jesus, giver of strange gifts, Your gift of pain seems strangest of all. At times I seem to grasp its meaning and to realize its sacramental value. At times in my own life and in the lives of others, I can almost touch the graces it gives and watch the nearness of our approach to You. And then again at times all grows dark and pain of mind and pain of heart and pain of body seem blighting things that mar man’s nature. Give me in those hours of darkness the grace to receive most holily the sacrament of pain. (Father Francis P. LeBuffe, SJ)