A few years ago, I heard a story about how bison on the Great Plains react to storms. Unlike cattle who tend to turn away from the storm in hopes of avoiding it, bison turn into the storm and face it head on, literally. The claim is that by doing so, they minimize the impact the storm will have on them and they get through it faster. For those animals that turn away from a storm in hoping to avoid it, the storm often catches up to them and they spend more time in the storm. I do not really have a way of verifying this as a fact, though I have heard it in different presentations, but even if it cannot be proven as fact, the principle applies and it provides a helpful lesson for how we face storms in our lives as Christians.
In the next paragraph of Spe salvi, Pope Benedict reflects on how tempting it is for us to run from suffering when it comes, to do everything that we can do avoid it in our lives. By doing so, however, we find ourselves often worse off than if we had not turned into the suffering. The Holy Father explains:
It is when we attempt to avoid suffering by withdrawing from anything that might involve hurt, when we try to spare ourselves the effort and pain of pursuing truth, love, and goodness, that we drift into a life of emptiness, in which there may be almost no pain, but the dark sensation of meaninglessness and abandonment is all the greater. (SS 37)
Instead, like bison about to encounter a storm, we should not flee in fear, but turn into the suffering:
It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love. (ibid.)
As a way of demonstrating this, the pope quotes a rather lengthy account from the Vietnamese martyr Paul Le-Bao-Tinh († 1857) who suffered imprisonment and torture in a condition the martyr described as “a true image of everlasting Hell.” It is well worth going to this paragraph and reading it to see the remarkable effect of turning into suffering with faith in Jesus Christ.
I will quote what Pope Benedict writes as he reflects on this inspiring quote, words which I find extremely fruitful for our reflection when faced with suffering:
This is indeed a letter from Hell, but it also reveals the truth of the Psalm text: “If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I sink to the nether world, you are present there … If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall hide me, and night shall be my light’ —for you darkness itself is not dark, and night shines as the day; darkness and light are the same” (Ps 139 [138]:8-12; cf. also Ps 23 [22]:4). Christ descended into “Hell” and is therefore close to those cast into it, transforming their darkness into light. (ibid.)
By God’s Providence, I was recently praying with Psalm 139 and was struck by that same line, alternately translated as: “even darkness is not dark for you and the night is as clear as the day.” (Ps. 139:12) This is one of the great gifts of the Psalms, as they provide ready responses to pretty much every human emotion that we face. Therefore, when we are confronted with the storm of suffering in our lives, we can turn toward it, and call upon the Lord, reciting those words, and asking Him to be our light to guide us through the darkness and pass safely to the other side with the gracious assistance of His protecting grace.