“It’s hard to look at suffering. It shouldn’t be easy to look at the effects of war, violence, hatred, poverty. It shouldn’t be easy to look at the hungry, the homeless, the ill in mind, body, or spirit. It shouldn’t be easy to look at lives broken by abuse, infidelity, or hurtful teasing. It shouldn’t be easy, and it must be done, for it is in looking at suffering that hearts are broken open, passivity dies, and hope is born.
It is hard to look at suffering; and yet, here we are on this Good Friday when our attention is utterly focused on the suffering of Christ. How is it that the cross, an instrument of torture and execution, has become the primary symbol of our faith? How is it that we venerate this instrument of suffering?”
— Sister Megan McElroy, OP
