In The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevski states that "the earth is soaked from its crust to its very centre with the tears of humanity."

At this very moment there are millions of people who are in despair, who are suffering, who are being tortured, and humanity screams: "Why?" If God is all-good and all-powerful why does he allow brutality and injustice? This is one of the major questions of human life, to which, throughout history, people have struggled to find a meaningful answer.

Many have sought to solve the question of suffering by treating it as a problem rather than as a mystery whose meaning can never be fully exhausted. Buddha's basic idea was that we suffer because we have an illegitimate attachment to existence. If you sever your craving for existence, he thought, you extinguish your suffering; you reach a certain calm that is the door to nirvana. This, of course, sounds attractive, especially when you compare the mysterious, serene, man-figure of the Buddha, looking inward, to the suffering Christ on the cross.

Karl Marx believed unhappiness exists because of social injustice and inequality. His basic thought was that if you let the State take over completely it will distribute wealth equally and justly and a workers' paradise will appear on earth. Unfortunately, in actual practice, this resulted in people being sent to the Gulag (concentration camps) and much, much worse. In effect, Marx ended up creating a worse evil than the injustice he intended to correct.

In Christianity we discover two things which are unique and amazing. First, Christianity teaches the art of suffering. Second - and this is particularly emphasized in Roman Catholicism - Christianity teaches the meaning of suffering.

The holy art of suffering is not easy to learn because of our rebellious nature; that is due to original sin. When we suffer we have a tendency to add to our suffering. Such "illegitimate" suffering that is self-made is often due to such things as vanity, envy, self-pity, and, above all, pride. These can be overcome by our constant willingness to reject, disavow, and oppose such traits, while begging God with a "holy pestering" to liberate us by His grace.

Once we are liberated we begin to discover that the suffering God sends us has a profound and sublime meaning with which it is to be embraced. The French poet Paul Claudel said that Christ did not come to abolish suffering but to join in our suffering. He did not come to abolish the cross but to lie down on the cross to save us.

Suffering on this earth is meant to be an expression of that love. When we love someone we start to tremble because we know that despite all our love we are not able to protect that person from their own suffering, sickness, poverty, and death.

When Christ was crucified, who was at the foot of the cross? His mother. Imagine the torture! But what did she do? She suffered with Him. In our pragmatic society we are so utilitarian in our views that I hear people say: "They are sick in the hospital. There is nothing I can do, so why go there". We all know, though, if we have suffered, that to have someone present-though the person cannot do a single thing to relieve the suffering-they can simply say, "I am here and I am suffering with you". If you love someone, you want to suffer with the beloved. Love in the face of sorrow does not seek isolation but wants to take on that pain as its own. This is an expression of authentic love that endorses suffering because the beloved one is suffering.

Then comes the beautiful thing about Christianity. The greatest love that exists manifests itself in giving one's life for one's friend - and that is what Christ did for us. He laid down His life freely, without seeking retaliation or revenge against His many false accusers. Not only did He suffer with us; He suffered for us so that the doors of paradise could be re-opened for us. The culmination of love is not only that you suffer "with" but that you suffer "for."

The meaning of suffering for Christians is that when we suffer a legitimate cross sent by God, He is giving us His grace, and suddenly we realize that we are ordained to join Christ on the cross. In some way He is saying in this moment, "Come close to my heart that has bled for you, that has suffered for you, that has been pierced by a lance for you." That is why the saints, when they receive a cross, see it as a way of coming closer to Our Lord.

The amazing thing is that when Christians discover the meaning of suffering they can carry seemingly crushing crosses and nevertheless have peace in their hearts and glowing smiles on their faces that radiate the message, "We are going to get there".

Perhaps the great tragedy of this world is that most people have no one to love. Since there is no one to love they never think of the love of God. Their life is tragic indeed.

The tragedy of the world is not suffering, but what we could miss when we actually do suffer. If the earth is soaked from its crust to its very centre with the tears of humanity, imagine the profound difference we could make if we did not allow our suffering to go to waste but rather acted to correlate it with the suffering of Christ.