Redemptive Suffering: Understanding Suffering, Living with It, Growing Through It

Couldn’t put it down!!

Anyone having to deal with what appears to be undeserved pain and suffering in their lives would do well to read this book. O'Malley leaves you understanding that you are not alone.

Despite this book's misleading title, the author has spent much more time airing his differences with the teachings of the Catholic Church than in constructively offering any real insights into understanding suffering, living with it and growing through the experiences of having it. A very uninformative and weakly written diatribe, IMHO. Very disappointing for anyone actually looking for constructive input on this topic!

Very good.

He sounds more like a secular humanist than a bible believer. I am afraid no one is going to find satisfactory answers in this book.

Sorry to be the one negative review here, my dear readers. This is not good Catholic theology. A key point: Fr. O'Malley says that the atoning death of Jesus Christ is not for God, but for man. In other words, the Heavenly Father did not need justice to be wrought on the cross, only mercy. This is not a new idea, and has existed in liberal "theology" for many decades as some people are embarrassed by the cross as an expression of perfect mercy and perfect justice. From this one very wrong premise (that the cross-work of Christ is only an act of mercy and not an act of justice) comes the woefully incomplete conclusions about redemptive suffering. The gist of Fr. O'Malley's "redemptive suffering" is that the one who suffers elicits compassion from those observing and helping the sufferer (compassion is also developed in the sufferer). As the helpers/observers become more compassionate, they may be open to the grace of God and be saved. All well and good, but this does not go a stone's throw far enough in tackling the beauty of redemptive suffering as exposited by Pope John Paul II's 1984 Apostolic letter, Salvifici Doloris, based on Colossians 1:24, in which God condescends to allow fallen humanity to not only take up one's cross but also to be crucified with Christ for the sake of others. This is utterly missing in Fr. O'Malley's treatise. Why? I suspect because he does not talk about the justice component of the cross, its saving grace by being a perfect act of justice in which a loving God allows humanity to participate. Pope John Paul II's explanation is soaring and beautiful. Fr. O'Malley's, because he relies on the false premise addressed above, leaves out so much and ultimately distorts.

Few book titles, have dared offer such great claims, Understanding Suffering...how many thousands of books have tried and fallen short. Living With It, beyond our comprehension, but through which we painfully stumble. Growing Through It, rising to maturity through pain. and most daringly, to declare we can be redeemed, through hideous experiences we cannot understand What a courageous title! Father O'Malley is not afraid to tackle the big question. The nightmare of human exisstence. He answers, "Suffering can be redemptive." If God, the creator, is also the god of love, why are our daily rounds so filled with anxiety, terror, physical and mental pain? "What Jesus came to offer was redemption, not from "the sin of Adam" but from our unwillingness to respond to God's purpose in creating us, to the challenges of grace: to broader and more profound and nobler depths of living and loving." pg. 125 To young clergy-to-be few books can be more boring than lengthy theological tomes. O'Malley again and again rescues attention with lines such as these. "Optimism bets 'the sun'll come out tomorrow, betchyer bottom dollar.' Hope denies Peggy Lee's plaintive, " Is that all there is? Let's break out the booze and have a ball, if that's all...there is.' There must be something more." pg. 127 A deep, but readable, foray into the great questions and answers of human existence.