The Math of Suffering

Copyright 2005 Bruce Sabalaskey
All Rights Reserved

This article is a personal reflection on a topic in Christian life that has perplexed generations of people, both Christians and non-Christians alike - suffering. One common characteristic of all humans is the desire to avoid all suffering. Some belief systems have a great deal of doctrine to deal with this problem or to try and escape from it, and others less so.

Yet Jesus tells us that taking up our Cross is necessary, which of course entails suffering. But at the same time, Jesus says that His yoke is sweet and His burden is light (Matthew 11:30). So how can one reconcile this apparent contradiction?

Obviously Jesus suffered tremendously - just think of the Passion and Death on the Cross on Good Friday. Jesus never asks of us what He Himself has not done or has not suffered in a way that we have suffered, such as cold, pain, betrayal, hatred, and every other problem known to human existence. After all, suffering is supposed to be difficult, isn't it? Yet there are ample cases throughout Church history where people suffered tremendously, yet did so joyfully. The most obvious are the martyrs - Jesus of course being the first Christian Martyr. But one only needs to read the lives of the saints to learn of great suffering with joy. How did they do that, and what can we learn to repeat it in our own lives?

We should all understand that God gives His Grace to us - a share in His Divine Life - to live our vocation and perform our duties according to our state in life. So in an attempt to understand better how one can suffer such that the burden is light, I turned to another of God's creation called mathematics, hence the unusual title of this article. Don't worry, only simple algebra will be used, along with a number that is quite representative of God - ∞. This 'sideways-8' symbol ∞ represents infinity, a never-ending number, which any calculus student should remember. The way infinity works is that if you think of any number, no matter how large, then ∞ is always larger without exception. Just like God is Eternal - never ending - so is infinity. This became my first association of God and math.

Because of the special number ∞, some unique characteristics must be understood to proceed. The following simple mathematical expressions become apparent after a little reflection (or proof by a high school calculus book not provided here). In this article I will simply present them here for use later.

To continue, I will use another expression to illustrate a ìburden factorî where a ë0í (zero) burden is no suffering at all, which will be true for us in Heaven. And a larger burden is considered bad, e.g. a person has more suffering. To translate into math the earlier comment that humans want to avoid suffering means that every person wants a burden as close to zero as possible. This is intuitively obvious.

To illustrate letís use some examples. Considering the cross (which is the cause of the suffering), it can be seen that a burden is higher for a bigger cross, and lower for a smaller cross. Similarly, for any given cross, the burden is inverse to the strength, that is smaller (e.g. lighter) if the strength is higher, and larger if the strength is lower. Naturally there can be more than one cross which causes the suffering. Since the burden is a ratio, the absolute values of the crosses and strength are less important as is the ratio itself. For example, if the cross is 5 and the strength is 1, the burden is 5. But a burden is still 5 if the cross is 1,000 and the strength is 200, even though the cross is much greater, the strength can ease the greater weight of a cross such that the burden is the same. This simple equation also helps explain the typical human behavior of wanting to lower the burden by asking God to reduce or remove the cross.

Now in todayís world, or any time in history, it goes without saying that there are many crosses in family life, with friends, and in oneís job or vocation. We humans can feel overwhelmed by these crosses, which results in a high burden. Of course Jesus tells us that He never gives a person more than one can bear, so His actively or permissively Willed crosses would never exceed our strength such that our burden would be too high for our souls. It would be good to reflect that on average, 6 of 7 of the crosses each person has are a consequence of personal sin. For example, if a man gets drunk regularly and then loses his job and family, such crosses are the results of the sinful behavior of drunkenness. Of course there are always the cases where a cross is the result of the sin of another or natural disasters permitted by God, such as earthquakes. However, even these natural disasters are the consequences of a multitude of sins by people on the earth. There were no natural disasters in the Garden of Eden.

But then Jesus reminds us that His yoke is sweet, and His burden light (Matthew 11:30). So what is the Godly method to handle the burden? To increase our strength! Not only will an increase in strength lighten the burden for the same, or even greater, number of crosses, but then such burden becomes salvific when offered to God as part of a daily offering. In addition, bearing increased crosses well brings yet more Grace to the person as well as to the world at large. So how do we do that? By relying on Godís Strength through His Grace.

We tap into Godís Strength to the degree that we correspond to His Grace. As Jesus reminds us, ìWithout Me you can do nothing.î (John 15:5) Taking God into account, the burden equation then becomes:

So if we have a high correspondence value, then our total strength increases, regardless of our human strength, and therefore the burden is lower for a given number of crosses, and can become light, relative to our human strength. This is how the saints, of all different shapes and sizes so to speak, can all consistently suffer with tremendous crosses but carry their burden lightly, all because of Godís Strength by corresponding highly to His Grace. Of course the perfect human saint is our Holy Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, since she always corresponded perfectly to Godís Grace (i.e. She never sinned).

So letís analyze some examples. If one had the full power of God, which is infinite, then the burden would always be zero since no finite number of crosses can overcome infinite power. Of course we humans do have a finite capacity, the largest capacity being our Holy Mother who is greater than all the Angels and saints combined, so there is a real limit to the number of crosses that one can carry. But as we have seen, that number can be quite high in the case of the saints.

Letís focus on an example where a person named Joe is in the state of Grace (i.e. no mortal sin). Assuming that God allows 20 crosses and that Joeís human strength is 5, Joeís human-only burden equals 4. Because Joe corresponds to Godís Grace, letís say that he corresponds moderately with a value of 15. Therefore Joeís burden is reduced from 4 to only 1, as illustrated below.

Joe by himself:

Joe with God in the picture:

Note that if we are in mortal sin, then our correspondence value becomes zero since we are no longer in the state of Grace. This results in a burden being handled solely by our human strength without the benefit of Godís Grace, therefore our burden is higher and most likely much higher. So mortal sin is a ìvicious circleî or ìdouble-whammy,î that being crosses are increased while at the same time our ability to handle said crosses is reduced by the loss of Godís Grace. In recalling that God never gives us more crosses than we can bear, such a situation depends upon correspondence to His Grace, therefore mortal sin can cause an increased burden beyond our human strength, possibly leading to loss of Faith or Hope. Sound familiar? The bottom line is that those in mortal sin will always carry a much higher burden, which if course is opposite to satanís lie that sin offers a more care-free existence through unrestricted pleasure. The conclusion which follows is also obvious; avoid mortal sin to reduce the burden we carry.

Using again Joe as an example, letís assume that Joe commits a mortal sin and adds 10 crosses to his life because of it. We see that Joeís burden increases greatly as compared to living within the state of Grace, in this example by a factor of six.

Using an example of a saint, letís assume the same number of crosses as Joe, that their human strength is only one-fifth of Joeís at 1, but that they correspond to Godís Grace at a rate of 99, which is more than six times Joeís correspondence. Therefore this saintís burden is only 0.2, or five times less than Joe, even though the saint has much less human strength.

The saint I consider for this example is St. Therese of Liseux, the Little Flower, given that she mentions that she is so weak in her own writings, yet she is a great saint of our times and Doctor of the Church even though having lived to only age 24. Letís take a final example. Suppose that God sends you 1,000 crosses and that your human strength is 5 as in Joeís example. Under human-only conditions the burden would be a huge 200. But if you heroically corresponded to Godís Grace at a value of 995, then your burden would be only 1.

High correspondence values, which far exceed our human strength, are always possible since God has infinite power. The saints had it, the martyrs had it, and you too can have it. This is all very possible since, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, all one needs to do to become a saint is to will it, and God will take care of the rest through His Grace.

So there is the answer to having a light burden regardless of the crosses you bear ñ rely on Godís Strength by corresponding to His Grace, become a saint, and definitely stay out of mortal sin.