Religion & Crohn's: Catholicism Recognizes Meaning in Suffering

It never occurred to me the day I found out I had Crohn's disease to think much about the deeper aspects of suffering.

I blurted out half a dozen questions. I asked the doctor whether I would die of the disease (probably not) and if there was a cure (nope). I wanted to know how I got it (no idea) and as the mother of an infant, what would happen to me over the next 20 years (lots of silence). I asked questions about medications, too.

The gastroenterologist who told me I had one of the two types of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) wisely only fed me as much information as I wanted at each appointment. He also handed me two medical books and told me to educate myself, adding to the two medical students observing all this that I was probably smarter than they were.

The thing is, Crohn's patients suffer mightily whether or not they're smart. I recall just being relieved to be able to put a name on this awful condition that had sent me to emergency rooms at least 20 times since childhood. I was sick physically, and I was sick of suffering emotionally from being told I was imagining the symptoms and even that I just wanted attention.

I had been what most would consider a religious person since my college days. One of my hobbies was studying church history. However, I pulled away from what I called the blah Protestant denomination my parents had chosen for the family. Instead, I gravitated toward the liturgical denominations such as the Lutherans and the Anglicans (Episcoplians).

Many steroids, one surgery and a few years after my Crohn's diagnosis, I was spending a lot of time thinking about suffering. The whole thing went a lot deeper than the unanswerable question of why good things did, indeed, happen to good people.

I searched my soul and others' writing for hours every week, looking for what practical good could ever come out of suffering. I didn't find it, even in Scripture.

What I did conclude from those Protestant liturgical years was that it was awfully easy to take oneself too seriously while pondering the meaning of suffering.

I made it through a total of five (so far) Crohn's surgeries to remove tissue that drugs could not save. The worst of the suffering was not the 100-plus hospitalizations or the horrific pain from intestinal obstructions. It wasn't even enduring a miscarriage. It was the concept of being carved up like a turkey, over and over again, for seemingly no purpose.

My childhood religious training somehow conveyed the idea that those who suffer physically or emotionally earn a front-row seat in Heaven. As an adult, I have rejected this idea as a bit naïve as far as religious belief.

During my middle years, I left the Anglican church and converted to Catholicism. I really didn't do it primarily because I was fed up with the fact that each Protestant denomination interprets church scripture and tradition differently. I did it because of the comfort I experienced from the Catholic view of suffering.

The Roman Catholic faith teaches its followers that suffering has meaning, even when we don't know the exact purpose. It traces suffering as part of the human condition to disobedience in the Garden of Eden.

It does not teach that hurricanes and other natural disasters are "acts of God" (try to tell that to your insurance company, though). I learned that while I might see no practical value in suffering from Crohn's disease or any other illness, I could "offer it up" for someone else's good.

As a Catholic, I had plenty of good examples to consider. There are few Christians of any denomination who don't admire Mother Teresa for all that she accomplished despite infirmity and exhaustion. I also have found meditation and prayer calming during bouts of physical pain.

I will not know in this life why I - or any other Crohn's patients - suffer. However, every time I repeat the liturgical rituals practiced in my faith throughout the world, I am reminded of something comforting. I realize that there is nothing I have suffered that someone else has not also suffered.