Pain Is a Fact of Life, Misery Is a State of Mind

The great and famous French artist Auguste Renoir developed severe arthritis later in his life and found it painful even to hold a brush. It tortured his friends to see Renoir in so much pain, and they asked him to stop painting. But Renoir—who toward the end would strap a brush to his paralyzed fingers in order to keep painting—exclaimed, “Pain passes but beauty remains forever.”

Consider something from our daily lives, something as simple as walking: for some elderly or injured people, when they walk they have pain. But they want to walk. So they do and feel the pain. They cannot do away with the pain, but they know that there is more to life than the hurt they experience. Or for those of us who are younger and more healthy, walking can still sometimes be painful, like when our feet hurt. But if we resist the pain, we will go nowhere. Walking with the pain on the other hand takes us to places we would not have gone otherwise. So this is when we are opening ourselves to experience God in all things.

This reflection is from Just as You Are by Paul Coutinho, SJ

in Ignatian Spirituality published on FaceBook in 26 August 2009 at 03:59 p.m.

P.S. Para a M. - eu sei que tu consegues, ainda que tu não o saibas nem queiras acreditar!