The problem of pain is not a nail in the coffin of Christianity; it is a crowbar that jerks the lid off the coffin and allows all who are willing to climb out of their sleep.

He said not 'Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased'; but he said, 'Thou shalt not be overcome.

The situation which brought about your pain was simply the form in which you came in touch with the human condition of suffering.

All pain is either severe or slight, if slight, it is easily endured; if severe, it will without doubt be brief.

I am alive again, now that I can no longer stand to live.

You are loosed from your moorings, and are free; I am fast in my chains, and am a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale, and I sadly before the bloody whip! You are freedom's swift-winged angels, that fly round the world; I am confined in bands of iron! O that I were free!

The crosses from the outside are bearable; the double-crosses inside are insoluble

Whom a man might compare to one of those half-eaten wretches, matched in the amphitheatre with wild beasts; who as full as they are all the body over with wounds and blood, desire for a great favour, that they may be reserved till the next day

If we bear all this suffering and if there are still Jews left, when it is over, then Jews, instead of being doomed, will be held up as an example.

To heal, it seems we have to stand in the middle of the horror, at the foot of the cross, and wait out another's suffering where that person can see us. To be honest, that sucks. It's the worst, even if you are the mother of God.

My understanding of incarnation is that we are not served by getting away from the grubbiness of suffering. Sometimes we feel that we are barely pulling ourselves forward through a tight tunnel on badly scraped-up elbows. But we do come out the other side, exhausted and changed.

There are two kinds of suffering in this life. That which pursues us and that which we doggedly pursue.