Going Beyond Ourselves Through Suffering

Suffering points us to the extraordinary and to the *numinous that lies opposite of ordinary.

Suffering can be an experience of **transcendence when it reveals the human soul’s capacity for courage, endurance, and self-sacrifice.

As St. Pope John Paul II wrote, suffering is “one of those points in which man is in a certain sense ‘destined’ to go beyond himself.”

*numinous - a strong spiritual quality suggesting the presence of the divine

**transcendence - a spiritual state beyond ordinary limitations, physical needs, and realty