The Universal Call to Suffering

"A voice was heard in Ramah...Rachel weeping for her children."
 Massacre of the Innocents by Rubens

If there is one vocation shared by everyone (in addition to the call to holiness) it must be the call to accept and embrace suffering. I have been thinking about that almost daily for many months. When we started attending Grief Share two weeks ago, I remembered all the people I know touched by tragedy and loss. No one gets out of life without paying a price in suffering, often a high price.

A Song with a Message about the Emptiness of the Secular Paradise

When I listened to this, I immediately thought of two things:

Socrates' comment that the unexamined life is not worth living 

And the Hound of Heaven