Sister Michaeline on Suffering

Yesterday I heard the most remarkable witness to Christ on National Public Ratio's "Morning Edition" show. You can hear it too, at

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4855590

Katrina: Baton Rouge Parochial Schools Overwhelmed
by Claudio Sanchez
Morning Edition, September 20, 2005 ·
Public schools in New Orleans were devastated, as were the region's Catholic schools. And the Baton Rouge Catholic school system is struggling to accommodate evacuee families in this heavily Catholic region.

...SISTER MICHAELINE: "We have to help them not to waste their suffering. Suffering is a part of our church. Christ died and he saved us through suffering and dying on the cross..."

Why is it that I never hear Protestants--American evangelicals in particular-- talking like this? I think it must have something to do with the turn toward "mystery/fideism" in the late middle ages, as the Devotio Moderna became popular.

In my experience, Protestants think that suffering is always and everywhere ultimately bad/absurd. That is, it is either meaningless, or so mysterious that we finite, fallen human beings can never understand its meaning. Catholics on the other hand are able to say suffering is bad, but not absurd. They are even so bold as to suggest that human beings not only are able to ponder its meaning, but as followers of Christ, are invited to share in the mystery of His making suffering meaningful.

As emergent evangelicals begin to rediscover mystery, they will be faced with a the question of their relationship to suffering. Will they continue to view it from a fideistic perspective, or will they take a different path-- Devotio Antiqua? Will they challenge the prevailing American evangelical wisdom that "suffering has no part of our church," and instead say-- with Sister Michaeline--that it does?