Mortification in Roman Catholic Teaching - Pain, Human Nature, and Christ

Pain, Human Nature, and Christ

Theologians also state that the Son, the second person of the Trinity, united himself, as a person (through the hypostatic union), to everything human (except sin), including pain.

Catholics believe that God, who in their view by his divine nature cannot change, has united with changing human nature, and therefore with human pain. The "I" of the Second Person suffers and feels pain. He is one with pain through Jesus Christ. Thus Christ's experience of pain (like all the human acts of Christ like sleeping, crying, speaking) whose subject is the divine Person is an infinite act. This is based on the classic dictum that the acts belong to the Person (actiones sunt suppositorum). It is the Person who acts: It is God who walks, God who talks, God who is killed, and God who is in pain. Thus a Christian who is united to Jesus Christ through pain is one with his infinite act of saving the world.

This also goes together with another dictum in theology: whatever is not united (to the Divine Person) is not saved. Thus, his intellect, his will, his feelings, are all united with the Person, and are all sanctified and redeemed, including pain. Pain is therefore a sanctified and redeeming human experience.