Mother Frances Streitel: Finding meaning in suffering

Amalia Frances Rose Streitel, Foundress of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother, aka Sister Angela Streitel:  In this morning’s meditation was a quoted reflection by Viktor Frankl on how anyone is able to survive suffering. He states, as quoted in the November 2011, Magnificat,  p. 151, “In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of sacrifice….In accepting to suffer bravely, life has a meaning up to the last moment, and it retains this meaning literally to the end…My comrades’…question was, ‘Will we survive the [concentration] camp? For, if not, all this suffering has no meaning.’ The question which beset me was, ‘Has all this suffering, this dying around us, a meaning? For, if not, then ultimately there is no meaning to survival; for a life whose meaning depends upon such a happenstance—as whether one escapes or not—ultimately would not be worth living at all.’”

Sister Angela found meaning in her suffering and is the reason she was able to say to Mother Salesia, her Superior General, that taking up the assignment at the Marian Institute caused her no suffering.  When I first read that my reaction was: “Oh, yeah, sure. Who are you kidding! I just read that you stood beneath the cross with a bleeding heart (Walk in Love,  p. 29) and that you could neither eat nor sleep and asked the Lord to allow this chalice to pass you by! And then you say: “Before God I can declare that the occupying of the Marian Institute caused me absolutely no sorrow or pain” (Letter of July 8, 1879). 

Reflecting on Dr. Frankl’s experience of the concentration camp shed light on Sister Angela’s statement. She had found meaning in suffering, the same meaning that Jesus found in offering His life for His flock, in being obedient to the Father’s plan for our salvation. In explaining herself to Bishop Pankratius concerning this period in her life, Sister Angela states that she realized that she could offer her pain in reparation for her own sinful behaviors.  Not only did finding meaning in her sufferings help her, so, too, was the fact that Sister Angela lived for others and for something beyond herself. Dr. Frankl explains that “being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself—be it a meaning to fulfill or another being to encounter. The more one forgets himself—by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love—the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself…” (Ibid.)  Truly Sister Angela became more human through her suffering and became more and more her unique self, coming to her full potential as a human being.