An Exegesis Sensitive to the Drama of the Suffering
 

Mr. Cardinal President,
Dear Members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission,

I am pleased to be present among you through this message, at the beginning of your annual Plenary Assembly. You have gathered to reflect more deeply on the theme of suffering and illness: an experience that concerns everyone, every human being marked by fragility, sickness, and death. Our wounded nature, in fact, bears within itself the reality of limitation and finitude.

Why illness? Why suffering? Why death? Faced with these questions, even believers sometimes falter, experiencing disorientation, even despair and rebellion against God.

In the light of faith, however, we know that pain and illness can make a person wiser and more mature, helping them to discern in their life what is not essential, in order to turn or return to the Lord. We can draw this vision of faith from Sacred Scripture and from the Tradition of the Church. In this regard, I encourage you to unite, scientific research and attention to the common experiences of life, in your exegetical work, so as to illuminate even its most difficult aspects with the wisdom of the inspired Word.

The evangelist Mark reports that one day Jesus, seeing the bewildered and suffering crowds, was moved with pity for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd (cf. Mk 6:34). This compassion of Jesus toward the needy and the sick appears frequently in the pages of the Gospel: the Lord takes pity on a leper who asks to be healed (cf. Mk 1:40–41); He is moved with pity for the hungry and exhausted crowds and intervenes on their behalf (cf. Mk 8:2); He has compassion on two blind men who ask to regain their sight and He heals them (cf. Mt 20:34); He is filled with great compassion for a widowed mother accompanying her only son to the tomb, and He raises him (cf. Lk 7:13). Christ’s compassion toward all who suffer is so profound that He identifies Himself with them: “I was sick and you visited me” (Mt 25:36).

Jesus Himself, who went about among the people doing good to all and healing every kind of disease and infirmity, commanded His disciples to care for the sick, to lay hands on them and bless them in His name (cf. Mt 10:8; Lk 10:9). Through the experience of fragility and illness, we too can and must learn to walk together, in human and Christian solidarity, according to God’s way, which is compassion, closeness, tenderness, and solidarity.

Strengthened by faith in Christ, we can overcome the fear of illness and death precisely by becoming more aware of our fragility in the light of His passion, death, and resurrection. In Christ, suffering and illness are no longer a cruel destiny before which we must bow without understanding. With Jesus, pain is transformed into love, into redemption, and into fraternal help. Let us, then, welcome Christ into our lives: He is the only physician who can heal the illnesses of the soul forever.

I invite you to consider, in addition to illness, physical pain, and death, also the sufferings of the poor, migrants, and the marginalized of society, which are present in many pages of Sacred Scripture.

Let us contemplate in particular the Sorrowful Mother together with Jesus at the foot of the Cross: as Mother, she suffers on Calvary the sufferings of her Son and shares in them with a heart full of faith, offering her piercing sorrow for the good of all. In this way, her intercession acquires for us a unique value.

The example of the Mother invites every believer, not only to pray for their brothers and sisters, but also to imitate the humble offering of their own sufferings in union with the Sacrifice of Christ. In this sense, each one can say with Mary: “In my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church” ( Col 1:24). This completion is real in us, even though it adds nothing to the salvific work of the one Redeemer, which is perfect, universal, and superabundant: “The suffering of Christ has created the good of the world’s redemption. This good in itself is inexhaustible and infinite. No man can add anything to it.” [1] This completion rather means that every sufferer becomes a participant, that is, becomes involved in that work and expresses it with the unique characteristics that spring from their own history. Indeed, Christ “has opened His suffering to man, because He Himself in His redemptive suffering has, in a certain sense, become a participant in all human sufferings […] enriched with a new content and a new meaning.” [2]

The Cardinal President has informed me that the Biblical Commission is analyzing various figures of suffering biblical characters. Together, they will surely become a beautiful symbol of hope for every person who unites their sufferings to the crucified Christ, renewing the manifestation of His loving face.

Dear Members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, I express to all of you my personal gratitude and encouragement. Wishing you a fruitful continuation of your work, I invoke the light of the Holy Spirit on you and impart to all my Apostolic Blessing. 

From the Vatican, March 27, 2026

Leo PP. XIV

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[1] S. John Paul II, Ap. Lett.  Salvifici doloris (11 February 1984), 24.

[2] Ibid., 20.

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Holy See Press Office Bulletin, 13 April 2026