[Question:]{.underline} May one pray to have someone else`s painful disease transferred to oneself?
[Answer:]{.underline} The love of the Cross is an integral and essential part of our Catholic life, as Our Divine Savior himself stated, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Lk 9:23) and as St. Paul also teaches: “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world” (Gal 6:14). It is also true that physical suffering is one of the most difficult of crosses to bear without resentment and with love. Theoretically, also, it would be a great act of charity to ask for another`s suffering to be transferred to one self, in order to relieve the other person.
However, there is a huge difference between embracing the sufferings that God, in His goodness, deigns to send us, and actually and positively willing that such sufferings should come upon us. It is the difference between the second and third degrees of humility, as described by St. Ignatius in his book of Spiritual Exercises. The second degree of humility is that of indifference, namely the acceptation and embracing of whatever the Good Lord sends us, whether it be sickness or health, poverty or riches etc. “I neither desire nor am I inclined to…”. The third degree is entirely heroic, and consists in actually choosing or desiring poverty or suffering or insults rather than the contrary “whenever the praise and glory of the Divine Majesty would be equally served, in order to imitate and be in reality more like Christ, our Lord…” (ib.)
However, it must be acknowledged that such a desire and such a prayer is the will of God only when it is the fruit of a soul that has attained to perfection. This is what Father A. Tanquerey has to say in his treatise entitled The Spiritual Life: “The desire and love of suffering…is the degree proper to perfect souls and especially to apostolic souls, to religious, priests and devout men and women. Such was the disposition that animated Our Blessed Lord when He offered Himself as victim at His entrance into this world…Out of love for Him and in order to become more like Him, perfect souls enter into the same sentiments.” (§1091).
In any other soul, however, such a prayer or desire could be a form of self-deception, and even a temptation of the devil to ultimately produce discouragement. Father Tanquerey continues to ask himself if it is appropriate for a soul to formally ask God for extraordinary sufferings, as in the prayer to take somebody else`s disease upon oneself. Here is his answer: “No doubt some of the Saint have done so and in our day there are still generous souls who are moved to do likewise. However, generally speaking, such requests cannot be prudently counseled. They may easily lead to illusions and are often the outcome of some ill-considered impulse of generosity which has its origin in presumption…Therefrom issue violent temptations to discouragement and even to complaints against God`s Providence…Hence we must not take it upon ourselves to ask for extraordinary sufferings or trials…If one feels oneself drawn thereto, one must take counsel with a judicious director of souls and do nothing without his approval.” There lies the answer to the question: - one ought only pray such a prayer after having discerned that it is the will of God because one is called to perfection and one`s spiritual director is in full agreement.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.