‘Welcome Sister Pain,’ sang the Seraphic Father seven centuries ago, and his words did not sound so strange in the ears of those around him, as they would have done today. For this is an age that regards pain as in itself an evil thing, something to be avoided at all costs, something ugly, something to which death itself is preferable, even if by death the materialist means darkness and annihilation. Even many Christians take up this attitude to a certain extent, and the majority outside the Catholic Church are vastly perturbed at what is termed ‘the problem of pain.’

But the Catholic child, brought up as he is to ‘offer up’ his toothache and the sting of his grazed knee or his cut thumb, finds less difficulty, as he grows up, to face the ‘problem of pain.’ It all fits into the scheme of things, so to speak, and he has learned, if not to understand and even puzzle about it, at least to accept it and use it.