Page 330 "Father Revenant, do you realize what you're saying?"

[...that man was surrounded by a fearful void, he did not know how to justify, to account for, to affirm himself; he suffered from the problem of his meanings. He also suffered otherwise, he was in the main a sickly animal: but his problem was not suffering itself, but that there was no answer to the crying question, "Why do I suffer?"]    -Friedrich Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals

Friedich Nietzsche

 

From page 330 of the book:  You may ask, "Father Revenant, do you realize what you're saying?" ...Suffering is, my friends. I've been suffering most of my adult life. Up here," he pointed to his temple. He faced our half of the nave. "So I know what I'm talking about. Friedrich Nietzsche said that the crying question with us all is, 'why do I suffer?' Well, Friedrich, you suffer because you know the possibility of joy without Christ, of salvation without Christ. It's an option if we could only be better than what we have been. I'm a priest and I'm telling you it's possible."

Revenant continued, "look at Fyodor Dostoyevsky.  Look at Crime & Punishment.  Why suffer?  Why suffer?!  Because suffering is the only cause of consciousness, my friends.  And as the Russian said, when we are going 'through the terrible furnace of doubt,'" and he looked directly, gothically at Owen, "'we are capable of anything.'  I think that’s pretty good.

Heroes of mine: Fyodor Dostoyesky & Marcel Proust

[An additional comment from Proust, if you don't mind--
"...brief though our life may be, it is only while we are suffering that we see certain things which at other times are hidden from us; we are, as it were, posted at a window, badly placed but looking out over an expanse of sea; and only during a storm, when our thoughts are agitated by perpetually changing movements, do they elevate to a level at which we can see if the whole law-governed immensity which normally--when the calm weather of happiness leaves it smooth--lies beneath our line of vision..."]