CONSIDER a hypothetical situation:

You have not been feeling well for several weeks. You are run-down and start to become short of breath when you walk up stairs. You’re also not sleeping well and your appetite is poorer than usual. This goes on, progressively worsening, for almost three weeks when you finally make an appointment with your doctor. Something’s not right.

You describe your symptoms to the doctor and he says, “I want you to see a cardiologist right away. Hmm, I think we will have to run some tests.”

You take his prescriptions and go immediately, with some panic, to obtain a series of blood tests and imaging studies. You didn’t like the look on the doctor’s face when he heard your symptoms.

You go to the cardiologist with the test results two days later.

“I’m sorry to say, I have bad news,” he says after studying your results with obvious concern.

“Whaa?!”

“You have a serious heart condition. If you don’t have open-heart surgery within the next two weeks, you probably won’t survive.”

“Oh no! Oh no! I, I … I can’t believe it … Oh, no… How soon can we schedule the operation?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the cardiologist says, “I don’t recommend that you actually have the surgery and, though I’m able to do it, I certainly won’t perform it myself.”

“What!? What? What are you saying? But why?”

“Well, you see, the procedure is very painful and it would take you months to recover.”

“Okay, I can handle that. It’s better than the alternative. I don’t want to die!”

“I understand. I know what you mean. But, you see, I don’t wish to cause you any pain. That would be mean, don’t you think?”

“Well, no, no. What are you saying? I need the pain, I need the pain. What the heck kind of doctor are you, anyway?”

“Look, I’m a nice person,” he says, holding his head high. “It is not loving or nice to cause another human being pain.”

You start to get dizzy. You are reeling in shock. Who is this nut? How did he ever get a medical degree?

“But my heart condition is not your fault! It’s not my fault either … I need help! I need surgery even if it hurts!”

The doctor is unmoved.

“Goodbye,” you say. “I never want to see you again. You can have your niceness, you fake.”

You leave his office and search for a doctor who is willing to cause you pain. You want to be incapacitated! You finally find a real doctor and you are cured.

*****

The spiritual healing arts are in some ways analogous to the medical arts.

A spiritual practitioner must sometimes cause pain, very serious pain and unhappiness. Provided the cure is right — and that is key — the pain is as justified as the cure of the doctor you eventually found to cure your heart condition.

False charity is sometimes a charity that refuses to cause pain.

If behind true spiritual charity there is a cure — the cure of the living God, his ever-flowing fount of mercy and everlasting happiness — then the spiritual practitioner is justified in causing pain. Pain is then the result of true compassion.

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