"Pain is part of being human. Anyone who really wanted to get rid of suffering would have to get rid of love before anything else. Because there could be no love without suffering. Because it always demands an element of self-sacrifice. Because given temperamental differences and the drama of situations, it will always bring with it renunciation and pain. When we know that the way of love is exodus that's going out of oneself is the true way by which man because human, then we also understand that suffering is the process through which we mature. Anyone who has inwardly accepted suffering becomes more mature and more understanding of others, becomes more human. Anyone who has consistently avoided suffering does not understand other people. He becomes hard and selfish. If we say that suffering is the inner side of love, we then also understand why it is so important to learn how to suffer, and why, conversely, the avoidance of suffering renders someone unfit to cope with life. He would be left with an existential emptiness which could then only be combined with bitterness, with rejection, and no longer with any inner acceptance or progress toward maturity."
Pope Benedict XVI
