For the second time, I am experiencing the Passion period here. Inside, I resist when I read in the letters, for example, from my mother-in-law and grandmother, phrases that speak of my "suffering." It feels like a profanation to me. These things should not be dramatized. I doubt that I "suffer" more than you or most people today at all. Of course, there are many disgusting things, but where are there not?
Here, I think, much needs to be corrected; I openly admit that I often feel almost ashamed of how much we have spoken about our own suffering. No, suffering must be something entirely different and must have a completely different dimension than what I have experienced so far.
(Dietrich Bonhoeffer /1906–1945/, letter from Nazi prison to a friend, March 9, 1944;
quoted from the book Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Resistance and Submission, Letters from Prison. Kalich 2023)
