When Did Suffering Become A Bad Word

I heard from someone who recently went on retreat and the theme was on "understanding suffering." One of the people there did not like the word suffering and felt that God does not want us to suffer. Now this would certainly come as a surprise to St. Paul who taught us that the only thing we needed was to meditate on Christ Crucified. Certainly the early martyrs understood suffering. In fact the whole history of the Church is filled with the necessity of our suffering and uniting it to the suffering of Christ on the Cross. Suddenly though suffering is taboo and we blame God when we see people get sick or injured. How often have we heard, "how can God let this happen?" When one reads the recent article on "Catholics" leaving the Church in large numbers it is easy to understand why with the improper or total lack of catechsis most of us receive today.