What a Catholic Can Do When Another Is Grieving

It was the beginning of a new school year, and the middle school and high school teachers at Beckman were beginning to fall into a familiar routine. David taught across the hall from me. He was a convert, so he was something of a translator between me and the Catholicity of our school. He’s the one who taught me how to make the Sign of the Cross so that I could open all my classes with prayer and not stand out as the foreigner, the Evangelical Protestant, in a world that was completely Catholic.

We both had small children of our own; I suppose that’s why the news at school that morning rattled both of us so completely. One of our fellow staff members had lost her infant son to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

We fought back tears, hugged each other, felt the flash of pain that came from remembering the first year of our children’s lives. How we’d checked them in the middle of the night, placing a hand on their chests or backs to be sure they were still breathing. How we’d wake them sometimes, accidentally, because they seemed so still that we couldn’t be sure. How the first birthday had been a celebration, a milestone that marked the end of that fear and the beginning of many different fears. We couldn’t imagine what our co-worker was going through.

What do you say to someone who is living your worst nightmare? How do you find words to match the empathy you feel in your hear? I chose to say very little. I prayed, and I hoped that Christ would intercede, because I simply didn’t know what to do or what to say.

Thankfully, Christ does intercede for us to the Father, so that every request, every praise, every thanksgiving is right. It doesn’t matter if our words are eloquent or break every grammatical rule in the book. When we pray, we have a Lord who edits our prayers so that they are perfect.

I’ve learned a few things since that year of teaching. I’ve learned that there are no good words to share that will ease another’s pain. I know this, because I have gone through my own season of mourning.

I’ve also learned that if I must go through pain or loss ever again, I want to do it as a Catholic. Even the most senseless tragedy – perhaps especially in the most senseless tragedy – there is a source of comfort in knowing that we can offer up our sorrow. We can stand with Our Lady and lift up our pain with her, and offer it all to Jesus

St. Paul said, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the Church.” I don’t understand this fully, but I believe Sacred Scripture has the words of truth and life.

I have come a long way from those early days as a non-Catholic first-year teacher in a Catholic school where I first made the Sign of the Cross.

And all that I have learned is somehow bound up together in that Cross, a mystery I understand better and better every day.

Thanks be to God.

What a Catholic Can Do When Another Is Grieving

One in Christ

I picked up the phone today and dialed another mother in my parish. Our children are altar servers, and I needed to see if our kids could swap Masses this weekend.

I could tell from her voice that something wasn't right. "My mother passed away yesterday." My heart immediately hurt for Donna. I know this pain. "She was very sick. We expected it."

I know that doesn't make the pain go away. Right now, it's just a fact more than a consolation.

After the call ended, I thought of my dad. It's hard, Dad. I remember. Maybe, you can do something for Donna . . . or maybe for her mom. Not sure how it all works on that side of eternity. But I know you aren't just singing hymns. You are interceding. And Donna and the kids need a few prayers right now.

We are one in this Body - Donna. Her mom. Me. My dad. And you, too, even though you aren't in my parish, and probably not even in my diocese or country. We are one, because we are one in the Body of Christ. In joy. In grief. We are One.

One in Christ

God's Film Noir

I can’t remember a time when God wasn’t real to me. It seems like I knew the Lord before I even had an awareness of my own existence. I suppose it’s like that for most preachers’ kids. While I have sensed God’s Presence from as far back as I can remember, I have not always been a seeker. To be a seeker, one must passionately pursue Truth, not complacently accept the truth one inherits through the lottery of birth.

I realize now that I did not become a seeker until my father's death.

Now, nearly six years from that loss, I seem to have a better understanding of what it means to be a seeker. To realize that everything pales in comparison to the journey we are making to the beatific vision, when we will behold the face of our Lord and God.

In those first few years after Dad’s death, I continued along the journey of faith, as one who is blind, but trying to feel my way around a room that seemed familiar - and yet, equally unfamiliar. Like someone had changed the positioning of all the furniture in the room.

Much was still a mystery to me. Too foggy to make out what was really happening. And then the fog slowly disappeared – like on the set of some film Noir. Instead of Humphrey Bogart showing up as the fog settled, I saw the great edifice of Mother Church.

Losing someone we love is probably the most difficult pain we will have to face on this earth. But it seems like suffering somehow invokes the Hand of God and reveals the Savior’s presence in our lives. In His earthly ministry, Our Lord was always drawn to those who were grieving. The mother who had lost her only son. The sisters who had lost their brother. A father who had lost his daughter. If you have lost someone you love, I encourage you to lean into the side of Our Lord. Let Him share this with you. Remain faithful - and vigilant. In moments like these, Jesus Christ often works His most unexpected miracles.

(From Parochial and Plain Sermons by John Henry Newman)
Perhaps it may be the loss of some dear friend or relative through which the call comes to us; which shows us the vanity of things below, and prompts us to make God our sole stay. We through grace do in a way we never did before; and in the course of years, when we look back on our life, we find that that sad event has brought us into a new state of faith and judgment. . . . We thought, before it took place, that we were serving God, and so we were in a measure; but we find that, whatever our present infirmities may be, and however far we be still from the highest state of illumination, then at least we were serving the world under the show and belief of serving God.

God's Film Noir