From Father Steven - January 28, 2024
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
For a long time, I have wanted to share with you some thoughts about grief and dealing with the passing of our loved ones. I would like to reflect this week over this difficult subject from a Christian, hope-filled, realistic perspective.
None of us like losing anything. We all feel sad for losing ten dollars, a key-chain, and some other small objects. We feel even worse by losing something that has some emotional value to us, whether a special rosary, a gift from someone special, or anything that is irreplaceable. We feel sad and it’s ok to feel sad, because we lost something valuable. Depending on the person, they can deal with their emotions in a controlled or an uncontrolled way…and sometimes it’s not even up to us to control it. Now imagine how much harder it would be to lose someone, instead of something, whether this person was close to us, as a special friend, relative, parent, sibling, or a child. In one way our Christian faith tells us that we should be happy for them, because their suffering has ended, we hope they are in heaven with God. Having that in mind, we can feel guilty for feeling sad or can think that it is wrong. Emotions are not right or wrong, because they come from the heart. Fr. Mike Schmitz in one of his videos, uses the comparison of the sense of smell with our emotions. We cannot control the sense of smell on the streets, whether it’s pleasant or unpleasant. It is not a matter of good or bad, they are just there. At times they can also indicate something about reality. If you smell fresh coffee it may be an indicator to wake up, or if you smell food, you know it’s time for supper. At the moment of death, our hearts can reveal things of a deeper reality that we were not aware of. Maybe we can come to the realization that we loved that person even more than we imagined. It can reveal wounds from past losses or grudges we held for that person that we were not able to deal with and we feel sad for that. It is ok to feel sad, it is ok to grieve.
We don’t have Christian emotions. We have human emotions. In the Scriptures we can see how different characters loved, rejoiced, wept, grieved. Depending on the situation, they were happy or sad. It is a natural reaction. Having said this, once we experience those reactions, we can also have supernatural reactions, those are God-given feelings. St. Paul exhorts us to grieve, but not like those who don’t have hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14). Because Jesus conquered death, it no longer has the last word. Everyone who dies in Christ will rise again. Then hope appears! A God-given virtue that helps us to look at our loss differently. Surely the death of our loved one hurts, but it is not the end. Like a bad smell that is unpleasant, as long as we keep breathing, it will go away. The memories remain though…and those can be tricky. We certainly miss having our loved ones around, their stories, laughs, smiles etc. However, they are signs from God to us to be grateful for having such a great person around us. We don’t care about losing a penny, because it is insignificant to us. That will not change our lives. However, the people we lose, they can be significant. They did change our lives. They gave our hearts an opportunity to love, and love is eternal. Then, we will also love that person, whether they have passed or have moved on from our lives. It is ok to miss that person, as we may miss our childhood friends, but God wants us to have hope of seeing them again, either in the mall or in heaven. And love is always stronger than grief.
Therefore, as we battle our emotions, let our reason and our faith assist in this struggle. Reason will tell us that it was good to have had that person in our lives, and we are grateful for it. Faith invites us to believe that their lives are not over, but “changed” as we pray in the funeral mass. Faith will also tell us that we shall see them again, when we also rise at the resurrection of the dead. Let us, then, make sure that we also go to heaven, lest our loved ones make it and we don’t. Finally, don’t be ashamed of your tears, because they are signs of great love. It’s ok to cry, but with the hope that we will be reunited!
God Bless,
Fr. Steven
