Grief doesn't last for a day, a week, a month, a year. Grief is forever, while we are trapped here in time.
Grief piles upon grief. First there is grief over one death,one illness, one disability. But, year after year, another grief arrives to weigh down our hearts. To attack us. To break our bones through to our hearts. To leave us howling in a wilderness of pain.
The whole world weeps with grief.
Only God can give us the power to endure our griefs, to endure and finally break through the deaths of grief to new life.
God never leaves us, even if we are blind to God's Presence, deaf to God's Voice.
Even though we may spend hours pounding on the chest of Christ and screaming "Why?"
Even though we may momentarily turn our faces away from Christ's wounds on the cross and reject the One Whose blood fell in unity with our heart's blood which is falling.
Even though we may rage at the Father, Who in union with the Son endured his shameful death - for the Father and he are one.
Even though we may feel so dried up and forsaken, we do not sense the Holy Spirit's Living Water of grace quietly watering our souls so that we do not spiritually die.
While we are curled up in a fetal position, locked in our rooms, drapes drawn, wishing the world would leave us alone, our Father sits on the bed next to us and holds our hand.
While we paste a smile on our face and listen to someone tell us that our loved one is safely in heaven as we inwardly scream that we want him here beside us - Christ weeps for our pain as he wept for the pain of Martha and Mary when Lazarus died.
While we inwardly scream at the people who subtly stare at our child in a wheelchair, or shake their heads at our child with autism who's throwing a tantrum, the Father whispers in our ear "In my eyes this is a whole, lovable child."
While we feed our mother with dementia one careful spoonful at a time, Christ thanks us, shining in her faded eyes.
While we kneel in an agony of prayer, wondering if our child with mental illness or our brother who is an addict, will ever recover, ever "come back" to who he or she was, the Holy Spirit is pouring a balm of courage into our frightened hearts.
We listen, perhaps not hearing, to Christ's words at the Last Supper, "This is my Body, given up for you in love....This is my Blood poured out for you in love...." When we are children in faith, we only think about what Christ has done for us. It never occurs to us that, as in any love relationship, Christ expects us to reciprocate. To speak the same words back to him: "This is my body, given up for you in love, with every unwilling footstep I take, every wrenching experience I endure, loving others. This is my heart's blood poured out for you, with every terrible grief that I endure and somehow manage to live through." Christ died for us in love, and begs us to live for him in love.
For we are his Body and Blood now. WE are the ones through which he suffers and loves his people. WE are the ones carrying our daily crosses. WE are Other Christs. Day after punishing day, we suffer and spiritually die, each suffering working to scrape more selfishness off of our souls.
Sooner or later, every time we grieve, we can relinquish our anger at God, our questions of "Why?" and accept the Mystery of suffering as something only God understands and only God can help us handle. God helps us handle grief in stages, waiting patiently as slowly we are healed.
Sooner or later, we can stop pounding in rage on Christ's chest, and fall into his arms.
Sooner or later, we can stop sullenly resenting the people who bother us when we want to be alone, and we can choose to hear our Father's call to rejoin the human race.
Sooner or later, we can discover that we are no longer so fragile, so dried up, so devoid of anything to give, and realize that the Holy Spirit has watered and fed us. We have bloomed and are alive again in a New Spring. Once more we have love within us, to give freely to others.
Sooner or later, we we can stand at a loved one's grave, crying, praying, shaking, and suddenly choose to hear Christ say " He is whole, standing right here beside you, loving you. Your dead beloved is alive through, with, and in me, and will never leave you. One day you will see her again, embrace, and never be parted."
Grief attacks us like a lion, breaking our bones, ravaging our hearts, leaving us alone and helpless, howling in a wilderness of pain. But the Lion of Judah walks the desert of grief with us, even if we may not want His Presence just yet. The Father bends to comfort His child, before we even want to go to Him for comfort. The Holy Spirit irrigates our souls before they can die of drought. The lion of grief never fully leaves us; he stalks the perimeter, waiting to pounce whenever we are vulnerable. But the Lion of Judah will eventually triumph for eternity - by his death on the cross, he has triumphed over death and triumphs over our daily deaths on a daily basis. In him, we can always discover comfort, courage, the ability to love again, and new, eternal life.