Engaging Love through Imaginative Prayer

Embark on a spiritual journey into the terrain of grief and faith,  with Jesus  whose profound sorrow at John the Baptist's demise unveils a striking vulnerability, a moment of raw emotion that offers a rare glimpse into the heart of a man who embodies wisdom and compassion.

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Our theme music is:  Gentle Breeze by Yeti Music from the album "Uppbeat".
Additional Music and sound effects today by:   via Pixabay

Transcript

Candee Lucas: 0:32

Welcome to this week's episode of Solace: Soul + Grief. I'm Candee Lucas. We're glad you're here. This podcast is sponsored by Catholic Cemeteries and the Diocese of San Jose. The death of a loved one is a very difficult life transition and we hope we can answer some of your questions, help you find where God is moving in your life as you continue your grief journey and remind you of the power of your faith and love for God. You're always welcome in our circle of healing, love and care. As you know, if you've done the spiritual exercises of St Ignatius, one of the purposes and results of doing those exercises is a deeper relationship with the living Jesus. With your indulgence, I thought I might share a portion of my meeting

Candee Lucas: 2:15

I joined a group wandering in the desert. They seemed to know where they were going. They seemed to be following one man, a man of indiscriminate age or feature. His features seemed clear to me at the time, but now that time has passed I can't describe them to you sharply. But as I traveled along and realized actually we were followers, I got to know him better. We got to know each other. He took me along and some adventures he's had in his life and he asked nothing of me but my companionship. He let me meet his mother and father and all his friends, and although I was expected to pitch in with women things like cooking, cleaning laundry at the stream with other women in the traveling show he took time out to explain this kingdom of God on earth, what would be asked of us in return for his friendship, how that might or might not play out. It was not all fun and games and adventure. I got angry at him sometimes for what he put his mother through. His father suffered, mostly in silence, and I told him so--- that's what friends do.

Candee Lucas: 4:06

Our worst fight ever, though, was over Lazarus. The two of us had a big blowup. We had been traveling from town to town, and each time we pulled up stakes to move on, our group grew bigger, and moving us all across the countryside became more of a challenge. We had camped in an oasis one night, and almost everyone had gone into their tents or found space to sleep under the night sky near a fire. Jesus and I were having one of our late night talks when a stranger approached from around a dune. He walked straight up to Jesus, did not introduce himself, but merely fell on his knees and burst out John has been beheaded. Nobody moved. The words didn't seem to belong together in the same sentence.

Candee Lucas: 5:04

I looked at Jesus' face anew. He was thinking --no blood was to be shed, but mine. This cannot be. What has John done? But in love to follow me? How can this be? How does he deserve this fate? Why have I been so selfish? His blood is truly on my hands, my own cousin.

Candee Lucas: 5:33

What he did was howl as a wounded animal. He lurched off into the darkness, sobbing, and no one dared follow. The next day he stayed in his tent all morning. Most unusual for him, about noon we saw a group of men on the horizon carrying a bundle on their shoulders. As they got closer we realized it was John's body. Peter went to tell Jesus, who came immediately from his tent to receive the body. He threw himself upon it and wept. He then asked me if I'd put away enough linen and balm to repair and prepare the body for burial. I told him I had and I would. He and the other men went to prepare a gravesite near a rock overhang.

Candee Lucas: 6:35

Once the funeral prayers had been sung and Kaddish spoken, he returned to his tent and we did not see him for the rest of the day. Then, when news of Lazarus came and he refused to go, I told him I will go then and tell Mary and Martha that you have been delayed and will " I forbid it. He said to me, me, you forbid it, you forbid it. I shouted at him. You missed your opportunity to save John, and now you would lose Lazarus. To make a point. Yes, he told me, a wider point of love will be made when I arrive. I turned and left him, and so imagine, if you will, looking into that face that is so broken in sadness for his dear cousin, for the loss of his dear cousin, tears forming in the eyes, shoulders collapsing, shoulders collapsing. Maybe his body shudders and maybe he falls to the ground.

Candee Lucas: 8:36

For this death, the death of John the Baptist, wounds him most deeply. Not only was John a blood relative, but John was a fellow prophet, a person who knew intimately Jesus' special place on our earth and in our hearts. So the loss of his dear cousin comes as a blow, comes as something he did not see on the horizon, although the etchings of his final days are becoming clearer and clearer. He hadn't quite foreseen the sacrifice of John, and so he is wounded, wounded by this death, wounded by this loss, wounded by this sacrifice made by another on his own behalf. Perhaps his Father had one final lesson in the closing weeks of our Lord's life, and and that was to experience the grief that soon his own family would know, that his disciples would know, that his followers would experience, and God wanted his son to know what that physical sense of loss, what that experience is, so that he will have compassion for those he leaves behind and those he welcomes into the next life.

Candee Lucas: 11:36

In this imagining of my time with the living Jesus, we have an opportunity to see him in grief over the death of John. We see the shock, the horror, the disbelief, the guilt, all perfectly human emotions of grief and grieving, and so by this we recognize the human Jesus. The human Jesus witnessed and experienced suffering, an earthly suffering, a human suffering. In my imagining, he could not be comforted, he could not be consoled. His grief was sharp and wounding and I am certain he carried it to his death.

Candee Lucas: 13:27

What does this say about our own grief? It says that we suffered, that we suffer loss. As he suffered loss, he gave way to his emotion, his love, his longing, his guilt, much as we have and we do and we will. Nothing in his learning and obedience to God, nothing in the Torah, gave him immediate comfort. What it did seem to give him was some resolve, some determination. What it gives us is a portrait of a very human man who maybe suffered from a little pride, who maybe felt he had all the answers, at times who made mistakes. Because at this moment in his incarnation he was one of us.

Candee Lucas: 15:47

That concludes another episode of Solace. A new one drops every Friday. Please subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, sSpotify, amazon or find us on Google. I'm Candy Lucas, your host, aftercare Coordinator, chaplain and Spiritual Director at Catholic Cemeteries at Gate of Heaven in Los Altos, california. Please contact us if you have questions or seek spiritual direction. Our contact information is in the show notes. Be gentle with yourselves. Travel with God. Vaya con Dios, dios. Thank you.