Healing Embrace: The Sacred Unity of Mourning

Have you ever felt the embrace of grief and wondered where God fits into your sorrow? Join us, as we create a sanctuary for those enduring the heartache of loss, discovering God's intimate presence in our journey through mourning. Throughout this episode, we're cradled by the wisdom of Hafiz, the 14th-century Persian poet, whose verses guide us to a place where pain transforms into comfort and the memories of our beloved become a source of healing strength.  We'll explore how grief unveils a sacred unity and calls us to a greater being of soul, intertwined with an ecstatic light. As we honor our loved ones, we also learn to honor the profound connection that binds us all, recognizing the shared flesh we can wound and the shared love that mends.

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SPIRITUAL DIRECTION WHILE GRIEVING IS AVAILABLE FREE OF CHARGE

You can reach us at: ccoutreach@dsj.org
To arrange personal spiritual direction:  408-359-5542

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

Transcript

Candee: 0:21

Welcome to Solace: Soul + Grief. We're brought to you by Catholic Cemeteries in San Jose, California. My name is Candee Lucas. The death of a loved one is a huge life transition and we are learning it creates and affects so many other losses in our lives. So we at Catholic Cemeteries want to offer you this place to grieve and find where God's moving in your life as you grieve. Each week we take a new scripture or reflection and seek to find a quiet place in our hearts, together to contemplate our losses, honor our loved ones, remember God's place in our hearts and seek to make a continuing connection with those we've lost. We want to find that space where God is moving with us in our grief, that space where mourning can be transformed to comfort, a place where our hearts might be reopened and begin to mend, a place where tears can flow. For it is when we open our hearts that we realize that we've made a new space for more love and more compassion and for more humanity and more space for God in our lives. This is a space that we hope Solace will begin to fill for you. Please join us if you are suffering or just want to spend more time having God move with you in your grief. You are always welcome here in our circle of healing, love and support.

Candee: 2:00

Today's reflection is from the 14th century Persian poet Hafiz. It is called "I have Come Into this World to See this. I have come into this world to see this the sword dropped from the man's hands, even at the height of their arc of anger, because we have finally realized there is just one flesh to wound, and it is his God's, our beloved's. I have come into the world to see this. All creature hold hands as we pass through this miraculous existence we share, on the way to even a greater being of soul, a being of just ecstatic light, forever entwined and at play with him. I have come into the world to hear this. Every song the earth has sung since it was conceived in the divine's womb and began spinning from his wish. Every song by wind and fin and hoof. Every song by hill and field and tree and woman and child. Every song of stream and rock. Every song of stream and rock. Every song of tool and lyre and flute. Every song of gold and emerald and fire, every song the heart should cry with magnificent dignity to know itself as God, for all other knowledge will leave us again in want and aching. Only imbibing the glorious sun will complete us. I have come into the world to experience this. Men so true to love, they would rather die before speaking an unkind word. Men so true their lives are his covenant, the promise of hope. I have come into this world to see this the sword drop from men's hands, even at the height of their arc of rage, because we have finally realized there is just one flesh we can wound.

Candee: 4:35

There are times, there are moments when God is so near to us on our journeys of grief that we can feel his tears for us. We can understand how his heart aches for us, how dearly and closely he wants to support us and follow us in our pain and grief, how he understands and gives meaning, purpose, weight to our sorrows. Many poets throughout the ages, found in both the scriptures and the Talmud, in the Tanakh, in the Quran, talk about God's fearsomeness, awesomeness, his power and his glory. But in our grief we discover a new God, a more intimate God, one who walks closer with us, one who is nearer to us, if we will allow him to be so, if we open our hearts to him at the same time as our hearts are broken by grief, his healing love begins to mend us, begins to mend our souls, begins to show us how to honor those we have lost with their best memories, their best means, their best love, their best hope, their best dreams, the best in their lives, how they enriched and enhanced our lives as they lived and continue to do so even though they are gone from us. So we take a mindful thought from Hafiz' words. Because we know, death usually occurs in the midst of life, in the midst of our living, in the midst of our daily lives. It almost always comes unbidden, yet it comes, surely, with surprise and with sorrow and with lament. We remember our loved ones, we begin to build that memory road that will connect us forever. We begin to burnish the love we shared as the jewel it will become. But we are asked mostly to remember the love of God, his sorrow for us, his pain for us, his tears for us. That love and healing is always available to us if we simply turn to Him and ask.