SOLACE: Soul + Grief
This podcast is sponsored by SOULPLUSGRACE serving the San José area, offering grief support and grief journeying with spirituality. We hope to help you travel through grief with God at your side. Candee Lucas, your host, is a Jesuit-trained-and-inspired spiritual companion to the dying and their families, friends and caretakers.
"I am a trained Spiritual Director for those who seek to complete the 19th Annotation of St. Igantius’ spiritual exercises. I have also worked as a hospital/cemetery chaplain and grief doula. I believe all paths lead to God and that all traditions are due respect and honour. I take my sacred inspiration from all of my patients and companions–past, present and future; the Dalai Lama, James Tissot, St. John of the Cross, the Buddha, Saint Teresa of Ávila, and, of course, Íñigo who became known as St. Ignatius. I utilize art, poetry, music, aromatherapy, yoga, lectio divina, prayer and meditation in my self-work and work with others. I believe in creating a sacred space for listening; even in the most incongruous of surroundings."
BACKGROUND
Jesuit Retreat Center, Los Altos, CA -- Pierre Favre Program, 3 year training to give the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius/Centro de Espiritualidad de Loyola, Spain -- The Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola -- 30 Day Silent Retreat/Center for Loss & Life Transition – Comprehensive Bereavement Skills Training (30 hrs) Ft. Collins, CO/California State University Institute for Palliative Care--Palliative Care Chaplaincy Specialty Cert. (90 hrs)/Sequoia Hospital, Redwood City, CA -- Clinical Pastoral Education/19th Annotation with Fumiaki Tosu, San Jose, CA, Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius/Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA M.A. – Pastoral Ministries
SOLACE: Soul + Grief
The Healing Power of Divine Presence
Inspired by the poignant words of the prophet Hosea, we draw a powerful parallel between the infinite love of God and the awe-inspiring images from the Webb telescope. We are reminded that even in our darkest moments, we are surrounded by an omnipotent love that transcends our understanding and carries us through life's trials and tribulations.
Be sure to subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, or follow us on the Facebook pages of Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Los Altos, California, or Calvary Cemetery in San Jose, California.
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
entle companions along the way, we welcome you to this week's episode of Solace Soul Plus Grief. We all suffer losses and life transitions, and we found it helpful to remind ourselves what place God has in that journey. Each week, we try to become in touch with our ability to open our hearts in all our brokenness, to be able to receive the brokenness in others, participate in the healing love that God brings us all. My name is Candy Lucas. I'm the chaplain and aftercare coordinator at Catholic Cemeteries for the Diocese of San Jose. We're glad you're here. You're always welcome in our circle of love and healing support.
Candee:The prophet Hosea spoke to the children of Israel in chapter 11, as he speaks to us now. I fell in love with you when you were still a child and I called you my child ever since Egypt. Thus were you called, but you went your own way. I have pampered you, taking you in my arms, but you have ignored my healing care. I drew you with human ties, with cords of love, but I seemed to you as one who imposed a yoke on your jaws though I was offering you food.
Candee:This scripture reminds us that we are born in God's love, surrounded by God's love, bathed in God's love and light and healing all of our lives and thereafter, it is this love that carries us through the difficulties and sufferings and pain of a human life. The promise of a surrounding, everlasting, omnipotent love. A love that looks very much like the universe, like the photos we now see from the Webb telescope. It isn't a dark night punctuated by stars. It is many colors and variations and sights that are beyond the human imagination. That's what a picture of love is.
Candee:Although we as humans often quantify things, put things neatly in a box, name them, label them, put them in a place in our brain where we can say I understand, it's understood, I know. God is really larger than we can know. Whatever we can know is a limitation on God and God's love. How he keeps us near is he delivers on that promise Even in our darkest, stormy days. He promises us a rainbow of love, even when we cannot see it, even when our eyes are darkened. We know that promise in our heart and, if need be, our hearts will be broken open to remind us. Be broken open to remind us, for we can exist to each other on this plane of love, on this intentional, enraptured place and space of God's healing love, because it is available to us all, not through blind faith nor blind imagining, not necessarily through the tales and myths that we know about God and religions throughout the world, but through the lived experience of our own hearts. We have experienced our own breaking hearts. We have experienced the heartbreak of others and as our hearts lie broken open, we know and understand instinctively that healing is available to us, because love is always available to us. Maybe we cannot see it on a particular day or sense it at a particular time, but we as humans are so rooted in that love that it can never be very far from us, and we can never be very far from us and we can never be very far from it. It is something that is always available to us.
Candee:That concludes another episode. Please follow us on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music or Spotify, or you can follow us on the Facebook pages of Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Los Altos, California, or Calvary Cemetery in San Jose, California. I am also available for spiritual direction for those who are grieving. You can contact us at the telephone number or email address in the show notes Be gentle with yourselves. Remember you are traveling with God and he is traveling with you. Vaya con Dios.
