My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
There is an ancient maxim in the Church which
tells us that “the law of prayer is the law of faith.” This is another way of
saying that the Church’s prayers are not mere empty words or hollow
aspirations; rather, they are what the Church truly believes. And what the
Church believes is always founded on the witness and testimony of the Apostles on
and the writings of the Sacred Scriptures.
We prayed a moment ago that Brad might “stand
with all the angels and saints, who know [God’s] love and praise [his] saving
will.”[1]
This belief, this hope, of the Church is founded on the promise that “the
favors of the Lord are not exhausted, his mercies are not spent” (Lamentations 3:22).
In the depth of your grief and heartache,
which is not to be feared, it must surely feel as though the Lord’s mercies
might be exhausted, but our faith is not founded on feelings, even as important
as these are. Rather, our faith is built upon the certainty of the love of God,
on the immeasurable depths of that love revealed for us in Jesus Christ. He
showed his love for us in the midst of heartache and pain, in the presence of
his Mother and of the Beloved Disciple because love always requires a
willingness to sacrifice for the beloved.
Though I cannot pretend to share the
experience of losing a spouse or a son, I do know something of the experience
of grief, particularly the grief that follows after a tragic death. My father
died just before my eighth birthday, and my mother died just two years later.
Although not the same, the grief we experience is not altogether different.
These many years since their deaths have not always been easy, but they have
not been altogether unbearable, either.
As we mourn the loss of those we love so
dearly, well-meaning family and friends often seek to comfort us with clichés,
which are generally as untrue as they are lame. Not quite willing to enter into
our suffering, they turn uncomfortably to words.
We hear especially these days the adage
that “time heals all wounds.” The experience of life has taught me this is
quite false; time may soothe our wounds and make them easier to bear, but it
does not, it cannot, entirely heal them. The full healing of our wounds can
only occur where time no longer passes, in the presence of Him who died for us
and still bears his wounds, the marks of his love; the full healing of our
wounds can only occur in the one who calls us to find our rest in him (cf.
Matthew 11:29). The bad moments will continue, but good moments will also come.
Likely enough, you will come to know a joy mingled with sadness, and a sadness
mingled with joy.
When your sorrow hits you hardest, when it
seems hope is lost, go to the Cross. Stand or kneel in the presence of the
Blessed Mother and of Saint John; they will lead you to the one who is “meek
and humble of heart,” to the one in whom you will find your rest (Matthew 11:28;cf. 11:29). Look upon Christ our salvation and let his love fall down upon you
and he will renew you each morning (cf. Lamentations 3:23). You will learn
there anew what it means to “hope in silence for the saving help of the Lord”
(Lamentations 3:26).
In moments such as these words simply fail;
all any of us can do is hold you tightly in our prayers and in our love and
weep with you. Still, I wish with all my heart I had something more to say to
you to offer comfort and consolation. There will long
be an empty space in your hearts, an emptiness that can only be filled by Brad,
but this need not lead you to despair or despondency if you place your faith in
the hands of Jesus, that is, if you entrust yourselves entirely to him.
Andi, Randy, and
Lorri, here I can only leave you with these words of J.R.R. Tolkien, which have
long brought no small consolation to my own heart: “I will not say: do not weep; for not all
tears are an evil.”[2] In
moments such as this, tears are a sign of love; do not be afraid of them. May
the Lord, in his loving mercy, keep you in his grace and bring you to rejoice
before him together with Brad. Amen.
