Praying our grief

This is a hard time. I would like to invite you to write out what grieves you and put your griefs in the form of a cross – on a wall, on a table where you have a bible and a candle, bringing it to God. When you sit down to pray, bring these laments to God – and see what God does with you.

Why do I think this would be good?

Last December I led a study week for women and men in charge of the formation of new members of religious communities. As I prepared, a good friend. Sister Pat, urged me to consider that the religious life is, at its best, prophetic and mystical.

To prepare, I turned back to a book that I first read about 1983, Walter Brueggemann’s The Prophetic Imagination. (The quotes below are from the Fortieth Anniversary Edition.)

Brueggemann notes the importance of lament which can open the path to transformation, in the face of established patterns of injustice and oppression.

Prophetic ministry seeks to penetrate the numbness in order to face the body of death in which we are caught. Clearly, the numbness sometimes evokes from us rage and anger, but the numbness is more likely to be penetrated by grief and lament. Death, and that is our state, does not require indignation as much as it requires anguish and the sharing in the pain. The public sharing of pain is one way to let the reality sink in and let the death go. (p. 117)

Kathe Kollwitz

As a part of our morning reflection, we offered a prayer of lament. I asked each person to write one thing that they lament, that brings them to cry, on a sheet of paper. We listened to a passage from the prophet Jeremiah and then this quote from Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Christus vivit – Christ is alive:

Perhaps “those of us who have a reasonably comfortable life don’t know how to weep. Some realities in life are only seen with eyes cleansed by tears. I would like each of you to ask yourself this question: Can I weep? Can I weep when I see a child who is starving, on drugs or on the street, homeless, abandoned, mistreated or exploited as a slave by society?...” Try to learn to weep for all those young people worse off than yourselves. Weeping is also an expression of mercy and compassion. If tears do not come, ask the Lord to give you the grace to weep for the sufferings of others. Once you can weep, then you will be able to help others from the heart. (# 76)

I then invited them to put the slips of paper on the wall in the form of a cross.

For me and for others this was a moving experience, being able to make public, before God and the People of God, what brings us to tears.

This morning, during a Skyped spiritual direction, my director asked me what I am grieving.

I recalled this experience and, at her urging, I decided to do this. My laments are now on the wall by my prayer corner.

I think this could be, for many of us, an important prayer – not only to help us face the grief and to put our concerns in the hands of God. It also, I believe can open us to hope.

Note how Pope Francis wrote, “Once you can weep, then you will be able to help others from the heart.”

Walter Brueggemann also noted that “Expressed suffering is the beginning of counterpower.” (p. 145)

A day ago I came across an essay in Time by N. T. Wright, a scripture scholar and the former Anglican bishop of Durham. It’s poorly titled, but it’s a response to those who keep asking for explanation: how can this be? how can such suffering continue? Where is God?

It is no part of the Christian vocation, then, to be able to explain what’s happening and why. In fact, it is part of the Christian vocation not to be able to explain—and to lament instead. As the Spirit laments within us, so we become, even in our self-isolation, small shrines where the presence and healing love of God can dwell. And out of that there can emerge new possibilities, new acts of kindness, new scientific understanding, new hope.