In my professional life I have written on grief and the grieving process. A few months ago my younger brother lost his wife tragically. I see his grief circulating through him daily and I am amazed at his fortitude and his faith in the face of such a devastating turn of events. Of course, for all of us death is an eminent reality and thinking about our own demise can be burdensome. But perhaps the reality with the greater ongoing effect upon us is the death of others, especially those we love. Death is hard to live with. Grief is a cross.
I'm convinced there is a Catholic way of grieving, however, that extracts from our faith a different set of tools. It goes beyond "coping." It has to do with our connection to the universal Church in real and sensate terms. Today, it seems, either you are a believer and the spiritual world looms large or you are a non-believer and the physical is all there is. Only in Catholicism do I see a grand blend of the material at the service of the spiritual.
For Catholics it's a great big universal family deal. We see heaven and earth on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and in the parade of saints in the portraiture art of the centuries and in our churches and our sacraments and in the sensibilities thrust upon us as children.
For us, the Communion of Saints is a paramount notion infused in us early in childhood. As a kid, every time I got in real trouble (and that was often), I wound up talking to my Uncle Fred. He was my mother's brother and was on his deathbed as I was being born. My mother spoke often of him and I longed to know him. So at some point the conversations began, usually when I was in trouble and was afraid to talk to anybody else. Nobody had yet told me about the Communion of Saints, but somehow I knew this praying/talking/connection was what we did.
Now, years later, I have untold numbers of these relationships and I actually do feel the communion of those on earth and those in heaven and those working out their purgation in whatever way that is happening. I am connected to those not here in a very real way, and the spiritual borderlines between where I am and where Uncle Fred is are not as distinguishable as one might think.
I had a high school friend who was a popular guy, an "A" student and one of the best athletes I've ever known. In many ways he peaked during his senior year of high school. His was a tough, sad life. But we were boys together and I can see him scooting across a football field eluding tacklers right and left, as if his feet were wheels. I can feel his presence in the humility that never left him, as we tossed layups on a blacktop and spoke to each other in the coded language of boyhood even after his prowess waned and his body failed.
Our connection is Catholic and my grief is defined by it. We can touch each others' hearts just as my brother and his wife touch their hearts at the end of his day, with his journal in hand and the tears still fresh.
Bishop Emeritus William Curlin, one of my favorite people on this side of heaven, visited my brother's wife on her deathbed. He visited with my brother, too. The bishop told him that every time my brother attended Mass his wife was there with him in a very special way with all the angels and saints. That fact has brought much solace to my brother.
The emphasis on an unending family connection and our great, storied Catholic customs of remembrance and ritual truly do give us a leg up when we are grieving because the dead come alive in the subtle and moving tributaries of our spirits. The pain is deep and powerful, but so is the connection real and effecting. It's like we are given the opportunity to experience our loss in a manner consistent with the depth of our feeling and in a manner consistent with our ongoing connection to a loved one.
And the last very "Catholic" aspect of my grief that harkens back to that family connectivity is the undeniable fact of divine mercy in my life. My Catholic sensibility is such that, even in the depths of sorrow or doubt or anger or any of the myriad forms of sin, I know I am His. I know I belong to my Savior in a tangible way, taught to me by my parents, by the statues and stained glass of my church, by the actual absorption of the Real Presence throughout my life, by the ongoing trumpet call to attend to the poor and the hurting, by the feel of holy water and beads on my fingers, in the sweet aroma of incense rising to heaven, in the intonation of the words of the Consecration and in the syllables of prayer – and yes, in the simple but sacred words of a kid to his deceased uncle.
If we take everything we know about grief and throw into the mix an internalization of the notion of the Communion of Saints and an intuitive grasp of divine mercy, we have something very different in these confusing days – something most comforting and very Catholic.
Fred Gallagher is an author, book editor and former addictions counselor. He and his wife Kim are members of St. Patrick Cathedral in Charlotte.