The only Whole Heart is a Broken One
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"Grief is love not wanting to let go."
Earl A. Grollman, Living with Loss
Recently, while sharing a meal with friends, I was asked if I could relay my most powerful experience of the presence of God. I didn't have to think long or hard. It happened when my father died.
It had been a tortuous few days, after removing him from life-support, moving from my mother's bed in one Hospice room to my father's bed in another. After spending several days and nights in the Hospice unit I attempted to leave one afternoon to go to the cafeteria. At the door I froze and could not pass through, as if drawn back in by some strange hand. I went to my father's room to check on him and in that moment I knew he was close to death. He labored for breath and as I leaned over to kiss his check he sighed deeply and died. I lay across his chest sobbing for him to take me with him. At that moment the pain was crushing, certainly more than any human heart could bear, or so it seemed. But as the nurse helped me stand up and move to the foot of his bed an incredible wave of peace rushed over me that was almost tangible. I had never experienced anything like it before. God was in that moment and I knew God had kept the promises made through Christ.
That moment, however, did not diminish my own experience of loss or my grief but transformed it into a time of self-knowledge. I remember sitting at the bed looking at him lying there and thinking to myself, "Now I am complete, fully alive, fully human. Before that moment I had never suffered such a loss and could not possibly fully understand the losses that sorely grieved the hearts of so many others. But now I was "grown-up in grief" and could rightly wrap my arms around a hurting soul and say, "I know how much this hurts." It wasn't until I read the book Gospel Days by Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister that I could really find the word that explained the experience. Sister Joan writes, "Grief is a sign that we loved something more than ourselves. . . . Grief makes us worthy to suffer with the rest of the world."
Worthy - that was what I had felt. My broken heart had made me worthy to touch others in their brokenness and help them find life in the experience.
Author David Wolpe, in his book Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times, points out a very valuable truth. '"No awake spirit can move through this world without enduring a broken heart. There is nothing real that makes life painless. Accepting the pain of living, knowing one's heart will - and should - be broken, is the beginning of wisdom. Wolpe quotes the famous Chasidic Rabbi Menachem Mendel who taught, "The only whole heart is a broken one."
Time and experience have taught me that both men are right and death is not the only loss that leads us into grief and breaks our hearts. But faith has taught me that we never walk alone in grief. No matter the cause, Christ, who experienced deceit, rejection, ridicule, physical pain and death, walks with us in our suffering and shares our broken hearts. When my father died I tried to run from my pain. Now, after many new losses and much grief I am comforted to know that I have been made worthy to suffer with my Lord.
____________________________
Mary Morrell is the author of Angels in High Top Sneakers by Loyola Press and three reflection journals, including one on the Mysteries of Light, available through the Metuchen Office of Religious Education.
Your Catholic Voice is a movement to promote faithful citizenship based on the fundamental truths of the Catholic Church relating to Life, Family, Freedom and Solidarity. For information go to Your Catholic Voice http://www.yourcatholicvoice.org
Contact
Diocese of Metuchen
http://www.diometuchen.org
NJ, US
Mary Regina Morrell - Associate Director, Office of Religious Education, 732 562-1990
mmorrell@diometuchen.org
Keywords
Heart
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