Is There A Place For Me?
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Questioning My Faith
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Healing From Abortion
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Intercultural Ministry
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Battling Pornography
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Dealing With Grief
We are to comfort the sorrowful and care for the grieving.
Loss is an inevitable part of living. Grief, experts agree, is a natural, emotional reaction to any type of loss. Like all human experiences, grief is multifaceted. It is characterized by a range of feelings, including but not limited to sadness, hopelessness, depression, fatigue, numbness, anger, and guilt. The people with whom I spoke as I wrote this article all agreed that grief is nonlinear and, in many ways, unpredictable. Each person follows their own path of grieving.
Nora, after her husband died from an aggressive brain cancer in 2023, says: “Grief is sadness, but it’s also an unscratchable itch, an insatiable hunger, an unsoothable ache. It is an extreme discomfort that’s both spiritual and physical. After Aaron’s death, I could feel my heart beating harder and faster in my chest. The muscles in my shoulders, neck, and head tightened into thick knots. My head ached constantly.”
Lisa, who lost her father the summer following her junior year of college, also noticed the physical nature of grief, sharing that she has never felt more tired than in the year following her dad’s death. “I have this distinct memory of feeling like I couldn’t get out of bed, six months later,” she says. Lisa also notes how grief impacted her memory and appetite, saying that “the physical feelings continue to surprise me.”
In addition to the emotional and physical repercussions, grief presents logistical and financial challenges. From paying for funeral expenses to updating mortgages, credit card agreements, insurance plans, and more, dealing with the logistical realities of losing a loved one is overwhelming even to a person who isn’t suffering the emotional turmoil of significant loss. Unfortunately, our social structures do little to support this process. No current federal laws require employers to provide employees either paid or unpaid bereavement leave. The average employer gives only three days’ paid time off when an employee loses a spouse, parent, sibling, or child.
Grief can announce itself at unexpected and surprising times. We expect grief to show its face in the aftermath of a loss, but sometimes grief arrives uninvited before loss enters the scene. There’s a term for this: anticipatory grief. David Kessler, who with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross cowrote On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief through the Five Stages of Loss (Scribner) and founded Grief.com, defines anticipatory grief as “that feeling we get about what the future holds when we’re uncertain.” He says that its focal point is usually death—like when we think about losing someone we love—but it can also pertain to “more broadly imagined futures,” such as picturing our world after facing a natural disaster, a devastating war, or climate change.
In times like these, loss is multifaceted. Our world is shaken as we anticipate and fear losing our health and the well-being of loved ones. We also grapple with losses of planned trips and celebrations, certain freedoms, employment, and retirement savings. These sorts of events crack our sense of safety and leave us reeling from both anticipatory and in-the-moment grief.
Through scripture, we are privy to Jesus’ ministry of presence as he visited mourners, sat with them in their sorrow, and wept with them. Inspired by his life and teachings, all Catholics are instructed through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy to comfort the sorrowful.Consolation ministry at St. Pius X Catholic Church
In her article “Dealing with Feelings: Successful Grieving,” published in The American Journal of Nursing, Ruth Grainger describes loss as a wound and writes that the object of grief work is to “encourage the wound to heal, leaving a scar, a palpable reminder, a useful reweaving of tissue that ‘holds us together,’ different from our unblemished skin, but strong [and] functional.” While we will never be the same after a loss, healing is possible. The people in our lives, including our faith community of St. Pius X, can help us with this crucial work. Here are a few examples of practices that parishes adopt to support their grieving members.
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People who experience a loss that isn’t typically discussed.
Estimates that as many as 50 percent of all pregnancies end in miscarriage, many parents keep the experience to themselves. Maggie, whose first pregnancy ended in miscarriage, talks about how touched she was when people acknowledged her loss. She gets choked up remembering how the Pastor from her parish St. Patrick's called and offered to provide emotional support through prayer, listening, and offering comfort in the face of loss. The Church, especially St. Pius X, is hear to help you in you times of need.
People who experience a loss that isn’t Death.
One man, Frank, spoke of the loss his wife faced after she experienced a life-altering stroke. Although the stroke did not impact her cognition, it paralyzed half of her body and prevented her from teaching middle school math, an occupation that had previously brought her tremendous joy and meaning. “I think she deeply, deeply grieved not being in the classroom. That was very much a part of her identity,” Frank says. “She got used to it, like we get used to all sorts of things after a while, but initially it was very difficult.” In times of crisis, like these, reach out to the church. The Church, especially St. Pius X, is hear to help you in you times of need.
What Should I Do When I Struggle from Addiction?
Here some thoughts on how to deal with such struggles.
1. First of all, above all, ask God for help. Do this as you sit alone in the at home, or school, but better yet at church. This is a prayer of petition and the most powerful means we have to resist in such struggles. Ask the Father, ask Jesus, ask the Holy Spirit for help. Ask Mary’s help. Ask your angel or a saint who is special to you for help.
We have been given a promise: “Ask and it will be given to you.” This promise is not just words. When we ask for help, we may still struggle for a time, but the struggle lightens, and it passes more quickly.
2. When you feel tired, lonely and discouraged — when you are in spiritual desolation — never change anything you had planned to do in your spiritual life before that desolation began. Never! This is St. Ignatius’ famous Rule: “In time of desolation, never make a change." The Church, especially St. Pius X, is hear to help you in you times of need.
3. When you experience spiritual desolation, do not remain alone with it. Speak also with a priest friend. FaceTime with a family member. Such relationships are on different levels and the sharing will correspondingly vary. But do not be alone!
Instead of passing the evening alone, speak with a priest, friend or a family member.
4. Spiritual desolation will attempt, falsely, to interpret your spiritual past and to predict your spiritual future. Both will always look dark. Not only does the present seem heavy, but the spiritual desolation (the enemy) tells us that our has been fruitless and that the coming years will also be empty. If you believe this lie, you will likely succumb to spiritual desolation. But if he identify these thoughts as of the enemy and reject them, we will be greatly strengthened for the future.
5. Seek Assistance
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