This past week I noticed that the tops of our trees in the garden have begun to turn golden—a sign that fall is indeed on the way, even if the weather in Chicago still shouts “summer”. For many people autumn is a time of looking back and letting go and remembering things lost.  The change of seasons this year coincides with several incidents of violence that led to very public expressions of grief—the shooting of the two children at Mass in Minneapolis and the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Utah. The shooting in Minneapolis is one of many mass shootings lately (and not the only church shooting), but it touched us as Catholics more directly. Tens of thousands of people attended the public memorial service for the conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. Amidst the many political speeches that afternoon, Charlie Kirk’s widow stood up and said that she forgave Charlie’s killer because that was what Charlie would want her to do and something that Jesus told us to do. At that moment we were seeing something important and personal. We were seeing a woman of faith coming to terms with her grief and being vulnerable before God.

One of the unfortunate things about modern life is that there is little space for public or private grief. In the past, many cultures allowed us a period of mourning. We wore black garments as a way of letting others know that we were probably not ourselves right now and not to take our snappiness or our reticence to engage too seriously. The fact is that we need rituals in order to help us process the loss of a loved one. When I was in another city, I remember meeting with an engaged couple one evening, who had very clearly been having an argument on the way to church. What was the problem? The bride’s aunt was being waked at a nearby funeral home and her fiancé (a very logical person) did not want to go because “It’s stupid to go into a room and look at a dead body.” But going into a room and looking at a body in a coffin helps us come to terms with the reality that our loved one has passed into another dimension. During the darkest day of COVID, when we were only able to have cemetery services attended by only ten people, most families said they wanted a full Funeral Mass when that was permitted.  Yet that almost never happened. When it did happen, it usually took a different form and served a different purpose than the traditional funeral. We need to have a funeral when our loved one has died—not nine months later. The spontaneous appearance of makeshift memorials (the flowers and candles by the side of the road where someone has died in a traffic accident or been shot) is a way of affirming the life of the person who had died, while also recognizing that we will not be able to experience their presence in the same way ever again. Such displays enable us to get what we are feeling on the inside to the outside and to find community with others who are grieving.

Catholic writer Jeannie Ewing has defined grief as “the comprehensive psychological, spiritual, and emotional response that we have to any devastating loss in our lives.” I like that definition for two reasons. First it recognizes that grief is a complicated process that we cannot rush, and because it recognizes that we can experience grief for reasons other than death. Jamie herself was finally able to recognize grief as the cause of her listlessness when her baby was born with significant physical challenges. She had to grieve the loss of the little girl that she had pictured in her mind.

In my first assignment in a small city in New Jersey, the town’s rabbi died suddenly, and because we had a very active interfaith group, many of the priests and ministers attended the funeral. I remember the rabbi’s brother standing up and pounding on the lectern and shouting, “I want everyone to know that I do not yet accept this death!” This is not something one would expect to hear at a Christian funeral; but it is very much in keeping with the Biblical tradition. When we read the psalms, we find all kinds of emotions being expressed, from joy and delight to regret, confusion, and even anger at God. I have noticed over the years that the illness or death of a loved one drives some people closer to God and drives other people away from God. I like to see both of those responses as one stage in a long process that leads us to a more complicated but more real relationship with God. In the meantime, we can support people in their journey but we have to allow them to move at their own pace. For this reason, repeating cliches like “Everything happens for a reason” is usually not helpful. Each of us must come to light and hope in our way.

                                   Fr Joe