Memorial of Saint Dominic, Priest
The disciples are grieved today as Jesus reminds them of his dreadful death. Jesus knew grief. The shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35), was his response to the passing of his friend Lazarus.
In 2005 I lost my brother-in-law who left behind a young family. Our friendship ran deep, long before we married into the same family. He was a fellow Youngstowner and came from a similar Irish clan of the steel valley. His death remains a profound personal loss.
Initially I felt nothing. But gradually panic attacks as well as out of body experiences came out of nowhere. I couldn’t drive a car and had to go on a leave of absence for several months.
My therapist said it was all a good sign. “Good sign???” “Yes,” she said. “You have been repressing powerful feelings. My guess is that they are from deep in your history. Your symptoms indicate that these feelings are too scary and your conscious mind is pushing back, trying to protect you from them. Your brother-in-law’s death triggered it.”
This continued for months. Healing required making conscious what was unconscious and feeling those super-strong feelings. But my therapist couldn’t say when that would happen. I was in agony.
Months later there was a major breakthrough when I began to sob and sob and sob. And at that I began talking about my father.
My brother-in-law’s situation was too close to the bone. My dad had gotten ill when I was on the cusp of adolescence, like my niece and nephews. We were back and forth between emergency rooms, Veteran Hospitals, and nearly lost the house. Dad was forced to retire before qualifying for a pension and passed at age fifty. I was eighteen, on the cusp of manhood.
After the funeral my Irish family made comments like, “Didn’t Timmy do well?” Actually, I hadn’t. I buried my feelings so deep that I didn’t even know I had them.
Teaching teenage boys at St. X about male spirituality, I stressed that feelings were neither good or bad or right or wrong. They just are. Burying strong emotions is buying them alive. Jesus showed the way when twice he not only cries, he weeps.
I’d ask the boys, “What is the one feeling society allows men to express?” They were quick to respond—anger, adding that was the one feeling women were prohibited from expressing. Insightful lads.
Boys don’t like appearing out of control. Grief brings loss of balance, casting shadows over our perception of everything. But appearances can be false. In truth, grief is a sign of great love.
Saint Augustine knew unrestrained weeping. Saint Jerome exhorted, “Nightly wash your bed and water your couch with your tears.” In Ignatian spirituality tears are absolutely integral.
To grieve is a holy thing. Padre Pio said, “Your tears are collected by the angels and placed in a gold chalice. You will find them when you present yourself before God.”
-Timothy J. Cronin