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A Time to Grieve: Meditations for Healing After the Death of a Love One, by Carol Staudacher. Harper's, 1992.
The author presents the theme that some folks try to do their grieving by thinking
their way through grief. She contends that that just doesn’t work. Since grief is a releasing process, a discovery process, a healing process, the one in grief needs to use her/his heart to find his way through a time of grief. The brain does assist, that is true, but only as a trailing element with the heart. It is our hearts that are aching when a loved one dies. Our emotions are in grief. The mind does suffer, the mind may plot and plan, but eventually it is the heart that leads the way
through grief.
Grieving takes time. Readers are urged not to set the end of grief on the calendar. “By this date, I will be finished with my grief.” The person grieving takes one step forward, two forward, then goes three steps back. The meditations in this book are appropriate no matter when your loved one died. As long as one feels the loss, the meditations will speak directly to one’s
experience.
This book contains about 240 one-page reflections, each of which begins with some words of a survivor. About two lines are offered by some writer, followed by a short reflection and concluding with a paragraph in which the one grieving makes personal reflections. The book is divided into three sections, namely retreating, working through, and a final section called
resolving. - Retreating is designed for the time immediately after the loss of a loved one.
- Working through is the experience felt when the truth of the loss becomes very evident, and one needs to cope on a daily basis. The change, the loss pushes one to feel and think and do. We
tell our story over and over; we ask ourselves questions; longing is evident both day and night. This is the time to seek support for others.
- In the final stage, resolving, the grieving one is able to integrate the loss into his/her life. ”We are moving forward. We have days of hope. The memory of the loved one now sustains us. I feel intense gratitude for the loved one, gratitude that we were together
this long. The gratitude gives me energy to face the world again.”
Readers are not expected to read all pages in succession. Paperback, Kindle
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St. Jerome Emiliani (1481-1537) February 9.
A careless and irreligious soldier for the city-state of Venice, Jerome was captured in a skirmish at an outpost town and chained in a dungeon. In prison Jerome had a lot of time to think, and he gradually learned how to pray. When he escaped, he returned to Venice where he took charge of the education of his nephews—and began his own studies for the priesthood.
In the years after his ordination, events again called Jerome to a decision and a new lifestyle. Plague and famine swept northern Italy. Jerome began caring for the sick and feeding the hungry at his own expense. While serving the sick and the poor, he soon resolved to devote himself and his property solely to others, particularly to abandoned children. He founded three
orphanages, a shelter for penitent prostitutes and a hospital.
Around 1532 Jerome and two other priests established a congregation, the Clerks Regular of Somasca, dedicated to the care of orphans and the education of youth. Jerome died in 1537 from a disease he caught while tending the sick. He was canonized
in 1767. In 1928 Pius Xl named him the patron of orphans and abandoned children.
americancatholic.org site
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