Grief & Joy
“Do you not know that a little yeast leavens all the dough?” – 1 Cor 5:6
I began Lent painfully aware of my perfectionistic tendencies. After 34 years as a Jesuit, I continue to eat much humble pie – still succumbing to the temptation to earn love, human or divine. A week ago, I was grateful to end Lent with a growing confidence in God’s goodness and unconditional acceptance of my predilection for fear. Holy Week was something unexpected altogether. If someone were to eavesdrop on my prayer these days, they would hear something like this:
Jesus – (gently smiling) I cherish our time together, how you share your heart with me.
Tri – Thank you, Love … (slightly grimacing) … still, I turn away from you …
Jesus – Yes, I know.
Tri – It breaks my heart to see a dear friend suffering with excruciating pain from a third miscarriage, and to witness another crushed by an overwhelming sense of being “such a burden on everyone.”
Jesus – (silent)
Tri – I see you in them. I see you in the people on the verge of famine in Gaza. And I can’t bear it!
Jesus – (tears streaming)
Tri – I see your tears in theirs. I believe your strength in theirs. It’s such an awful waiting, trusting in your promise.
Jesus – Thank you for being with me, with your friends, my friends.
Tri – I believe you are with your people still crucified and with your people consoled by hope. Please help my unbelief. Please grant me enough grace to be surprised by joy.
Christ is Risen, alleluia! Today we celebrate the light of Christ shining forth in every dark corner of human hearts and relationships. Joy is hidden in grief, piercing through sorrow, peeking through pain. Life persists intimately through death.
Like the disciples in the last verse of today’s Gospel, I desire to believe more fully, but I have yet to understand. Peace remains, beneath the gravity of grief. St. Ignatius of Loyola urges us to “ask for the grace to be glad and rejoice intensely because of the great joy and the glory of Christ our [Risen] Lord.”
I am consoled by the opportunity today and in the next fifty days of the Easter Season to ask for this grace – to be surprised by joy and to walk in faith with those who grieve, with those crying out in pain, hanging on the cross with Jesus or close to the empty tombs of meaning.
Join me in a heart-to-heart sharing with Jesus or God, letting the yeast of joy and hope leaven the dough of your life.