Dear All,
During the coming week, on the 11th, we celebrate the feast of our Lady of Lourdes. Lourdes is a place where we are confronted by suffering of all kinds, yes, physical, but also suffering of mind and heart – anxiety, loneliness and so much more. We see suffering in so many, but those who are ‘well’, ‘able-bodied’ and often there to help, may become more aware of their own vulnerability and woundedness. Suffering, pain, sadness and healing are human experiences in our day to day life. There is so much material on these themes that we have decided to reflect on them either side of the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes – this week and next.
Our blessing this week is a Gaelic blessing, ‘Lighten our Darkness’ – a good one when we are thinking about today’s themes. Hope you find it helpful especially if any parts of your life are a bit dark at the moment.
Healing – Give it Time
Love pours out,
but the broken cup
cannot receive
Love waits to strengthen
Love waits to nourish
Love waits to be received
Love waits to heal
in time
the cup will be mended
in time
the cup will be raised
in time
the cup will receive again.
Joyce Rupp
Lord, teach me the art of patience while I am well,
and give me the use of it when I am sick.
In that day either lighten my burden or strengthen my back.
In my health I have so often discovered my weakness,
presuming on my own strength;
make me strong in my sickness when I rely on your help.
Thomas Fuller
Suffering
Edward Corbould OSB
Suffering, sooner or later, comes to us all however much we might try to run away from it. It can embitter us or enrich us. With it we may grow as a person, or we may diminish. It all really depends on how we respond to it.
Suffering can open us up to others in a way very little else can. Suffering is immensely personal. We can only experience it in ourselves, we can’t experience it in others. And so the wider our suffering , the wider our knowledge of the suffering of others, and so the deeper can be our sympathy. In that sense suffering opens us up to others. It also opens us up to Christ because we begin to understand what he suffered, not so much physically, although that of course is true, but through lack of success, or having the truth and yet being rejected, of being jeered at, of being deserted and let down by his friends. So suffering can bring us close, like nothing else, both to others, and to the person of Christ and trust in Christ is at the very root of Christianity.
Words of Healing
It only took a word spoken in anger to wound my sensitive heart,
It only took a word of kindness to relieve my suffering.
It only took a word of harsh reproach to make my tears flow.
It only took a word of sympathy to comfort me in my distress.
It only took an impatient word spoken thoughtlessly to darken my day.
It only took a word of encouragement to shed light on my dark path.
It only took an unkind mocking word to poison my world,
It only took a word of hope and of faith to transform my whole day.
What words will I speak today?