Recently I have been supporting a friend who lives overseas. In the past three months, she lost her brother, who was suffering from a neurological disorder, to suicide, and her dearest friend received a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and died last week. I have been struck by the grief she has experienced, but more than that by the faith, hope, and love she has journeyed with these two enormous losses. The faith, hope and love have not
lessened the grief, but they have held the sense of another reality that also exists and which is deeper than the grief.
In the first situation, I was moved by the way the family came together to support one another. They made time and space to be together, share their grief, and create a very special liturgy to honour his life. While my friend’s close friend was dying, there was another layer of sadness because the Covid regulations meant she was unable to visit him in those final weeks. She told me how the knowledge of many friends throughout the world
praying for him daily brought immense comfort to him and to her.
It did not in any way take away the pain and loss. But at the end, in both of these moments of immense loss, there was a sense of community, of people who formed a network of love. And there was a conviction that death was not the end. Because as Paul assures us, “there are three things that last: faith, hope and love and the greatest of these is love."
When and how in my own struggles and losses have I had a sense of faith, hope and love?
Is there a situation among someone I know where my care and support right now may offer them a glimpse of that lasting gift of faith, hope and love?
