A
Aurelio
Guest
Hello!
It may seem sometimes that we have trouble catching up in all the losses we sustain in life: family loses, personal loses, plus tragedies of any and every imaginable kind.
Sooner or later we may find it useful to go through Grief Counseling at either the parish or the diocesan level.
Depending how things go for us, the senior team members may elect to do one or two of several things.
One, we may be permitted to stick around as a volunteer.
Two, we may even be encouraged to stick around as a volunteer.
In either case, we can look forward to a sort of apprenticeship in the unrelieved horror of unrelieved human misery and pain for the next three and a half to seven years, until we REALLY begin to catch on.
But is this second stage, after our own sessions have helped us to at least begin to come to grips with our own issues, for everybody?
To be honest with you, I don’t know: even our own tough and able ladies with an almost Paulinian History of Survival.
They have at times admitted themselves to going home with a bad case of the old fashioned combat heebie-jeebies after a particularly rough hour and a half’s session – like tonight’s for example – of dealing with the full horror of unrelieved human misery, sorrow, grief and both physical and mental pain.
Believe you me, brothers and sisters, it is easy to flatter ourselves that “Oh, I’m tough, I can take it,” but if we do, we’re in for a fall.
So, why bother, then, to even consider doing it?
It was a priest we’ll call “Padre Zutano” who put me wise as to the real meaning of the phrase “The Ministry of Presence.”
“Neither Our Lady nor St. John could take away Christ’s horrendous suffering, but just by being there they made a difference.” He told me one day in the confessional.
For me that did it all, for after six months I was getting a bad case of combat fatigue, of “What’s the use? What can I possibly do to aleviate this unrelieved horror of raw pain, giref and unimaginable human suffereing? I have no skills. I am not a licensed professional. As a matter of fact, where are they? Those are the people we need up here on the front lines of the combat zone!”
But like Father Zutano put it: God works best with those who want to work with Him.
Now, having said that, what do I need to do to survive in this hostile combat environment?
By trial and error here is just one of many thousands of opinions, nor is it necessarily the best and only one by any means.
At a minimum: you’d better believe in God, and not in some warm, fuzzy abstract, with a face spaced out by a hit or two too many on some celestial bong, as Christ is too often portrayed.
Plus, maybe at a minimum, extra daily masses and communions five times a week for every hour and a half session.
And hardest of all, sometimes to remember is: “No! This is NOT about ME, it’s about my brother and sister suffering and in need. Punch drunk in pain and grief. Yet in trying, at least, to help them, I can be helped in turn, nor will all my own issues of grief and tragedy ever really be fully resolved either, until this Vale of Tears, too, has past.”
Thanks!
Aurelio
It may seem sometimes that we have trouble catching up in all the losses we sustain in life: family loses, personal loses, plus tragedies of any and every imaginable kind.
Sooner or later we may find it useful to go through Grief Counseling at either the parish or the diocesan level.
Depending how things go for us, the senior team members may elect to do one or two of several things.
One, we may be permitted to stick around as a volunteer.
Two, we may even be encouraged to stick around as a volunteer.
In either case, we can look forward to a sort of apprenticeship in the unrelieved horror of unrelieved human misery and pain for the next three and a half to seven years, until we REALLY begin to catch on.
But is this second stage, after our own sessions have helped us to at least begin to come to grips with our own issues, for everybody?
To be honest with you, I don’t know: even our own tough and able ladies with an almost Paulinian History of Survival.
They have at times admitted themselves to going home with a bad case of the old fashioned combat heebie-jeebies after a particularly rough hour and a half’s session – like tonight’s for example – of dealing with the full horror of unrelieved human misery, sorrow, grief and both physical and mental pain.
Believe you me, brothers and sisters, it is easy to flatter ourselves that “Oh, I’m tough, I can take it,” but if we do, we’re in for a fall.
So, why bother, then, to even consider doing it?
It was a priest we’ll call “Padre Zutano” who put me wise as to the real meaning of the phrase “The Ministry of Presence.”
“Neither Our Lady nor St. John could take away Christ’s horrendous suffering, but just by being there they made a difference.” He told me one day in the confessional.
For me that did it all, for after six months I was getting a bad case of combat fatigue, of “What’s the use? What can I possibly do to aleviate this unrelieved horror of raw pain, giref and unimaginable human suffereing? I have no skills. I am not a licensed professional. As a matter of fact, where are they? Those are the people we need up here on the front lines of the combat zone!”
But like Father Zutano put it: God works best with those who want to work with Him.
Now, having said that, what do I need to do to survive in this hostile combat environment?
By trial and error here is just one of many thousands of opinions, nor is it necessarily the best and only one by any means.
At a minimum: you’d better believe in God, and not in some warm, fuzzy abstract, with a face spaced out by a hit or two too many on some celestial bong, as Christ is too often portrayed.
Plus, maybe at a minimum, extra daily masses and communions five times a week for every hour and a half session.
And hardest of all, sometimes to remember is: “No! This is NOT about ME, it’s about my brother and sister suffering and in need. Punch drunk in pain and grief. Yet in trying, at least, to help them, I can be helped in turn, nor will all my own issues of grief and tragedy ever really be fully resolved either, until this Vale of Tears, too, has past.”
Thanks!
Aurelio