- Feb 5, 2002
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Have you ever known someone who was facing a truly huge loss, and struggled with what to say to them?
It hit close to home lately. A friend lost someone close to him to suicide. It has completely rocked his world. At the funeral, I spoke to several people who really just didn’t know what to say. “Saying ‘I’m sorry’ just seems so inadequate.”
Yesterday, I picked up the beautiful book Cry of the Heart, taken from talks given by my late, brilliant professor and friend, Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete. The book is about suffering — written by a man who suffered deeply. Having gone through a few of my own losses in the past couple of years, I wanted to see what my beloved Msgr. Albacete had to say on the subject.
It was deeply moving.
And so, I thought he and I would team up one last time and address the question: how do we best love people through the most difficult moments of their lives?
Let me start by saying: it is true that “I’m sorry” is not adequate. But what could possibly be adequate? Is there really something we could say that would make everything okay again? Are there magical words that make suffering go away? Of course not. So we say “I’m sorry” and everybody knows it’s what we say. It works.
Then there are the things we shouldn’t say. Albacete uses the Book of Job to illustrate how not to respond to suffering. Job, as you may recall, loses everything — family, possessions, livelihood. His life is everybody’s nightmare. Nobody knows how to respond. So his friends respond by trying to fit his suffering into a theological system — to intellectualize it. Because what we explain in our brains can’t hurt our hearts, right?
Continued below.
denvercatholic.org
It hit close to home lately. A friend lost someone close to him to suicide. It has completely rocked his world. At the funeral, I spoke to several people who really just didn’t know what to say. “Saying ‘I’m sorry’ just seems so inadequate.”
Yesterday, I picked up the beautiful book Cry of the Heart, taken from talks given by my late, brilliant professor and friend, Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete. The book is about suffering — written by a man who suffered deeply. Having gone through a few of my own losses in the past couple of years, I wanted to see what my beloved Msgr. Albacete had to say on the subject.
It was deeply moving.
And so, I thought he and I would team up one last time and address the question: how do we best love people through the most difficult moments of their lives?
Let me start by saying: it is true that “I’m sorry” is not adequate. But what could possibly be adequate? Is there really something we could say that would make everything okay again? Are there magical words that make suffering go away? Of course not. So we say “I’m sorry” and everybody knows it’s what we say. It works.
Then there are the things we shouldn’t say. Albacete uses the Book of Job to illustrate how not to respond to suffering. Job, as you may recall, loses everything — family, possessions, livelihood. His life is everybody’s nightmare. Nobody knows how to respond. So his friends respond by trying to fit his suffering into a theological system — to intellectualize it. Because what we explain in our brains can’t hurt our hearts, right?
Continued below.
Co-suffering with those who suffer
Have you ever known someone who was facing a truly huge loss, and struggled with what to say to them? It hit close to home lately. A friend lost someone close to him to suicide. It has completely
denvercatholic.org
