Thoughts on Grief
Grief cannot be shared, for it is mine alone.
Grief is a dying with me,
a great emptiness,
a frightening void.
It is loneliness, a sickening sorrow at night,
on awakening a terrible dread.
Another’s words do not help.
A reasoned argument explains little
for having tried too much.
Silence is the best response to another’s grief.
Not the silence that is a pause in speech,
awkward and unwanted,
but one that unites heart to heart.
Love, speaking in silence,
is the way into the void of another’s grief.
The best of all loves comes silently and slowly,
to soften the pain of grief,
and begin to dispel the sadness.
It is the love of God,
warm and true,
which will touch the grieving heart and heal it.
God looks at the grieving person
and has piety,
for grief is a great pain.
God came among us to learn about grief
and much more too,
this man of Sorrows.
He Knows.
– Cardinal Basil Hume, OSB
University of the Incarnate Word® 