In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these.
+Paul Harvey, American radio broadcaster
When I am deep in sorrow, is there a remedy? John Cassian advises us to catch it early. Notice your thoughts. When you notice a sad thought say, “It just is: I feel sad. I count on God’s grace.” Then redirect the thought out of the consciousness. I may need to do this time and time again. Catch the thought early.
Dispatch it. Dash it on the rock which is Christ.
+Adapted by Mary Margaret Funk in Thoughts Matter
I LIKE TO THINK THAT it is all part of God’s plan for humanity that we have the privilege of living into our 80s and 90s and even into 100+. There are so many life experiences within us by the time we reach our later years, we certainly have much to share with the younger generations who may easily become overwhelmed by life’s happenings especially at this time. I hope that the media would interview many of us survivors so that our challenging life experiences and how we cope with them could be taught to the younger folks.
As Paul Harvey noted in one of his many radio broadcasts, “There have always been times like these.” His lifetime spanned from 1918 to 2009, and he witnessed many political revolutions, wars, natural disasters, human disasters, you name it, and he had a story from hundreds of events that he told during his broadcasts, all of which ended with, “Now you know the rest of the story.”
It is mind blowing to think that a monk from the 4th century could give us a way to deal with the grief and sorrow that we are experiencing in these stressful and challenging times. John Cassian, one of the desert fathers, shared the way he dealt with the grief and sorrow in his life and in his time. I have recently been introduced to a similar method of prayer and practice called the Welcoming Prayer, which actually flows from another prayer practice called Centering Prayer. In Welcoming Prayer, you focus or “sink in” to the sensation in your body that you are experiencing—it may be fear, anger, sadness, or grief—and become aware of just what effect this is having on your body. You then welcome the sensation, and rather than using energy to push it away, you welcome it and take that energy in a new direction to help you relax and settle down. The final step is to let go when the emotions subside and do so by saying, “I let go of this fear.”
It is important to remember that these methods are repeated over and over again during your lifetime. Doing the prayer and practice does not mean that you will never experience fear, anger, or sadness ever again. These are simply tools to help you deal with the emotions that erupt so often in times like these.
I would like to end this reflection on the challenging times in which we live today with some words of wisdom from the late Pope Francis: “Let us be renewed by God’s mercy…and let us become agents of this mercy, channels through which God can water the earth, protect all creation, and make justice and peace flourish. Amen.”
Sister Mary Thill is a Sylvania Franciscan Sister. She can be reached at mthill@sistersosf.org. ✲
