LA PORTE OUVERTE
SUR LE JARDIN
Grief
Cardinal Basil Hume, OSB
Grief cannot be shared,
for it is mine alone.
Grief is a dying within me,
a great emptiness,
a frigthening 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 to much.
Silence is the best response to another's grief.
Not the silence that is a pause in a 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 too, so soften the pain of grief,
and begin to dispel sadness.
It is the love of God, warm and true,
which will touch the grieving heart and heal it.
He looks at the grieving person and has pity,
for grief is a great pain.
He came among us to learn about grief
and much else too, this Man of Sorrows.
He knows. He understands.
Grief will yield to peace - in time.
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