March 19, 2023
“Our grief is as individual as our lives.”
– Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
Fr. Richard Murphy of St. Michael the Archangel Parish has seen the face of grief… it’s every man, it’s every woman, and it’s every child. Grief does not discriminate. It is all around us, and many times we’re not even aware someone is suffering.
Father is a trained facilitator in the New Day Bereavement Program offered by Catholic Cemeteries for the Diocese of Bridgeport.
“We have seen young people and old people in deep grief,” he said. “We’ve seen many, many parents who have lost children. There are so many people struggling to figure out how to go forward with incredible loss, and this offers a way to see where God is in their grief journey.”
“Death is so tragic and sometimes it can even stop us from living,” he says. “A lot of people feel guilty and angry and think their lives will never be the same again.”
The range of emotions people who are grieving feel can be debilitating.
“Many are guilty for moving on, and some even think, ‘If I am happy again, I don’t love the person I lost,’” he said. “Some are angry, and their anger can be directed at people they believe are responsible — or even the deceased for not taking care of themselves with health issues. Oftentimes, there is anger at God for not intervening as they thought he should have. And then, they are often guilty about feeling the anger, heaped on top of their horrible feeling of grief.” Usually, the anger conceals an overwhelming, unexpressed sadness.
However, the bereavement program helps us realize life doesn’t end in death. It continues.
“Jesus wants us to live a full, abundant life in this world and in the next, so bereavement is the work of the Gospel,” Father says. “Jesus came to heal and save people to get them through grief — not to avoid it — so this is part of what Jesus himself came to do.”
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Others are suffering just as you are. You are not alone.