A Catholic Man's Grief

When I think about Golden & Miller's When a Man Faces Grief I think this has given me a new framework for my own grappling with the loss of my dear Mother.

And it supplies part of what I think has been missing for me in my own struggle with grieving her loss.

I think Golden & Miller have helped me remember that Mom ... and I ... are Persons. Not Functionalities, not Reductionistic fragments of Society, not even Reductionistic Fragments of a
Family.

We are Persons. Endowed with Dignity by God through Our Lord Jesus Christ.

I am a Person. A Person for whom Grief is ... or can be ... a part of my very being, just as the Resurrected Christ has "taken up" His Sacred Wounds to become part of His Very Person, part of His Glorified Body.

Loss is not an Obstacle to Functionality, and Grief is not a simple Tool to Overcome Loss so that I can Function as a unit of bourgeois society.

Loss is part of what it means to be a Person. Grief is part of what it means to be a Person. A Person in Christ.

I am, of course, a fragment of our highly fragmented nuclear family; that ill-fated family of which Mom was Mother, I was Son, my sister was Sister, and my Dad was Father. But I don't need to lose sight of the reductionistic nature of that family as it developed. This is no "knock on Mom": I am still and hope I will always be, deeply, deeply grateful for her courage and her perseverance and her walking foward according to her lights in seeking to build a family as best she could. Oh what she ... and my father ... and my family ... have given me is, and will always be, truly priceless.

But the contrast that I first encountered in reading the Beatitudes in Church when I was about 16; and followed up when I read Franz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth at about 18 in Geneva ... that was, and is, still there. Fanon I would disagree with at almost all levels now; but the original critique of the bourgeoisie was, and remains, valid, IMHO. Today I choose to embrace a Catholic Christian Anthropology of Man that recognizes the inviolate Dignity of the Human Person goes so muchfurther than bourgeois economic functionalism as a framework for viewing humankind.

And my family? The Church is my family. And Christian Anthropology sees a connection in a family tree between yours truly and literally everyone. My natural father was Adam; my natural mother was Eve; my True Father is God; my True Mother on Earth is the Church.

I need to Grieve as the Person I am. Start where I am. That's what Golden & Miller suggest BTW.

And what Person am I? Among other things, I am a Roman Catholic man.

As a Roman Catholic, I need to connect up with the Catholic vision of the Person in order to help me grieve as a Catholic. I have an appointment this Tuesday with a Deacon who, I hope, might help me connect with more Catholic resources to help in my grieving process ... and help me honor more appropriately the Dignity of the Human Person who is my Mom.

And as a Man ... following Golden & Miller, I can acknowledge that working through things iwth more ratiocination ... as in this blog ... is part of the male approach to grieving, and that is something I can embrace freely and use not just functionally but as a way to be who I am as a Person whno Grieves the Loss of his Dear Mother.

As a man I can express myself perhaps more readily though writing ... as in this blog ... and through Rituals ... as with my visits to the Grave, as with the gift of using the Office at the Grave, as with buidling photo albums that memorialize my Mom as I've been working on.;

As a man, I can express my grief through tears freely ... and I can express my anger, my rage ... and follow Father Job in raging, even as I follow Christ in weeping at the Tomb of Lazarus.

As a man who was my Mom's Provider, and who can Provide for her no longer, and who has no control at all over her Loss; and no control at all over her present situation ... I can grieve and express my frustration that I can no longer Provide for her; while surrendering her to the Supreme Providence of God.

And Oh I can acknowledge the Pain ... the Pain of Loss, of Grief, of Sadness, of Anger at this violation of Human Integrity that is the Death of my Mother.

Oh God help me to dispute this like a man ... and to also feel this like a man.

A Catholic man. A man on his knees before You, O Lord; on my knees before Your Blessed Mother; on my knees before all the Host of Heaven.

I cast my Sword at Your Feet, O Lord.

Help me to embrace truly the Surrender that I enact through the Ritual of the Surrender of my Sword.

Lord Jesus Christ Have Mercy on Me.

I love you Jesus. I love you Mom.

Love always,

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Matthew