Читать книгу Walk With Me, Jesus: A Widow's Journey - Ronda Chervin Ph.D. - Страница 14

"On my bed at night I sought him whom my heart loves –

I sought him but I did not find him...”

Song of Songs 3:1

For the Christian couple, the separation death brings is only temporary... and yet the pain runs sharp and undeniably penetrating. When her husband Ludwig (Louis) died, Saint Elizabeth of Hungary wept bitterly for days. Saint Jane de Chantal was prostrate with grief for four months over the accidental death of her husband. She had great difficulty forgiving the hunter, who mistook Jane's husband for an animal he was hunting in the forest, and shot him.

A few months after her husband's death, Saint Elizabeth Seton wrote the following to a friend: "I have been to my dear husband's grave and wept plentifully over it with the unrestrained affection which the last sufferings of his life, added to remembrance of former years, had made almost more than precious ..."

She writes about visiting a museum and loving the masterpieces of art, and feeling "alone but half enjoyed" herself, since she missed so much the joy her husband would have had in pointing things out to her. After one excursion she wrote to this same friend: "My poor heart was in the clouds, roving after my William's soul and repeating, 'My God you are my God, and so I am now alone in the world with you and my little ones, but you are my Father and doubly theirs.'"

FOR PONDERING

"My poor heart was in the clouds roving ..." observed St. Elizabeth Seton. Where has your heart been roving lately?

PRAYER OF THE DAY

You are my God ... and I feel so alone as I wander these empty halls late at night. Please walk with me, Jesus. Holy Mary, Exalted Widow, stay beside me through the night.