Strength and Consolation – Br. Jonathan Maury

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Br. Jonathan Maury

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4)

Jesus’ promise in this beatitude has sustained and given solace to the bereaved down the ages. God’s consoling presence in the face of death and the pain of loss is assured.

The Greek word used here, pentheó, is multivalent in expression: to mourn, to lament, to grieve whether for loss, pain, and suffering, or in repentance. Mourning is a cry of the heart that turns to God for help, healing, and hope. It encompasses both the personal and the communal in expressing profound sorrow, giving emotional, spiritual, and physical voice to human struggles.

Jesus’ own passionate expression of sorrow and grief is directed toward God in his public tears mourning the death of his friend and joining in lament with his friends and loved ones (John 11:28-35). Jesus fully embodies and expresses God’s own sorrow as he weeps over Jerusalem for the sin and suffering which destroy its peace (Luke 19:41-44). Jesus prays with a yearning for God’s presence during difficult times and in confidence that God is always present to our cries. On the cross, Jesus’ vulnerability and pain, expressed in lament, are transformed through his compassion into strength and consolation in death.

The promise of comfort for us who mourn is not only emotional but also a spiritual assurance that God walks alongside us in all circumstances as Jesus did. To mourn with God is to know God’s comfort.

The Greek paraklethesontai translates “will be comforted” implying that those who mourn, grieve, and lament will be strengthened (English com-fort, with strength) with God’s consolation to endure and see the transformation of their grief. The Greek verb also includes the sense “to call to one’s side.” Our honest outpouring of mourning and lament – acknowledging our vulnerabilities and need of God – itself becomes the means of our experiencing God’s ever-present compassion, support, and healing in our times of sorrow. We are strengthened in our weakness as God’s power is made known.

“Lord who throughout these forty days / for us didst fast and pray, / teach us with thee to mourn our sins, / and close by thee to stay.” —Claudia Frances Hernaman (1836-1898)

Mourn, grieve, and lament with Christ this Lent that comfort, strength, and hope may be brought near. Seek to be drawn into the loving healing of God, to be freed from self-centeredness, and to experience Christ’s presence now – that it may be imparted to others – participating in Jesus’ passion, death, and rising to new life.

For Reflection

When have you been invited to “mourn with God,” for yourself, others or the world? How have you been personally consoled and/or empowered, in turn, to com-fort others? In meditative prayer, ask God to help you recall in gratitude these sacred memories.

Jesus’ offering of vulnerability, pain and loss in his crucifixion was transformed into acceptance of death and assurance of God’s presence in absence. Join Jesus in his lament and its consolation through praying and reflecting on Psalm 22, recalling your own experience or that of others.

“Teach us with thee to mourn our sins.” Ask for the grace of contrition and faithful repentance as you pray Psalm 51 or the Ash Wednesday Litany of Penitence (The Book of Common Prayer, pp. 276-78).