Welcome to Solace: Soul Plus Grief . We're brought to you by Catholic Cemeteries in San Jose , California . My name is Candy Lucas . The death of a loved one is a huge life transition and we are learning it creates and affects so many other losses in our lives .
So we at Catholic Cemeteries want to offer you this place to grieve and find where God's moving in your life as you grieve .
Each week we take a new scripture or reflection and seek to find a quiet place in our hearts , together to contemplate our losses , honor our loved ones , remember God's place in our hearts and seek to make a continuing connection with those we've lost .
We want to find that space where God is moving with us in our grief , that space where mourning can be transformed to comfort , a place where our hearts might be reopened and begin to mend , a place where tears can flow .
For it is when we open our hearts that we realize that we've made a new space for more love and more compassion and for more humanity and more space for God in our lives . This is a space that we hope solace will begin to fill for you . Please join us if you are suffering or just want to spend more time having God move with you in your grief .
You are always welcome here in our circle of healing love and support . I look back and realized how many times I had recommended breathing and I know I've talked a lot about it in these podcasts breathing and how we control not even control , but be one with our breath , Start noticing it . Breathe with it . Pay attention to it . Breathe with it .
Pay attention to it . In a way , it's like being still enough to notice the Holy Spirit moving within us , being still enough to feel that Spirit within us and around us . And if we're sharing time with others between and amongst us .
And I know I have said before that breathing was the most primitive and first type of prayer because it acknowledged our oneness with the vibrations of the earth , with the movement of the air , the movement of the oceans and the seas , the movement of the sun across the sky and the moon and the stars , the idea that nothing on earth is perpetually still .
When I was a child , when I was a little girl in Iowa , my elders would always speak about hearing the corn grow , Saying it was growing so fast that you could hear it in the middle of the night . So oftentimes I would go out near a cornfield , late in the evening and on a very still night , you could actually hear it grow .
It makes this tiny , tiny explosion sound as if it's something breaking forth , breaking out , emerging , filling a new space . In fact , that's what growth is . So I was thinking about this breathing aspect and how I had come to fall back on that for people who were having special anxiety or an especially difficult patch of grieving or struggle of any kind .
I realized how I always went back to breath . We don't need to control it . All we need to do is sit quietly and notice it . I often used to breathe with my dying patients , measure my breath with theirs , keep that time as if I were reaching out and being able to hold them with that breath .
In that breath and I think of the many grievers I've spoken with over the years to whom the first thing I have said is just breathe , Just breathe . It's a fact that when you pay attention to your breath , your heart slows down , your anxiety does abate and you feel like you are more in tune with what's going on around you .
I recently heard a Jesuit priest , Father Manley from JST in Berkeley , talk about the Holy Spirit and how the early church described the Holy Spirit as breath , as wind , using both the Hebrew and the Greek words for breath , so we can calm as we grieve and know that this is the Holy Spirit , accompanying us , is with us , is noticing us , breathe in and breathe
out . And when we are with others , the spirit moves between us as we all breathe in and breathe out , and you'll notice , if you've ever been in a group meditation , that there is something powerful when the group is breathing together , Some kind of vibration in the room .
Maybe we're only tuning into our own humanness , but maybe , just maybe , the Holy Spirit is giving us space to hold ourselves , our wounded selves , in a sacred embrace for a sacred , in a sacred embrace for a sacred time , in a sacred moment . She acknowledges our losses , knows how our hearts are broken and just wants to be with us as we heal .
She wants to demonstrate the road to healing , the direction to healing . She wants to be with us on the road as we seek the presence of Jesus in our grief . She clears the air and clears the way and brings him straight to our side . That concludes another episode . Please support us by subscribing on Spotify , Amazon Music , Apple Podcasts or Google .
We always welcome your comments and feedback . Remember , spiritual direction is always available through Catholic Cemeteries . I'm Candee Lucas , chaplain , aftercare coordinator and spiritual director at Catholic Cemeteries . You can reach us through the email or telephone number in the show notes . Be gentle with yourselves . Travel safely with God . Vaya con Dios .