Welcome to Solace: Soul + Grief . We're brought to you by Catholic Cemeteries in San Jose , California . My name is Candee 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 . Today's reflection is from the 14th century Persian poet Hafiz . It is called "I have Come Into this World to See this .
I have come into this world to see this the sword dropped from the man's hands , even at the height of their arc of anger , because we have finally realized there is just one flesh to wound , and it is his God's , our beloved's . I have come into the world to see this .
All creature hold hands as we pass through this miraculous existence we share , on the way to even a greater being of soul , a being of just ecstatic light , forever entwined and at play with him . I have come into the world to hear this . Every song the earth has sung since it was conceived in the divine's womb and began spinning from his wish .
Every song by wind and fin and hoof . Every song by hill and field and tree and woman and child . Every song of stream and rock . Every song of stream and rock . Every song of tool and lyre and flute .
Every song of gold and emerald and fire , every song the heart should cry with magnificent dignity to know itself as God , for all other knowledge will leave us again in want and aching . Only imbibing the glorious sun will complete us . I have come into the world to experience this . Men so true to love , they would rather die before speaking an unkind word .
Men so true their lives are his covenant , the promise of hope . I have come into this world to see this the sword drop from men's hands , even at the height of their arc of rage , because we have finally realized there is just one flesh we can wound .
There are times , there are moments when God is so near to us on our journeys of grief that we can feel his tears for us . We can understand how his heart aches for us , how dearly and closely he wants to support us and follow us in our pain and grief , how he understands and gives meaning , purpose , weight to our sorrows .
Many poets throughout the ages , found in both the scriptures and the Talmud , in the Tanakh , in the Quran , talk about God's fearsomeness , awesomeness , his power and his glory .
But in our grief we discover a new God , a more intimate God , one who walks closer with us , one who is nearer to us , if we will allow him to be so , if we open our hearts to him at the same time as our hearts are broken by grief , his healing love begins to mend us , begins to mend our souls , begins to show us how to honor those we have lost with
their best memories , their best means , their best love , their best hope , their best dreams , the best in their lives , how they enriched and enhanced our lives as they lived and continue to do so even though they are gone from us . So we take a mindful thought from Hafiz' words .
Because we know , death usually occurs in the midst of life , in the midst of our living , in the midst of our daily lives . It almost always comes unbidden , yet it comes , surely , with surprise and with sorrow and with lament . We remember our loved ones , we begin to build that memory road that will connect us forever .
We begin to burnish the love we shared as the jewel it will become . But we are asked mostly to remember the love of God , his sorrow for us , his pain for us , his tears for us . That love and healing is always available to us if we simply turn to Him and ask .