Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”

Psalm 22:1 reads: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" and verse 11: "Do not leave me alone. . . . For there is no one to help." Any suffering or pain is more than sufficient for most of us. But the opening cry of this Psalm which Jesus quotes on the cross (Mark 15:34) and the other verse in the same Psalm add another note which only deepens suffering: feeling alone, abandoned, forgotten, with no one to help, to offer a friendly touch, to mumble a few consoling words, no one to simply be present, this seems the final blow.

Many of us with any experience of visiting the sick, the suffering or the dying realize that at times the most we can do is simply be with the person, words showing how inadequate they can be. A retired physician, sharing by his presence the pains of his ailing and elderly wife, writes: (Poem by J. Weston Smith, "As Much As I Love Her")

   As much as I love her,/   I can't feel her pain:/   I can offer only sympathy.

   As much as I love her,/   I can't heal her wounds:/   I can offer only sympathy.

   As much as I love her,/   I can't swallow for her:/   I can offer only sympathy.

   As much as I love her,/   I have to realize that/   even though we've reunited

   in life,/   We leave earthly life as/   we arrived,/   alone.

Again, simply being with her, with him, maybe stumbling through a spur-of-the-moment prayer is often the best we can do. Those few who stood by the Lord on Calvary were mute – but present. With signs of an end to the domination of Covid-19 we can hope once again to be present to family and friends formerly isolated from us.

Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”

Reply to Fr. Don at: DTalafous@csbsju.edu

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