[A Reflection Inspired by St. Bonaventure]
Grief is not a detour from faith. Sometimes it becomes the very road by which we are drawn more deeply into God.
When someone we love dies, life can suddenly seem unfamiliar. The landmarks are still there – the house, the church, the familiar chair, the morning cup of coffee – but the landscape has changed. It is like sailing waters we have known for years and discovering that a storm has moved the buoys. We know we are somewhere familiar, yet we are unsure of our direction.
More than 700 years ago, St. Bonaventure described the spiritual life as a journey to God. In his “Journey of the Mind to God” (Itinerarium mentis in Deum), he pictured the human soul traveling toward God through creation, through the depths of the human heart, and finally into a loving union with God.
Bonaventure was not writing specifically about bereavement. Yet his vision offers a beautiful way of understanding grief. Grief also takes us on a journey – often one we never wanted to make.
There is no timetable for this journey. There is no checklist telling us when we should stop crying, questioning, remembering, or hurting. We may move forward one day and backward the next. The important question is not, “When will I get over this?” Perhaps the better question is, “Where is Christ meeting me in this?”
Shock and Disorientation: When the Road Disappears
The first experience of grief is often shock, as in “This cannot be happening.”
Even when death has been expected, its finality can leave us numb. We may go through the motions of funeral arrangements, phone calls, visitors, meals, and paperwork while feeling strangely detached from everything happening around us. Prayer may become difficult. Words disappear.
Bonaventure reminds us that the journey toward God does not begin because we have everything figured out. It begins because God is already present. In the early darkness of grief, Christ may meet us simply as our Silent Companion.
Think of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Their hopes had collapsed with the death of Jesus. They were walking away from Jerusalem carrying disappointment, confusion, and grief. Then Jesus “drew near and walked with them but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him” (Luke 24:16). What a powerful image for grief. Christ was beside them before they knew He was there.
The grieving person may experience the same thing. We may say, “Where is God?” while God is quietly walking beside us. At this stage, faith may consist simply in showing up – showing up for Mass, sitting silently in church, or holding a rosary without praying it. Even just whispering, “Jesus” is sometimes enough.
A seed beneath winter soil does not look alive, but something is happening beneath the surface. Grace can work in us even when we cannot feel it.
Questioning and “Why?” – When Faith Becomes Honest
After the numbness begins to lift, questions often arrive. Why did this happen? Why did God allow it? Could I have done something differently? Did my loved one suffer? Why didn’t I say what I should have said?
Grief can become a courtroom in which we repeatedly put ourselves, other people, and sometimes God on trial. But questions are not necessarily the opposite of faith.
Scripture is filled with people who questioned God. The Psalms contain cries of sorrow, anger, confusion, and abandonment. Jesus Himself prayed from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). Christ shows us that lament can be prayer.
God does not require us to disguise our wounds before approaching Him. He would rather receive an honest cry than a carefully rehearsed prayer that hides what is really happening within us. Here Christ meets the grieving person as Listener. Imagine a child coming to a loving father crying, angry and confused. The father does not begin by correcting the child’s grammar. He opens his arms. So does God.
Our questions may deepen our relationship with Him because they force us to move from a borrowed faith to a personal faith. We discover that faith does not always mean having answers. Sometimes faith means continuing the conversation.
Shared Suffering: Carrying the Cross with Christ
Eventually grief may change. The pain remains, but it is often quieter. Tears still come, sometimes unexpectedly, but they may no longer feel like a tidal wave capable of sweeping everything away.
Something else may even begin to happen. We begin to recognize Christ within our suffering. The prophet Isaiah describes the suffering servant as “a man of suffering, knowing pain” (Isaiah 53:3).
Christianity makes an extraordinary claim: God did not remain safely outside human suffering; He entered it. Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:35). He experienced betrayal, loneliness, physical pain, sorrow, and death. Therefore, when we grieve, we are not praying to a God who merely observes suffering from heaven. We are praying to the Man of Sorrows. The Cross becomes the meeting place.
Imagine two people carrying opposite ends of a heavy beam. The burden is still heavy, but neither carries it alone. This is one of the deepest discoveries of Christian grief. Christ may not immediately remove the cross, but He carries it with us. Our prayer gradually changes from: “Lord, take this away,” to: “Lord, stay with me while I carry it.” That is a profound movement of the soul.
Quiet Trust and Enduring Love: Not Closure, but Communion
Eventually there may come moments of peace. These moments are not forgetfulness, not an ending, and not even what people sometimes call “closure.” Christian grief points toward communion. The person we loved mattered. The relationship mattered. Death does not make love meaningless. Grief remains, but it changes shape.
At first grief may be like a large stone on our chest. We can hardly breathe beneath its weight. Over time, the stone does not disappear, but somehow we become strong enough to manage its weight.
Memories that once brought only tears may eventually bring gratitude. We can smile and ache at the same time. This is where Christ meets us as the Risen yet Wounded Lord. After the Resurrection, Jesus still bore His wounds. He told Thomas: “Put your finger here and see my hands” (John 20:27).
The Resurrection did not erase Good Friday, it transformed it. That may be one of Christianity’s most beautiful lessons about grief. Healing does not mean pretending the wound never existed. The scar remains because love existed. We do not honor someone by forgetting them. We honor them by allowing the love we received from them to become part of the person we are becoming. Love does not end. Love changes shape.
The Journey Continues
Bonaventure understood the spiritual journey as movement toward deeper union with God. Grief can become part of that journey. This is not because death is good, nor because suffering should be romanticized. It is because God can enter even the darkest places of human life and bring grace from them.
There will still be difficult days – an anniversary, a birthday, a familiar song, an empty chair at Christmas or a photograph unexpectedly discovered in a drawer. Suddenly we may find ourselves grieving again. That does not mean we have failed.
Grief is more like the tide than a staircase. It advances and retreats. Some waves barely touch our feet; others rise unexpectedly around us. But beneath the changing waves there can gradually develop something deeper and steadier: trust.
Christ does not stand on the shore shouting instructions. He enters the water with us. And when we become weary, He gives one of the gentlest invitations in all of Scripture: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
Notice what Jesus does not say. He does not say, “Come when you understand.” He does not say, “Come when you stop crying.” And He does not say, “Come when your faith is strong again.” He simply says: Come.
Perhaps that single word captures Bonaventure’s journey into God. Come through the shock. Come with your questions. Come carrying your sorrow. Come with your memories. Come with whatever faith you have left. For Christ does not rush the brokenhearted. He walks with them.
And sometimes, only after traveling a long distance through the valley of grief, we look back and discover something remarkable: The road on which we thought we had lost God was the very road upon which He had been carrying us home.
