November 15.  On his travels Bryan had come across a good number of programmes that cared for families experiencing loss.  There was Grief Share, Divorce Care, Compassionate Friends and a number of other support groups and counsellors.  Sometimes there were social workers but quite often the people involved had experienced the situation of loss themselves.  He kept asking himself, “Does helping someone in need necessarily make one feel good, or do we do good because we feel guilty or out of a sense of obligation or a calling from our religious background? Does an inner attitude of care and of the common good lead to the joy of helping?” He finally concluded that peer counselling is a wonderful gift that could be promoted far more widely. 

Reflect, share, act. Scripture:  There was a judge who neither feared God nor regarded man. And there was a widow who kept coming to him saying, “vindicate me against my adversary”. Luke 18:1-8. Pope Francis:   To turn our backs on a grieving family would show a lack of mercy, a loss of a pastoral opportunity and close the door to other efforts at evangelisation.  AL 253.  Jubilee. For our sake, Jesus experienced the drama of death. The Father’s love raised him in the power of the Spirit, and made of his humanity the first fruits of our eternal salvation. Christian hope consists precisely in this: that in facing death, which appears to be the end of everything, we have the certainty that, thanks to the grace of Christ imparted to us in Baptism, “life is changed, not ended”, [15] forever.  SNC14     Act and Pray for compassionate concern for those suffering loss in their families.