MARFAM WEEKLY E-NEWSLETTER 5 NOVEMBER 2025

The focus on loss connects with Pope Leo’s prayer intention for the month “to pray that those who are struggling with suicidal thoughts will find the support, care and love they need in their community, and be open to the beauty of life.”

LOSS – A STORY.

I found LOSS – A STORY in my files from some years ago and I think it covers the topic quite well as something to think and share about, hoping that suicidal thoughts can be avoided in this way.

During the parish mission Fr Jim, as usual, preached one of his most meaningful sermons on the subject of family life, including loss.  He started off by saying, “We often think about and talk about loss on a grand scale.  When someone dies it is very traumatic and those in the family grieve and mourn and go through a variety of rituals to help them cope. But maybe it would help us too if we looked into the subject of loss differently, even more generally, remembering that we experience losses all the time.   Why would that help?   What is the purpose of loss?  I believe it is to help us grow in compassion and wisdom and concern for one another,  and maybe also to invite us to look at how we feel about our possessions.   Does God will us to suffer then?   Well let’s consider that.

As he shared some of his own story before and during his priestly life he had the congregation at times smiling, nodding and at times even in tears.  He ended up saying, “You go homee and think about all the little and big losses in your lives and please talk about them.   At the same time on the subject of endings, are they losses or maybe even gains?  Talk about losses especially as couples, also in your families and in your prayer groups.  Share the funny side but also the sad and traumatic side.  It is vital that we link this too with the compassion of Jesus, that we make his compassion felt and feel it ourselves as we are healed through listening and being listened to.  This is the special way of dialogue that the Church is promoting so strongly today.”

The Young Adult Group at their weekly meeting had a great discussion.  Pete brought out some of his thinking on the losses around marriage.  “I know you lose your freedom and independence, sometimes your own friends and for some girls, especially, may their close relationship with their mom.   But on a weekend retreat, that I went on, I was touched by the idea that marriage is really about self-giving and that naturally does involve loss. It is actually saying that you choose to lose. Howzat for a good rhyme?”  

The Williams’ had been deeply touched at the mission.   For Joe and Clare their five years of marriage had been hard.   They had sought counselling once but didn’t seem to get right to the root of the problem.  Now there was a pensive silence as they drove home.  Clearly they were each thinking things through.  

When they got home he spoke first, ”You know I lost a lot for you.  I gave up my job in PE so I could come here and settle near your family.   So I lost my friends and my family too.  My friends were important to me.  We didn’t just jol together but played sport too and I miss that.  It’s never been the same here.”

She listened carefully, as they had been taught to do in their counselling, trying not to react to the feeling of being criticized.  After a few moments she took a deep breath and began her story.   “I think my loss goes back a lot further.  When I was 12 my family was living together with my grandmother and my uncle in her house.   I was the only girl so I had a little place of my own.   I used to see my uncle looking at me in a funny way.   One night he came into my room and I woke up to find him in my bed.  It wasn’t only once Joe.  He raped me many times after that and I couldn’t say anything to my mother because I was scared we would have to move out of the house and had nowhere else to go.   I started feeling miserable and dirty and wished I could build a little cocoon around myself so I couldn’t feel anything any more.  Joe, is that where I lost myself,   my virginity yes, but also my self-respect and my ability to really love?   Is that where our problem lies?”

Gently full of remorse he folded his arms around her. “Oh my baby, I love you, you know that.  Do you think I could help you find the real you, tucked away inside that cold cocoon?”

Parish families shared at home and in the wider parish family group.   The Masondos talked about the loss of culture and tradition.  He was a Mosotho and she a Zulu, but brought up in the city.   They went to their families for weddings and funerals and kept certain traditions themselves but their own children knew less and less and cared less and less about their roots.  “Do you remember how careful we were about naming them and they don’t see the value of that at all. Sad what has been lost, isn’t it?”

Some of the young families met in a group, with all their children quite a bunch of them.  Three couples, one mom and altogether ten children.   In the group and amongst themselves, they shared how they felt when different family members had died.  Bruno, the pet Alsatian, was also one of the family, of course, but there was some joking about Flipper the goldfish.   The children all shared as they had all experienced the loss of grandparents, but they allowed Nicolette a long time to talk about her father’s illness and death.  Even her mom realized she hadn’t been aware how deeply this had affected her young daughter. All together they talked and sang and drew pictures and prayed.   At the end of the afternoon they went home strangely happy but sad too.  That is what loss does.

Noel and Erica considered themselves older, but not really old, yet.  Their many years together had included plenty of losses, big and small, and her gradual loss of health.  The most recent was a strange one, his retirement.  They found they had both lost something.  He had lost a sense of purpose, of status and a reason for getting up in the morning and achieving certain objectives during the day.   He sometimes found his life rather aimless, but had little desire to get involved in voluntary work.   She had a lost a sense of freedom to come and go as she pleased, even her own little charity projects made her feel guilty.   Before he retired she’d had a nice little routine for her days.

In one faith sharing group there was a widowed man and a divorcee.  It wasn’t really as if they were competing in saying, “my loss was greater than yours,” although it seemed liked that sometimes. Over time the subject had come up and they had shared the loneliness, the alienation, the anger and the pain of their loss.  “Is there anything for me to live for after this experience?”  A cry from the heart.   The compassionate listening by the group had no doubt helped them in their healing process but clearly there was still a long way to go. 

Faith and Mike were never ones to keep quiet.  “I lose my memory all the time. Sometimes I think I’ve lost my mind.  Now where are my glasses again?”  “You think you’ve got a problem, I keep losing my teeth!”  

As Fr Jim visited homes he heard the stories and knew there was much more unexpressed.  However, he felt a deep peace in his own heart.   He knew that his mission preaching ministry was a gift to families and himself too.   As they gathered for a final get-together, he said, “I want to let you into a little secret.   I lost my car keys during the week, and prayed hard to St Anthony and he found them for me, like he usually does. Is that superstition?”   I don’t know but maybe we should put him on to the missing children’s bureau, don’t you think?  

During this Jubilee Year of Hope it is my earnest hope that during this time you have all found something that you might have thought you had lost. Hopefully it is family closeness, a firm anchor in our lives. Pope Francis gave families a lovely message of hope, ‘The image of the anchor is eloquent; it helps us to recognize the stability and security that is ours amid the troubled waters of this life, provided we entrust ourselves to the Lord Jesus. The storms that buffet us will never prevail, for we are firmly anchored in the hope born of grace, which enables us to live in Christ and to overcome sin, fear and death. This hope, which transcends life’s fleeting pleasures and the achievement of our immediate goals, makes us rise above our trials and difficulties, and inspires us to keep pressing forward, never losing sight of the grandeur of the heavenly goal to which we have been called.   SNC25.     

REFLECTION, SHARING AND DISCUSSION.   Clearly loss happens in very many ways.   These short anecdotes are just some of the ways. Reflect on some of the losses in your life from your early days up to the most recent loss.  How have you been able to cope with these?  Was it different at different times?   What has been the greatest and strongest support for you?    What role has God and your faith played in your life stories of loss? 

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY 5 NOVEMBER

November 5. “What on earth could Jesus mean by saying we have to hate everything and everyone and take up one’s own cross to follow him?”  Jasmine had often pondered over this statement. “Can he really mean hate, or is he using exaggerated language to make his point?” When her husband left her for another woman she was devastated. There were times when she felt as if she hated him and even the whole world.  Gradually as she came to see Jesus’ statement differently she realised that for her not having that earthly attachment could even open up other doors for her spiritually and be a way forward.  

Reflect, share, act. Scripture: If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.  Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”  Luke14:25-33. Pope Francis. The joy of the gospel is such that it cannot be taken away from us by anyone or anything. The evils of our world, and those of the Church must not be excuses for diminishing our commitment and our fervour. EG 84. Jubilee.  For everyone, may the Jubilee be a moment of genuine, personal encounter with the Lord Jesus, the “door” (cf. Jn 10:7.9) of our salvation, whom the Church is charged to proclaim always, everywhere and to all as “our hope” (1 Tim 1:1). Everyone knows what it is to hope. In the heart of each person, hope dwells as the desire and expectation of good things to come, despite our not knowing what the future may bring. SNC1.   Act and Pray for compassionate concern for those suffering loss in their families.