Pain is in the Parentheses

The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” // Luke 2:33-35 (NAB)

Words Like Weeds

We all experience sorrow, loss, and pain in our lives. The greater the loss, the greater the pain. Often when trying to describe my own grief, or when listening to the grief of others, two sentiments are repeated over and over again.

The first: I do not have the words I need to respond to this.

When confronted by grief, we are speechless; all words seem frail and pointless. How could you possibly assign words to such a strong emotion? Not only that, but we are also stripped to poverty when encountering another’s grief. How do we say that we share in their sorrow? How do we express the depth of our mourning for their mourning? Phrases such as “I am sorry for your loss” and “my condolences” seem cheap and fake.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, famous poet of grief, writes:

“I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within . . .”

He holds grief akin to a soul, which words will not only reveal and but also cheapen. Yet again and again we try, for words and tears are our only tools. Obituaries, eulogies, elegies, all of these have tried to express grief. Many of the Psalms in the Bible are devoted to spelling out grief. In the book of Job, the holy man raises a lament, looking for the words to purge the emotion from his chest.

Later on, in that same section from In Memoriam, Tennyson continues:

“. . . In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold:
But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more.”

Human beings wrap words around them “like weeds” to both shield them from the pain and to express it. However, in the end, words always fall short of the reality of grief.

Some Heart Did Break

The second sentiment that accompanies loss is the wonder that the world can continue to go on as though nothing has happened.

The loss of a relative or friend, the death of an unborn baby, the shattering of hopes and dreams, all of these happen to thousands, perhaps millions, of people every day. They happen silently, as T.S. Eliot writes, “This is the way the world ends / not with a bang but a whimper.”

The sun still shines, people drive through the Dunkin’ Donuts drive thru, and the world goes on much as it had before, while you are left with a hole. Tennyson, again, puts this into words:

“That loss is common would not make
My own less bitter, rather more:
Too common! Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break.”

Hearts are breaking every day and it feels as though time should stop. It feels as though the world should freeze and acknowledge the great tragedy we have experienced. And yet life goes on. Even phrases like “have a good day” become salt in the wound of our suffering. The final part of grief is finding a way to move on, even when you have left a piece of you behind.

You Yourself . . .

God Himself became man, and so He knows human grief. More than that, his mother, fully human though immaculately conceived, knows human grief. In the Gospel of Luke, this grief is foretold to the Blessed Mother by Simeon, the wise man at the Temple.

“Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:34-35).

In the New American Bible translation, the sword predicted is placed in parentheses—grammatical curves used to separate a brief explanation or an afterthought added to an already complete sentence.

This grammatical choice of the biblical translators reveals something deeply human about the grief of the Virgin Mary.

Like our own experience with grief, there are no words used to express Mary’s grief at the Passion and Death of her Son. Mary sheds no tears in the Bible. She does not wail or lament. The beautiful Pieta image depicted by Michelangelo and entrenched in the Stations of the Cross is found nowhere in Scripture. Her grief does not need words; any words would be weeds, failing to encompass the whole. We know Mary suffered and the only words about her suffering are placed in Scripture seemingly as an afterthought.

Not only that, but these parentheses reflect our experience of our grief as being passed over. We wish the world would stop spinning. We want a pause for sorrowing. For Mary, the sentence did not even stop—not even a pause of a period for her grief. This does not mean that her grief was not real or that she did not feel the sword which pierced her. Rather, our Mother suffered deeply and in silence, experiencing grief as all of us do, without the right words and without the pausing of time.

So, my dear sisters in Christ, if you happen to be experiencing grief or loss right now, please know that not only are you heard, but that the greatest woman to ever live is suffering with you, for she knows above all how to suffer grief in parentheses.

Rosie Hall is a published writer, podcast producer, and lover of well-steeped tea. Her articles have appeared in CatholicVote's LOOP, Caeli Catholic, and the online lifestyle magazine Refine. She has also appeared as a guest on the LOOPcast. After spending several years discerning a religious vocation, Rosie went to school for literature at Ave Maria University where she served as the managing editor for Magnify, the school's creative journal. Soon she will be attending Oxford University to study for her master’s in literature.