The Healing Journey

August 24, 2025

The following was taken from a homily by Fr. Peter Cipriani, pastor of St. Rose of Lima Church in Newtown.

The rock group REM sang “Everybody Hurts”:
When your day is long
And the night is yours alone
When you’re sure you’ve had enough
Of this life, well hang on
Don’t let yourself go
‘Cause everybody cries
Everybody hurts sometimes
Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts
If you’re on your own in this life
The days and nights are long
When you think you’ve had too much
Of this life hang on
Everybody hurts.

Which begs the question: Do I want to inflict more pain on others or more compassion? And perhaps our greatest challenge is the people who are most in need of our concern and compassion, those who inflict so much pain on the world, on others, who the devil has taken by the heart and who slowly chokes the life, love, goodness, and mercy out of these people.

We all have had the experience of arguing with a family member, perhaps having had an extended family falling out, with feelings severely hurt. But the reality remains, they are family, who have every right, every need of our love, patience, prayers, mercy, and compassion. With us, they too are children of Mary, who with Jesus she loves above all else.

There is a tendency to think that when we endure sorrow in this world, it is a sign that God has abandoned us, and yet it is Christ’s sufferings and sorrows that save us. Therefore, we must recognize the power of sorrow.

It’s why people who go through traumatic events can sometimes grow from their pain and use it to promote good, like the mother who lost her child to a drunk driver and formed the nonprofit Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting suffering, maturing through it, and finding the most meaning in it through our union with Christ and Mary.

All roads lead to Calvary and death, so why not choose to be a cross-carrying hero, and/or a standing at the Foot of the Cross hero?

Accepting sadness is part of all lives. Learning that the deeper into the sadness we are able to go, the higher and lighter our joys will be is an important process. But, on the other side of that work is more joy. And not just any joy but all sadness and suffering eventually ended, joy without end.

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