The Healing Journey

February 14, 2025

The following reflection was written by Carolyn Killian, Editor of The Healing Journey and Director of Bereavement of Catholic Cemeteries of the Diocese of Bridgeport.

Artwork by Rebecah Santiago

Not: “Your memory is safe in my heart.”

But rather, “You are safe in my heart.”

“Wow,” I thought. “That’s present tense.”

My mind immediately jumped to the retreats our bereavement ministry offers with The Emmaus Ministry for Grieving Parents, a Catholic ministry outside Boston, which runs one-day spiritual retreats for parents who have suffered the unthinkable — the loss of a child. The focus of the retreat is Franciscan teaching that their children are now spiritual beings and that their souls are alive and exist with God. And offers devastated parents the promise that they will one day see, and hold, their precious children again.

“Alive with God?”

That phrase brought me back to my Catholic school days, when we were taught exactly this: that we will be reunited with our loved ones in Heaven and that Christ’s death on the cross, and His Resurrection, made this possible for us. It was a defining moment for me as an adult, when I squarely looked at this teaching and asked myself if I really believe that my parents, my brother, all my aunts and uncles and friends who have died are alive in a spirit dimension.

I realized I do believe this.

I know that belief does not take away the fear, pain, sadness, loneliness, anger or regret that so many of us feel when we are grieving. But it can add a life-changing dimension to how we live with our intense emotions.

On this Valentine’s Day, I wanted to reach out to everyone who woke up with overwhelming sadness, facing another holiday without a precious loved one.

I hope you will consider God’s promise that your loved ones are alive in spirit… and that you can carry them “safe in your heart.”

Present tense.

Hear Celine Dion sing “My Heart Will Go On” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCDcnOWftx0

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