Triduum Grieving Ritual

In this time of COVID-19 and Remain in Place orders, we are all grieving. Yes, our grieving all looks different, and what we are each dealing with may be very different. Yet, there are some constants, and we are all grieving. In order to process what’s happening to us, as well as to move forward creatively with possibilities for healing our community and providing for those who are particularly vulnerable, we need to take time for our own personal grief, not downplaying it, but rather to acknowledge it and move towards healing.

While it is absolutely important to acknowledge our privileges in these scenarios to grow empathy and action for those who are less resourced, we also need to take time out of the comparison mindset to acknowledge the sadness we face. So for this time, please suspend all judgments and comparisons of what arises for you of grief.

With that, here’s a ritual process you can use to acknowledge your grief:

• Begin with prayer, invoking your awareness of God present with us, with you. Use a prayer to Mary, asking for the comforting presence of our mother who knows grief intimately.
• Put on some quiet music, without words.  
• Take at least five minutes to list out, in writing, what you have lost in this time. This could go from anything of a loss of a friend or family member, to loss of being able to visit loved ones who are sick in the hospital, to a loss of structure in your life, to loss of a job or hours at your job, to loss of childcare for your children, to loss of time for yourself in taking care of family, to loss of education, loss of the joy and community of sports, the arts, concerts, plays, a time to relax, loss of vacations, loss of control, grief you are holding for others, loss of feeling like you can plan, loss of celebrations such as birthdays, prom, graduations… the list can go on for a while. Take some time to name for YOU what you are grieving. What have you lost? 
• Looking at your list, pick one that you feel you can hold right now in greater depth. Take 5-10 minutes to journal or to share with your family or housemates in greater depth, opening up your feelings associated with that loss, what greater things are you also losing with that loss, what hopes, dreams, possibilities seem to also be lost?
• Returning to your entire list and all that you are grieving, enter into a space of meditative contemplation: 
• As you find a comfortable sitting position, take a few deep breaths to center yourself. 
• Imagine a cave in the core of your body, somewhere in your gut. 
• Imagine all the grief being held in different parts of your body starting to move towards that cave, at its own pace, to rest there. The cave will fill up with your grief, it will be its holding space. 
• Notice the lightness and space opening up in your extremities as your grief moves. Maybe wiggle your fingers and toes.
• When you feel the grief has all migrated into the cave, imagine the women bringing Jesus to rest also in the cave, alongside your grief. Know that your grief is connected the grief of God and the grief of the world. 
• The stone is rolled in front of the hole of the cave.
• Imagine God now coming into your enclosed cave, filling it with light, understanding, love, compassion, empathy; feeling your pain with you, holding it with you in this time of suffering. 
• Can you hold a conversation with God about this? God is big enough to hold it; our Trinitarian God knows about loss from a human perspective. God can help us in holding this grief. What does God have to say to you?
• With God there, we know that Easter will come, but we're not there yet. Sit with God in the cave in your core for as long as you need, observing what God is doing with the death which is present there.  
• When you are ready, come back out. Know that your cave is waiting there, God is with you, working there, transforming in your pain over the course of the Triduum, moving towards Resurrection. 

Bring this list and the deeper analysis of it to virtual service/mass with you to offer at the offertory. What are you asking God to help you hold?

At some point during the day on Easter, take a few moments to return to that cave, see what comes out when the stone is rolled away. As Jesus walks out of the grave, what pieces of you does he invite to also come forth? What of you is transformed and resurrected to continue to help heal the world, to be of service to others, to grow a more beautiful world in the midst of this darkness?