Be Still My Soul

Death comes and leaves blank spaces in our lives. Loved friends, mentors, and family leave and we “must endure their going hence.”

How can we stand this? My mom reminded me today of an old hymn. She pointed especially to the third verse. This helped me as I bear “their going hence” appropriately: grieving, but not as those without hope, recollecting what is good, beautiful, and true.

Be still my soul the Lord is on thy side
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain
Leave to thy God to order and provide
In every change He faithful will remain

Be still my soul thy best, thy heavenly friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end

This is not an argument or even the experience, but a reminder of what we knew by reason and experience before grief came to silence reason and make us forget our experiences. There is meaning and purpose given to all pain and suffering. This does not mean that the broken results of a sinful world are good, true, and beautiful.

No.

God forbid.

Instead, God stands in solidarity with us in the broken world and over eternity bringing a joyful end. He is not merely the God of the philosophers, God of our friends, but our Friend is the God of the philosophers and so our Friend can make all end in healing, hope, and wholeness.

Meanwhile, while the slow and sure work of reconciliation of all things to the joyful end is taking place there is grief and pain. He stands with us faithful.

Be still my soul when dearest friends depart
And all is darkened in the vale of tears
Then shalt thou better know His love His heart
Who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears

Jesus stood before the tomb of His friend and wept. He knows grief, because at the end of his earthly life Jesus took on all the griefs of the world and they broke His great heart. When our divine Friend comes, he does not come a stranger to our pain, Jesus comes to soothe the fear that our pain, our loss of our dear friends, is meaningless. Jesus, God-man, will not let this happen. Our fears can be cast out by his perfect love, even if our sorrow remains for now.

Be still my soul the waves and winds shall know
His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below

The hymn writer, Katherine von Schlegel*, gives us more than hope, she rests her hope in the knowledge that omnipotence, the power that rules the waves and winds, can straighten all crooked ways, make smooth all rough ways, make the storm end in balm.

Finally she tells us:

Be still my soul the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord
When disappointment grief and fear are gone
Sorrow forgot love’s purest joys restored

Nothing good is lost. No soul transformed by God is lost. All ends in love: forever with the Lord. Our disappointment, at least in my case, so often caused by my sins, our grief, and fear are gone! All love’s labor is not lost. All is restored as the time of tragedy ends in a divine comedy: the wedding of the loving Bridegroom to us purified bride: all of us His Church.

So today we can weep, but not as those without hope. We can say to our souls about all our dearly departed: