Step 4:
Accompanying the Dead
Descent invites both----
Solitude and Solidarity
We see in the descent of Christ that solitude and solidarity are not contradictory, but rather co-constitutive. Solidarity is born of authentic solitude, and in turn responds to it; solitude, meanwhile, prepares our hearts to receive others.
01
Solitude
Being one with our experiences of longing - our deepest loneliness, even if not our actual aloneness. Solitude invovles sitting with the reality of our suffering self, as Jesus did.
02
Solidarity
Sharing and sharing in our solitude with others, including with God. Solidarity does not dismiss or denounce suffering, but allows us to recognize and receive that of others, as Jesus did.
We see the role of solitude in descent.
We easily identify how descent is a journey of the self.
At the same time, descent cannot end in the isolated self; as we die to self, we must continue looking outward to witness the beginnings of new life, which cannot for us come by our own power.
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Christ models for us what it is to be beyond Himself in His care for the dead - in His presence to them amidst the experience of descent.
Solidarity may seem trickier - after all, how can we share solitude?
In a certain sense, sharing solitude is the same as sharing suffering. Jesus is the prime example of this: in His death, He takes on all suffering, while in His descent He meets the dead in the darkness of their sorrow.
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Being with another in this way beholds their beauty and brokenness, which then allows them to be held in the light of love. We can say, then, that through solidarity what once was solitude finds transformation - suffering becomes something other than what it has been.
When suffering "become[s] a shared suffering . . . in which another person is present, this suffering is penetrated by the life of love."
Spe salvi, no. 38.
As Pope Benedict XVI wrote:
The best part?
Solidarity isn't just something we receive from Christ; it's also something He actively invites us to share with others. It reflects our human capacity to support one another; just as suffering is intrinsic to the human experience, so too must solidarity be.
This is the
work of accompaniment---
walking with one another and practicing solidarity. What does it actually entail?
1 / Peace
Christ greets the awaiting dead with welcome; He does not compound their sorrow but rather shares with them His authentic self.
2 / Presence
His authentic self involves sharing His story - the Good News of the salvation that He has won - while also not hiding His or their wounds.
3 / Prayer
Christ offers all those whom He encounters to the Father through Himself; He opens His Being entirely to the dead's hopes so as to make possible their participation in His heavenly home.
Zoom In - How can you accompany the dead in prayer?
All Catholics share in the responsibility to pray for the dead; perhaps it is most especially the responsibility of suicidal Catholics to pray with the dead. We believe that our prayers are efficacious - that they unite us and our intentions to God. Insofar as we identify with the dead, we can more deeply take on and take up their cause. This involves spiritually sitting with the dead and pondering their person; it also involves intentionally separating our stories from theirs so as to honor the latter before God. Our prayer can take on many forms (prayer cards, Masses of Remembrance, rosaries, meditations, staying in stillness, etc.), but in all cases it must move through death as ordered to life - just as Christ models for us.
For instance, we can enter prayer alongside the words of our tradition (e.g., Eternal Rest Grant Unto Them, O Lord) or through other words, as this video demonstrates.
Posted by the Archdiocese of Bombay
Importantly, accompaniment - as with all prayer - isn't rote recitation. It's something that we embody, something that we concretize in descent. If we struggle to remain present with mere words directed to God, sometimes other approaches can aid us.
Posted by Sarah Hart
This video and its accompanying audio are graphic and may be upsetting, especially for those of us impacted by 9/11; at the same time, this is a beautiful demonstration by Rabbi Irwin Kula of another way we can wholeheartedly pray with and for the dead.
Posted by Larry Singer, PsyD
We might envision the dead---beloved, strangers. What does remembering them look like? What fills out the contours of their being? Can we will them love?
All these and more forms of accompaniment serve the dead and us the (barely) living alike.
In accompanying another, we engage in dialogue with them. This dialogue reinforces distinction - as we relate to the dead in solidarity, we foster a more authentic solitude (that of true selfhood, our genuine identity as daughters and sons of God). Having died to self, our journey becomes instead how to live to self, recognizing the inherent vitality of our person.
If you're interested, here's continued reading for you on the road so far For more on the reality of solitude in descent and what it means for solidarity, see Hans Urs von Balthasar's Mysterium Paschale. For more on how suffering brings forth solidarity and what such solidarity entails, read Pope John Paul II's Salvifici doloris. For more on how solidarity transforms our solitude into something newly alive, look to Pope Benedict XVI's Spe salvi. For more on accompaniment and how we can practice it in prayer, find the Association of Catholic Mental Health Ministers' Responding to Suicide: A Pastoral Handbook for Catholic Leaders.