Lament and believe

Perhaps the kind of sorrow and lament in the text from the Book of Lamentations, which is from the Roman Catholic Lectionary for today, challenges our expectations that believers are not,or at least should not, be subject to the grief which is expressed by the author as he is witness to the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem at the time of the Babylonian exile. Believers are special and do not need to experience the despair of loss. Friar Jude Winkler suggests that there are times in our life when grief, contrition and sorrow are the appropriate response to the circumstances around us. Death and separation from our dear friends is an example of deep loss in which our emotions are our human response. In this response, we form the prayer, petition or lamaentation which returns us to our relationship with the Divine, the only Source for exploration of the mysteries of our existence. A lament over the reason for our existence may be generated when the plans we have seem to be replaced and our intentions to be are not obviously fruitful in our Life. We grieve perhaps in the destruction of a Temple of our own construction. We forget the need sometimes to rebuild, reconcile and regenerate is essential to our life as a believer in the transformation, through the grace of God of the imperfect and the finite to the person to whom You only say the Word and I shall be healed. The Roman Catholic Communion liturgy uses today's text from the Gospel of Matthew as the prayer for healing prior to receiving Jesus Present in bread and wine. Friar Jude notes that the relationship between faith and healing in Christian Scripture and experience has two aspects. Faith and trust like the Centurian has brings healing. The witness of healing, like that of Peter's mother-in-law, brings faith.