God of the Living and the Silence Of Grief

Silence after a death can feel like the cruelest part, not just because you miss their voice, but because the world keeps asking you to “move on” while your heart refuses. Today we are holding space for that reality with a powerful reading from theologian Karl Rahner: “God of the Living” from Encounters with Silence. If you’re looking for grief support that doesn’t rush you, this is a steady companion.

Rahner paints an unforgettable picture of life as a long highway where the ones who began the journey with us slowly slip away into the night. He names what many grieving people know in their bones: there is no substitute for the one you loved. True love is specific, unique, and irreplaceable, which is why loss can feel like a piece of your own heart has gone missing. We explore how grief can become quieter without becoming smaller, and why “looking okay” doesn’t mean things went back to normal.

Turn toward the hardest questions of bereavement and faith: how do you live with the dead, and what do you do when they are silent? What do you do when God feels just as silent? Rahner offers a daring reframe, seeing silence not as abandonment but as the space where faith has room to exist, where love proves itself without constant reassurance. We close with prayer, gentleness, and a call to remember the dead as living in God.

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Transcript

Welcome And Why Grief Matters

Candee 0:37

Welcome to Solace: Soul + Grief. I'm glad you're here. My name is Candee Lucas. I'm a Jesuit-trained chaplain and spiritual director. And I've been working with grieving folks since 2009. The loss of a loved one is an earth-shattering event that almost all of us will face at some time in our lives. When I started this ministry, I had hoped to reach out to those who are grieving no matter where they are along their grief journey. And so I urge you to review the catalog to see what subjects might be of use to you as you travel. Remember, you're always welcome in our circle of healing love and support.

Introducing Karl Rahner’s Reflection

Candee 1:38

Today I'd like to bring you a piece from Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner. Karl Rahner was a professor of dogmatic theology at the University of Innsbruck in Austria and one of the most influential Catholic theologians in Europe. His contributions have been highly esteemed not only by Catholic confrares but also in scholarly circles outside the church. This work, "Encounters with Silence," is proof that his theology is as practical as it is profound. It is hoped that it will aid in the deepening of the spiritual life of the faithful.

Remembering The Dead As A Pilgrimage

Candee 2:28

This piece is entitled 'God of the Living'. I should like to remember my dead to You, O Lord, all those who once belonged to me and have now left me. There are many of them, far too many to be taken in with one glance. If I am to pay my sad greeting to them all, I must rather travel back in memory over the entire route of my life's long journey. When I look back in this way, I see my life as a long highway filled by a column of marching men. Every moment someone breaks out of the line and goes off silently, without a word or wave of farewell, to be swiftly enwrapped in the darkness of the night, stretching out on both sides of the road. The number of marchers gets steadily smaller and smaller, for the new men coming up to fill the ranks are not really marching in my column at all. True there are others who travel the same road, but only a few are traveling with me. For the only ones making this pilgrimage with me are those with whom I set out together, the ones who were with me at the very start of my journey to you, my God, the dear ones who were and still are close to my heart. The others are mere companions of the road who happen to be going the same way as I. Indeed, there are many of them, and we all exchange greetings and help each other along. But the true procession of my life consists only of those bound together by real love. And this column grows ever shorter and more quiet, until one day I myself will have to break off from the line of march and leave without a word or a wave of farewell, never mind to return. That's why my heart is now with them, with my loved ones, who have taken their leave of me.

Candee 4:44

There is no substitute for them. There are no others who can fill the vacancy when one of those whom I have really loved suddenly and unexpectedly departs and is with me no more. In true love no one can replace another, for true love loves the other person in that depth where he is uniquely and irreplaceably himself. And thus, as death has trodden roughly through my life, every one of the departed has taken a piece of my heart with him, and often enough my whole heart. A strange thing happens to a man who really loves, for even before his own death his life becomes a life with the dead. Could a true lover ever forget his dead? When one has really loved, his forgetting is only apparent. He only seems to get over his grief. The quiet and composure he gradually regains are not a sign that things are as they were before, but a proof that his grief is ultimate and definitive. It shows that a piece of his own heart has really died and now is with the living dead. This is the real reason he can weep no more.

The Shock Of Their Silence

Candee 6:10

Thus I am living now with the dead, with those who've gone before me into the dark night of death, where no man can work. But how can I really live with the dead? How can I continue to find life in the one bond left between us, the bond of our mutual love? Deign to answer me, O God, for you have called yourself the God of living and not the God of the dead. How can I live with them? Of what use is it to say, as do the philosophers, that the dead still exist, that they live on. Are they with me? Since I love them and still love them, I must be with them, but are they also with me? They have gone away, they are silent. Not a word comes through from them. Not a single sign of their gentle love and kindness comes to warm my heart. How awfully still the dead are. Must not only their bodies but also their love depart from me in order to be with You? My question thus turns away from them to You, my God, You want Yourself to be called the God of the living and not of the dead. But why am I asking this of You? You are as silent to me as my dead. I love You too as I love my dead, the quiet and distant ones who have entered into night. And yet not You can give me answer when my loving heart calls upon You for a sign. You and Your love are present to me. So how can I complain about my dead when their silence is only the echo Yours? Or can it be that Your silence is Your answer to my complaint about theirs?

God’s Silence And The Work Of Faith

Candee 9:03

That must be the way it is, since You are the last answer, even though incomprehensible to all the questions of my heart. I know why You are silent. Your silence is the framework of my faith, the boundless space where my love finds the strength to believe in Your love? If it were all perfectly evident to me here on earth, if Your love of me were so manifest that I could ask no more anxious questions about it, If You had made absolutely crystal clear the most important thing about me, namely that I am someone loved by You, how then could I prove the daring courage and fidelity of my love? How could I even have such love? How could I lift myself up in the ecstasy of faith and charity? Transport myself out of this world into Your world, Y our heart. Your love has hidden itself in silence, so that my love can reveal itself in faith. You have left me so that I can discover you. If You were with me, then in my search You I would always discover only myself. But I must go out of myself if I am to find You and find You there You can be Yourself. Since Your love is infinite, it can only abide in Your infinity. And since You will to manifest Your infinite love to me, You have hidden it in my finiteness, where You issue Your call to me. My faith in You is nothing but the dark path in the night between the abandoned shack of my poor, dim earthly life and the brilliance of Your eternity. And Your silence in this time of my pilgrimage is nothing but the earthly manifestation of the eternal word of Your love. That is how my dead experience Your silence. They remain hidden from me because they have entered into Your life. The words of their love no longer reach my ears because they are now conjoined with the jubilant song of Your endless love. My dead live the unhampered and limitless life that You live. They now love with Your love, and thus their life and their love no longer fit into the frail and narrow frame of my present existence.

The Dead As A Call To Life

Candee 12:00

I live a dying life. Prolexitis mortis is the church's name for this life, so how can I expect to experience their eternal life, which knows no death? And that is also the way they live for me. Their silence is their loudest call to me, because it is the echo of Your silence. Their voice speaks in unison with Yours, trying to make itself heard above the noisy tumult of our incessant activity, competing with the anxious protestations of mutual love with which we poor humans try to reassure each other. Against all this, their voice and Yours strive to enwrap us and all our words Your eternal silence. Thus Your word summons us to enter into Your life. Thus you command us to abandon ourselves by the daring act of love, which is faith, so that we may find our eternal home in Your life. And thus I am called and commanded by the silence of my dead, who enter into Your life and therefore Your word to me, the word of the God of life, so far removed from my dying. They are silent because they live, just as we chatter so loudly to try to make ourselves forget that we are dying. Their silence is really their call to me, the assurance of their immortal love for me. O silent God, God of the silent dead, living God of the living who called to me through the silence, O God of those who are silently summoning me to enter into your life, never let me forget my dead, my living. May my love and faithfulness to them be a pledge of my belief in You, the God of eternal life. Let me not be deaf to the call of their silence, which is the surest and sincerest word of their love. May this word of theirs continue to accompany me, even after they have taken leave of me to enter into You, for thus their love comes all the closer to me.

Prayer, Eternal Rest, And Perpetual Light

Candee 14:44

O my soul, never forget your dead, for they live, and the life they live, now unveiled in eternal light, is Your own life, which will one day be revealed also You. O God of the living, may Your living not forget me as I still walk in the valley of death. You have granted them everything Yourself. Grant them this too, that their silence may become the most eloquent word of their love for me. May it lead me home to the kingdom they now possess, to the life and the light they now enjoy. My waning life is becoming more and more alive with the dead. I see more and more that those who have gone before me into the dark night where no man can work. By Your life giving grace, O Lord, let it become evermore a life of faith Your light, shining now dimly in this earthly light. Let me live with the living who have preceded me in the sign of faith, who have gone before me into the bright day of eternal life, when no man need work, because you yourself are this day, the fullness of all reality, the God of the living. When I pray, grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and let thy perpetual light shine upon them. Let my words be only the echo of the prayer of love that they themselves are speaking for me in the silence of eternity. --O Lord, grant unto him, whom we love in your love, now as never before, grant unto him, after his life struggle, Your life, Your eternal rest, and Your perpetual light shine also upon him as it does upon us.-- O my soul, never forget the dead. O God of all the living, do not forget me, the dead ones, but come one day to be my life as You are theirs.

Closing Blessing And Where To Listen

Candee 17:14

That concludes another episode. A new one drops every Friday morning. You can always find us on Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Spotify. Remember to be gentle to yourselves this week and to others. Travel with God always at your side. Vaya con Dios.