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Those Who Mourn w/ Eileen Tully

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Eileen Tully returns to CCAirwaves to discuss her new Catholic grief resource, "Those Who Mourn" magazine, which combines personal stories, prayers, artwork, hymns, and Catholic teaching to support people experiencing loss. 

Visit thosewhomournmag.com to read the current and past issues, and follow on social media at "Those Who Mourn Mag."


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Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for joining us. Hello everyone and welcome back to CC Airwaves. My name is Paige Mattillo and I'm here with our intern, jen Cascio. Hello everyone, and we're also here with a special guest. Back again to join us on CC Airwaves is Eileen Foley. Eileen, how are you today?

Speaker 2:

Hi, good, we were just talking about I'm chilly, it's cold here. We're just talking about the weather.

Speaker 1:

That's how we start every podcast, you can always tell what season the podcast episode was recorded in, because of the conversations that we have about the weather Because of the conversations that we have about the weather. So, for those of you who remember, eileen was on podcasts in the past on a special episode of Inspiring Stories of Healing and Hope, where she talked about present in the pain. Eileen, can you just reintroduce yourself to our listeners?

Speaker 2:

Sure, of course, I live in New Hampshire which is why it's chilly with my husband, patrick, and our six children, and I have an apostolate for women who have experienced pregnancy and child loss, which is what present in the pain is. So myself, I'm a convert to the faith, and the faith really was very helpful to me in my healing from that experience of child loss that we've had. We've had a couple miscarriages and a stillbirth and an infant loss, and so the faith really was something that I tried to lean on during that time. So that's why I wanted to create the apostolate, but I've also created something new recently that we're going to talk about today.

Speaker 3:

Yes, I can't wait to hear more about it. Yeah, it's, it's a little bit about what is those who are.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so after our loss of our babies, um, I really I wanted to lean on my faith, as I just mentioned, but I really struggled to find resources to help me do that. And even though I'm a convert, I was a Protestant Christian and I had a faith in God and nothing shook that faith like that experience of those losses. The stillbirth and the infant loss were twins, so they were right back to back losses that were just absolutely crushing, like I just kind of didn't even feel like I could physically function. I wasn't prepared for the intensity of that kind of grief and sort of floundered. Like it's interesting, CS Lewis has a book called A Grief Observed which is so, so validating. He lost his wife and he just sort of wrote about his grief in that experience and, even though it was a different kind of loss from mine, wrote about his grief in that experience and even though it was a different kind of loss from mine. What I took away was that shared experience of grief that he you know he had a faith also but he comments about, he talks about praying and sort of calling on the Lord during this challenging time and just feeling like this vast, like the most silent answer that he's ever had, with talking to God.

Speaker 2:

And I had felt the same thing. I remember even just going outside and looking up at the stars and being like are they with you? Like are you real, it's all you know. Like I was sort of just floundering to hold on to what I had always believed to be true, but like just was craving sort of a, a sign, I guess. Like I remember being like, can I have a shooting star if you're up there and you can hear me? You know it was. It sounds ridiculous in hindsight, but it really. It really was a desperation to know that this, this faith that I had claimed all my life, was real. And like I was sort of looking for traction because that suffering was like the rubber meeting the road and I was like hoping for something to grip, you know. And so, knowing that I had my own, knowing that I had my own crisis of faith during that time, I know also that that is just a time when other people can experience that crisis of faith too. And because I had a Protestant background, I really didn't have the sacraments I was a convert by this time but I was sort of like new, like a baby.

Speaker 2:

In my Catholic faith, you know, and I didn't like recognize the just the treasury of beauty and goodness and hope and purpose for suffering that existed in the church that our faith offers us. And so another thing that I did also was I wrote for a magazine, an online magazine called Still Standing, which was a collection of stories about infertility and child loss, and I found the writing to be really healing for me, and I found reading other people's stories to be very validating, like, oh, you felt like this too. Okay, yes, this is so. It just felt like, okay, there's a little bit of normalcy to what I'm feeling, because somebody else is sharing that experience too.

Speaker 2:

And so, but still standing was decidedly not faith based. It was just stories of miscarriage and infertility Still helpful, but not based in our faith. So I wanted to see if I could somehow merge that with our faith and draw from Catholic writers or just Catholic people who have experienced a loss and leaned on their faith or used their faith to help them get through it, if they might be interested in writing about that for other people to read. And then I also wanted to just really lean on the treasury of goodness, truth and beauty that the Catholic Church offers. So I share prayers, I share hymns, I share Catholic artwork, like beautiful paintings, just to help us sort of meditate and have something to grip onto when we're sort of slipping as the rubber of our suffering is meeting the road of our faith. So that's what those who Mourn is. Yeah, it's an online magazine. We come out with a new issue. Every month there's a new issue and it's just a collection of stories and prayers and hymns.

Speaker 1:

Now, this is a really unique magazine and I honestly have never heard of anyone doing this. You know, and was this something new that you were able to experience as well? Was there ever when you were researching this? Was it something that anyone else has ever done?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I couldn't find anything and I had felt like sort of a nudging to do it for a couple of years now and I wasn't sure if I was just crazy Like should I move forward on this? Is this something that people are going to want? Should I move forward on this? Is this something that people are going to want? I just I was sort of drawing from my own experience of that, having written for that magazine and being desperate for something to hold on to in my faith, and and so I thought, you know, I kind of had this idea Would anybody be interested in contributing to this?

Speaker 1:

I put it out there to like a catholic um writers online group that I'm part of, and a lot of people responded either yes, I want to read this, or yes, I want to contribute, or yes, we need something like this, or this would be amazing, you know, like I would like to have something like that too, and so it was like, okay, yes, I guess this is something that other people would want, as well, well, grief is often a topic that people shy away from, they're too scared to talk about, or they just don't know how to identify it within themselves or the way you know, because it was a really taboo subject for a long time and people didn't understand it, and so I think that you shedding a light on this is especially inspiring, considering you didn't have those resources when you went through your own loss, so you're really just trying to make sure that other people have these resources that weren't available to you at that time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so in my apostolate, you know, of course, I work with women who have experienced child loss and there is a lot of shared experience. You know a lot of things that we have in common there. But I'm also starting to be of the age where I have friends who have lost their spouses. I have friends who are going through a divorce. Like it's just, you know, grief is everywhere. I mean, if you haven't felt it yet, just wait, it's coming you know it's everywhere.

Speaker 2:

There are lots of things to grieve in this life and I noticed, even with my friend I'm thinking of a particular friend who lost her husband there is a lot of shared experience to grief itself. Like, just like I was saying about CS Lewis, you know he lost his wife, but as he was writing about his grief I was like, yes, I can relate to that. Yes, I felt that. Yes, I felt that, standing out in the void and you know, and calling out to the void and just getting nothing back, you know, and just sort of begging for a sign or an indication that God was there and he was with us.

Speaker 2:

In hindsight I was able to see that of course he was, and that His silence was actually almost like a gift to me. It really caused me to like exercise my faith muscles in a way that I had never been called on to do before, and so, coming out the other side, I felt that I had grown stronger and I almost was grateful, like I didn't really need the sign that I thought I needed. You know, it was what I needed to do was just exercise a little bit more, I think. But yeah, there are a lot of shared experiences of grief, and one of them is a lack of accompaniment, you know, a lack of people just knowing how to come alongside you and say, like me too, like I, I understand, or or just be with you while you're feeling all the things you're feeling, and so I thought this would help.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, go ahead sorry, no, you're fine. So you really found this community in grief people to support and I don't oftentimes that some people need community and some people it's really hard for them to find that community. What is the most important thing you can say about that? You've gained from finding this community and these people who you have a shared experience with.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, so it's interesting. I know what you mean, because a lot of people really have a hard time being vulnerable and talking about their feelings or just crying in front of other people, right Like coming to a grief support group, for example. I found one in my neighborhood that was a Protestant-based program called Grief Share, which you probably have heard of, but there was nothing Catholic that was available and it was very hard to go there. And you know it's this group of other women, mostly widows, who were older ladies who had lost their husbands, and just cry in front of them, you know, or like be vulnerable about what I was feeling because I didn't know them.

Speaker 2:

So Thomas Aquinas offers in his Summa Theologica five remedies for sorrow and I'm going to see if I can recall them. One of them, for like I'll put the first of them, is experiencing pleasure, like. I'll just put them in this order, I don't know, I don't remember exactly the order that he offers, but I'll put pleasure at the top, because he refers back to pleasure as being something that assuages our pain. But it's very difficult to experience pleasure when you're suffering or you almost feel guilty for experiencing it, sometimes Like, if you're not like sorrowing long enough you didn't love your person enough. You know something like that. Like it feels like I want to engage in this pleasure, but also I feel like maybe I should still be carrying this sorrow. So he talks about the fact that pleasure assuages our pain, that it's that, it's what we're kind of created for experiencing pleasure, and I, in the magazine, my hope is that the beauty of the hymns and the beauty of the artwork would be something that contributes to the pleasure that we can. You know, like beauty is just, if it's beautiful, it's from God, because God is the source of that right. So it's just good and beautiful, and it's and it's something that we enjoy just objectively, right.

Speaker 2:

Another thing that he says, though, is the condolence of friends, and so sometimes that can be hard for us to enter into. Sometimes our friends disappear. Sometimes, if we're looking for a community, it can be hard to be vulnerable in front of them, like I was just saying, and so one of the things that I think the magazine format offers is the ability to hear other people's, to hear in quotes, like to read other people's stories right Without and maybe cry in response to it and be like, yes, I feel like that too, but without being on the spot of someone seeing you doing that, you know, which can feel really uncomfortable for a lot of people, and so my hope is that, by offering the stories in this format, people can feel sort of like supported and understood and validated, without necessarily having to enter into that vulnerability. And another, you know, another sad part about grief is that we don't do a good job of mourning with those who mourn, do we? So we don't always do a good job of entering into it with people, and our tendency is to want to put a silver lining on it, like, oh, at least you have this or at least you could still do this right, um, and so you know, we're not, we're not trying to do that here in the magazine. We're not trying to do a silver lining, we're trying to come alongside and mourn with those who mourn.

Speaker 2:

Um, there are other remedies for sorrow. One of them, another one, is the contemplation of the truth, and so that is why we're just so firmly rooted in the teachings of the magisterium. Like all, the hymns are traditional and truthful. The prayers are so far they're just. They've been litanies, based on what the devotion is for the month, um, but yeah, there's so much truth in our faith, there's also two features that I I think especially contribute to.

Speaker 2:

Truth is is a an excerpt from a writing of a saint. So, uh, the first issue had an excerpt from saint francis de Sales, whom I love. He's just so lovable and comforting and like a big brother, and it was the Christian manner in which we should mourn over those whom we have lost is the excerpt from his Consoling Thoughts series. And then this issue is on the Sacred Heart and it's an excerpt from St John Eudes, who is writing about the Sacred Heart and Jesus loving us like his Father loves him. And then another feature that we just added this month we didn't have in the first issue was a priest, a faithful, traditional priest, who is answering reader questions. So one of the questions that a reader had was about something called Gregorian Masses and how can we offer them for our loved ones. Well, I had never heard of Gregorian.

Speaker 2:

Masses, so I was really excited to hear his answer and it's a series of Masses that you can have offered. I want to say it's 30 Masses that you can have offered for your love. Oh, yes, I've heard of those. Have you heard of that? Okay, yeah, so it's really hard A lot of times. It's hard for parish priests to do, because they're taking on the intentions of their parishioners as well. But sometimes you can find someone in a monastery or something you know who doesn't have those parishioner intentions that he's praying for, who can provide a Gregorian Mass, which I never knew about that. So that was just a neat fact. So, yeah, we have had some readers send in questions about, you know, just like, what does the church teach about this? Or you know how do I offer up my sufferings and unite them with Christ, what is redemptive suffering? So, anyway, those are some other things.

Speaker 2:

The last two remedies that St Thomas Aquinas offers. Sorry, I couldn't come up with that word. One of them is weeping, which is like obvious, right, but sometimes we forget and sometimes we feel uncomfortable doing it around other people. So weeping is another one which is something, again, with this magazine format, you can read and weep all you want and nobody, nobody has to see you if you feel uncomfortable doing that.

Speaker 2:

And then a warm bath and a nap is the other one, and I think that's great because it really just it's clear that he recognized the physical toll that grieving takes on our bodies. You know, it's exhausting, it's achy, it makes us ache, like physically ache, it's intense to grieve, and so my hope is that this can help. Whether the beauty, the pleasure, the contemplation of truth did I get them all. Condolence of Friends, and then Weeping and the Warm Bath and a Nap, yeah, those are the five remedies. So my hope is that this format the people will have to provide the warm bath and the nap for themselves, but it will just give them a little bit of a taste of those other things to just hold on to.

Speaker 1:

I would love to hear more about the structure of the magazine. I know you said there are hymns and special writers. Is everyone who contributes a guest writer or are there consistent writers every month?

Speaker 2:

That's a good question. We do have some monthly contributors who have agreed to write a piece every month, and then we have we also take submissions from guest writers. So if anyone is interested in contributing, they can find the link at the top of the magazine. It says submissions. So would you like to write something?

Speaker 1:

Paige, I would love to write something. I would love it. I know I told you last time we talked that I would love to write something and I think I know a couple of people here who would love to as well. I would love it.

Speaker 2:

That would be great yep, yeah.

Speaker 3:

So is there anything you're particularly excited for that's either coming up just for the magazine or coming up within the magazine?

Speaker 2:

yeah, so my hope was to to launch it and to and it still is to keep the magazine free, like I don't want there to have to be subscribers. I want it to be something that people who are grieving can find online and just have some things to slow down. You know, the articles are not short, especially the writings, the excerpts from the saints, and that's intentional because everything is in these like YouTube short formats right now where we're just like onto the next, onto the next, onto the next, and it really like it's really detrimental to us to live like that Right, and I think grief takes time. It requires us to sort of slow down, whether we want it to or not. You know, part of that warm bath and a nap, it's just exhausting, you know. So I wanted it to be something that people could just take their time over and and contemplate as they're reading, and think about and have it just be something that they're chewing on and and processing along with their grief.

Speaker 2:

So, so, what was so? Anyway, okay, so the, yeah, the, the format. Were you? I'm sorry, what was the question? Again, what were you originally asking?

Speaker 3:

yeah, is there anything you're particularly excited for?

Speaker 2:

oh yeah yeah, okay, so I'm so sorry yeah, so I always want that to be free and online available for readers, but I was. I have had other people ask me are you going to have a print version of this or is there a way I can sign up and subscribe to contribute to this? So one of the things I've been talking about with our monthly contributors is maybe having a subscription feature for a low amount, something reasonable, because people don't like to. I didn't want to pay money to get to heal from my grief, you know, it was just so, um, so just offering some extra things like, um, maybe some of the articles would be an audio format read by the writers, or an interview with the contributors, or some printables that they can download and print, and so for like a small subscription fee, they could get some extra resources. There might also be in the future.

Speaker 2:

I was thinking about doing an online grief support group, because not every church has a bereavement support group Mine doesn't and so even if I could create an online community for those subscribers so that, if they needed, you know, with a weekly grief support or a monthly grief support group, that you could just connect with other people and have that connection. So there's, you know, we are only on our second issue. This month is our second issue, so there are some ideas I have in the works and then possibly maybe a print just expanding into meeting people's needs a little bit more where they, where they are, you know if they need that, that grief, that extra support or that grief group or something.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Well, the possibilities are truly endless, especially since you guys did only release your second edition this month, which I'm very excited to read. Where can our listeners find the magazine online and can they follow you on social media?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely so. Those who mourn magcom it's just those who mourn with M-A-G mag at the endcom is the website address. So, and then you can. It's, the main issue is the one that's the home page, but you can. There's a little tab for issues in the in the menu and you can look at the May issue and all the back issues will be there. And then, likewise, on social, it's those who mourn mag. So Facebook is that. Instagram is that. Pinterest is that? So those are the social sites that we are on to.

Speaker 1:

Perfect, and for our listeners, I will link the website and their social medias in the description, so feel free to click on there and check out the magazine. Eileen, I think that's all we have for you for today. Is there anything else you'd like to share?

Speaker 2:

No, I really, really appreciate you letting me come back on here and seeing you both again, or well, I saw the same thing again um, right and uh yeah, just thank you for the opportunity to share this resource. I hope that and pray that it's something that um others take comfort in when they're suffering. I completely agree.

Speaker 1:

Well, thank you once again. So much for joining us. And this has been CC Airwaves.