The Way Of The Cross.
Week #4: The Freedom Of Embracing Loss.
Opening Reflection.
Where have you seen God at work in your life this week?
Share any brief examples and encouragements.
Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honour the one who serves me. Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.”
John 12:23-28
1. We all must endure some suffering our lives; pain and loss are unavoidable. But what does it mean to embrace loss? How do you do that?
2. Have you experienced a significant loss – one which meant that your life would never be the same afterwards? How did you get through it?
3. Catherine of Aragon, already a widow when she became the first of Henry VIII’s six wives, said, “None get to God but through trouble.”
In what ways has that been true in your experience?
4. In 1939 an 18-year-old Polish student had to leave his university in Krakow when it was closed by Nazi occupation forces. Forced to work as a manual labourer, in 1940 he was struck by a tram, fracturing his skull. Later the same year he was hit by a lorry, which left him with permanent damage to his back and shoulder. In 1941 his father died of a heart attack leaving the 20-year-old alone in the world. He later recalled, “I was not at my mother’s death, I was not at my brother’s death, I was not at my father’s death. At twenty, I had already lost all the people I loved.” But it was after his father’s death that Karol Wojtyla began to think seriously of the priesthood. In 1978 he was elected Pope John Paul II.
In what ways can devastating loss become transformative?
Is it true to say, “a seed always rises”?
5. Psychiatrist Elizabeth Kübler-Ross suggested that there were five stages of grief experienced by terminally ill patients as they come to terms with dying. They are: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression (or Sadness) and Acceptance. Many people have found this a helpful way of understanding their emotions in the face of many forms of personal loss.
Do you recognise any of these in your own experience?
6. How do we lean in to the Bible, the pain, and to the future?
Pray for one another.
Is there anything you will take away from this study and discussion? What has stood out that you can take into your week ahead?
Pray together (in pairs or small groups) for each other, in response to your answers.
