I have spent a great deal of time thinking about the meaning of blessed and how the word is used in our everyday language. One definition of blessed is “holy, sacred, or divinely favored.” Within the Catholic faith, the word can carry several meanings, but I want to focus on what it means to live in God’s grace. Many of us will use the phrase “I am blessed,” and it is usually in reference to a peaceful time in our lives when things seem to be going well. But what does it mean to be blessed when life is difficult?

We all know that life can be extremely harsh at times, and those moments will often overshadow the good times. All of us experience such difficulties, and we know that they come in many ways. A difficult diagnosis can bring months of exhausting treatments, and sometimes illness simply overwhelms us, and this earthly life comes to an end. Financial difficulties can bring notices of unpaid bills or even the fear of losing a home. The tragedies that befall children can be especially difficult to understand. When a child dies, it feels deeply unfair, and the world seems emptier. When a childhood is taken away through tragedy, we may find ourselves crying out to God, “Why?”

When I think of the world and its harshness, it is only faith in God that brings about a quiet in the storm. When I need perspective, I often reflect on a woman I knew whose faith was unshakable. One night she stood outside her home with her three small children and the other women in the family, the men were either dead, imprisoned in gulags or living in refugee camps, and she watched her world being burned. The soldiers that came took everything they had, their food and livestock, and as the soldiers left, they took torches to their home. Fortunately, the soldiers left, and the women rushed in and saved the home, but the barn and everything else was gone. This is only one of the many difficulties she had to endure in her life, and through it all, her faith remained steadfast. This woman, my grandmother, reminded me often that without God, life is empty and you have nothing. I was blessed with two families that suffered under the ideology of atheism, and all it did was solidify their faith in God and the Son. 

What is it to be blessed? Being blessed does not mean that we will be spared from suffering. It means that even in our darkest moments, we do not face them alone. Despite the tragedies these people endured, they always had this amazing Catholic faith. They rebuilt their lives and some lost again but through it all, their faith sustained them and helped them see beyond those difficulties because they were more focused on the promise of the life that comes when God is loved and Jesus is followed. Being blessed is not about possessions or abundance, it is about the resilience that comes from a belief that nothing in this world can destroy the promise made by God and fulfilled with the death and resurrection of the Savior of the world.  

Each of us experiences tragedy and difficult times, but we are blessed when we find ourselves understanding that this is simply the way life is to be lived. When we allow God into our lives and turn to Jesus as our guide, we can overcome all the things that life throws at us. If we succumb to the tragedy and allow anger, fear, and all those other human emotions that pull us away from our faith to take control, we close the door on the peace that comes when we know God is with us and the one set of footprints belong to Jesus.

The greatest blessing is to surrender to God and allow Him, the Son and the Holy Spirit to carry you to that moment when paradise is at hand.

God Bless

Andrej N. Lah

Director of Cemeteries