Called to Console

“The world,” she said, “needs consoling. There is pain and grief, distress and anger all around us. How can people carry it? What can we do?”

My friend and I were reflecting on our world’s brokenness and pain when she came out with the word console. What a powerful word! To console is to bring comfort amidst the overwhelming problems of our broken world and its suffering peoples.

The problems are evident. Last week, the world broke its high temperature record. There are fires burning, people starving, and ongoing wars. There are conflicts on many fronts, and even when there is not active fighting, many cultures around the world spread violence. Here in my country, our politics is full of “attack ads” that demean the other side and deepen our divisions.

In the midst of all this, what good is a comforting, consoling presence? Does it really change anything to have someone offer comfort with a few words or perhaps a hug? Isn’t that just a temporary fix when we should be working on solving the problems?

And yet my friend spoke truly: The world does need consoling and comforting. We are grieving and distressed, discouraged and in pain. Both words, comfort and console, come from Latin roots, and their meanings are essentially the same: to join with another, to help and to strengthen.

When people offer me comfort, they are joining with me in my pain; I am not suffering alone. And when I’m not suffering alone, when someone has listened and showed that they care, I am strengthened. Perhaps I can carry what has felt unbearable, perhaps I feel glimmerings of hope.

Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted (Matt 5:4) is a familiar verse from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. There is a “Divine Comforter” who comforts us when we grieve and suffer. St. Paul reminds us, however, that we are also called to comfort and console: “the God of all consolation who consoles us in all our affliction so that we may be able to console those who are afflicted” (2nd Corinth. 1:3-4). It is our work to offer consolation to those who suffer.

There are several steps to becoming a consoler. First one must notice another’s pain. Sometimes I am so busily engaged in my life that I don’t pause and pay attention to others’ needs. I know that when I notice another’s pain, I am probably going to feel pain – and I’d rather not. However, a compassionate “feeling with another” is the important second step. One can’t be a consoler without joining another and feeling; there is no such thing as a dispassionate, disconnected consoler!

Feeling with another person in their distress or grief can be challenging. Perhaps we fundamentally disagree with them and experience them as on “the other side.” Maybe we don’t see the world as they do. Perhaps we see the pain and suffering of someone who is angry and pushes people away. I believe we are still called to find something to cherish about this person, to notice something in our common humanity that makes us like family.

The third step in being a consoler is to show that you care deeply about the person you are comforting, to somehow touch them so they know they are not alone. That is the beginning of healing, healing for the individual and healing for the world. It is the beginning of hope.

As I reflected on being called to be a consoler, I recalled this poem I wrote many years ago:

UNTOUCHED  HANDS
There are hands
        that will be untouched
                unless I touch them.
There is grief
        that will be unseen
                unless I notice.
There is truth
        that will be unspoken
                unless I speak.
There are songs
        that will be unsung
                unless I sing.
There is love
        that will not exist
                unless I love.
O God, help me to grow
        a heart for loving,
                a joy for singing,
                        a courage in speaking,
        and eyes that will notice grief
                and the untouched hands.

If this message has spoken to you, please share it with others.