By Kielce Gussie
Each month, one magazine, Piazza San Pietro, prints a letter addressed to Pope Francis. This month’s edition was a letter sent by a grieving mother who had lost her 21-year-old son in a car accident in 2019.
A letter from a mother
In her letter to the Pope, Cinzia recounted her story of loss and the pain, sorrow, and crisis of faith her and her husband experienced after their son’s death. She explained she eventually returned to her faith on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception that same year, but her husband has not.
While they started a foundation in their son’s name and volunteer with the Red Cross, there were still questions resting heavy on Cinzia’s heart. And, at the end of her letter, she shared them with the Pope: why God did not save her son, is he is in Heaven, and is he the family’s Guardian Angel?
A fatherly reply
Pope Francis opened his letter to her with this response: “There are no words, not even comforting ones, despite the best intentions” to say to someone who has lost a child. He expressed his closeness to her and pointed out there are words to describe a wife who loses her husband, a husband who loses a wife, and a child who loses their parents. But “for a parent who loses a child, there is no word.”
Before beginning to tackle her questions, Pope Francis stated a premise: “always ask for the intercession of Mary.” He reflected on a prayer, invoking Mary, who comforts “the pain of mothers for their children who, having left home one day, never returned.”
The Pope explained that it is impossible to have all the answers “in the face of the mystery of innocent suffering” and reiterated that Mary, the Mother of God, accompanies every broken heart.
Using the words of his predecessor, St John Paul II, Pope Francis encouraged Cinzia and her husband to have hope because “there is no evil from which God cannot bring about a greater good.” – Vatican News
