934- Doesn’t the loss of loved ones cause us suffering and act as a legitimate source of sorrow since such loss is both irreparable and independent of our will?
“This cause of sorrow strikes both the rich and the poor. It comprises a trial or expiation and a law for all. It is a consolation, however, to be able to communicate with your friends through the means available to you while awaiting other ways that are more direct and accessible to your senses.”
935- What about the opinion of people who regard communication with those beyond the grave as a sacrilege?
“There can be no sacrilege where there is reverence and when the evocation is made with respect and propriety. The proof of this is that the spirits who have affection for you take pleasure in coming to you, and they rejoice in being remembered and in being able to converse with you. There would only be sacrilege if evocations were made frivolously.”
The possibility of entering into communication with spirits is a very endearing consolation, which gives us the means of conversing with the relatives and friends who have left the earth before us. By our evocation, they draw near to us, remain at our side, hear us, and reply to us. There is, so to speak, no longer any separation between them and us. They aid us with their counsels and they bear witness to their affection and the contentment they experience through our remembrance of them. It is a satisfaction for us to know that they are happy and to learn from them personally the details of their new existence, acquiring the certainty that some day we will rejoin them in our turn.
936- How does the inconsolable sorrow of those who remain on earth affect the spirits who are its object?
“A spirit is sensitive to the memory and grief of those it has loved, but persistent and unreasonable sorrow affects it grievously because it sees in such excess a lack of faith in the future and trust in God, and consequently, an obstacle to progress and perhaps to their reunion in the spirit world.”
When a spirit is happier than it was on the earth, to regret that it has left this life behind is to regret that it is happy. Two friends are prisoners in the same jail; both of them are to be freed someday but one of them is freed first. Would it be right on the part of the one who remains in prison to be saddened that his friend has been set free before him? Would there not be on his part more selfishness than affection in wishing that his friend would remain in captivity and suffer as long as himself? The same applies to two persons who love each other on the earth. The one who departs first is the first to be freed, and the other should be happy, patiently waiting for the moment when he or she will also be liberated.
Let us make another comparison. You have a friend who lives nearby. She finds herself in a trying situation, and her health or personal interests require her to go to another country, where she will be better off in every respect. Thus, she will no longer be nearby for quite some time; nevertheless, you will be able to continue to remain in contact through correspondence – the separation will be only physical. Will you grieve her departure since it is for her good?
The Spiritist Doctrine, through the obvious proofs it gives us concerning the future life, the presence around us of beings we have loved, the continuing of their affection and kindness, as well as the relationships that enable us to communicate with them, offers us supreme consolation in the face of one of the most legitimate causes of sorrow. With Spiritism there is no more abandonment. The most isolated of human beings is always surrounded by friends with whom he or she can communicate.
We impatiently endure the tribulations of life. They seem so intolerable that we think we cannot bear them. Nevertheless, if we do bear them with courage, if we know how to silence our complaining, we will rejoice when we are released from this earthly prison, in the same way that patients who have been suffering for a long time rejoice at being healed after having patiently endured a painful treatment.
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