I thought I was just going through the motions. Rosary beads warm between my fingers, the Fourth Joyful Mystery I’d contemplated dozens of times before. But sometimes God ambushes us in the ordinary.
There I knelt before the shrine at St. Bernadette’s Catholic church, following Jonathan Roumie’s familiar prompt from the Hallow app to enter this mystery (The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple) through Mary’s eyes, or Joseph’s, imagining their wonder and confusion at Simeon’s prophecy.
But this time was different.
This time, I found myself seeing through Simeon’s eyes. Not the moment of recognition in the temple, but the years before. The darkness that brought him to that moment of promise.
Pain and suffering are inevitable. They’re woven into the fabric of mortality, sometimes physical, more often psychological. The latter cuts deeper, lingers longer. But how we respond to that pain. That’s where our freedom lies.
Do we fight it? Ignore it? Curse it? Do we let despair take root, or do we choose hope? Do we use the pain as a pivot point away from Him, or toward Him?
Choices that shape this life and the one to come.
As I prayed, a story unfolded in my mind. Simeon’s story. But not the one we usually hear. Instead, I saw his entire life. I saw the how and the why he ended up holding the infant Jesus. And it broke my heart, but at the same time, gave me hope.
Here’s the story as it unfolded within my mind’s eye (the abridged version):
Simeon knelt at the side of the bed—his son’s deathbed. The young boy’s body was already cold to the touch. His chest no longer rising and falling. That infectious smile gone. Forever.
In the other room, Simeon’s wife wailed in anguish. Tears fell from his eyes as the pain smashed into him like a tidal wave filled with sharp debris. Despair took hold. He no longer wanted to live, saw no reason to continue. He grabbed a knife, ready to plunge it into the center of his chest. Blood bloomed where the iron tip pierced his skin.
Then an angel appeared, staying his hand.
The angel told Simeon he would not die until he saw the face of the Lord, the Messiah.
A deeply religious man, the angel’s words brought hope, a promise from God Himself. Then, years later, after faithful obedience and tireless trust, Simeon encountered the Messiah. Not as a general or great warrior come to free the Jews from Roman occupation, but as an infant cradled in a young woman’s arms.
God is incapable of breaking His promise.
He is also incapable of forsaking His children.
When we are filled with pain and despair, wallowing in suffering both physical and emotional, when we feel lost and alone—that’s when He is closest to us. We may not feel His presence because we’re too consumed with the pain, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. He isn’t somewhere we need to reach or earn our way to. He is mere inches from us, closer even. All we need to do is turn around and face Him. There, He waits patiently, earnestly longing to take our pain, our suffering, our worries. All of it.
For His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.
And His love infinite and immeasurable.
Easy to ponder, but harder to accept. Trust me, I know. But nonetheless this is His promise to us, His beloved children. All we need do is allow ourselves to accept Him. To accept His love and mercy. He’ll do the rest.
The beads continued to slip through my fingers, but the prayer had become something deeper. In Simeon’s imagined darkness, I recognized my own. In his promised hope, I found mine.
I understood then what I’d always known but never felt: that our pain isn’t meaningless suffering. It’s the very soil where God’s promises grow. Even here, especially here, in the places that hurt most.
All we need to do is turn around.
And face Him.
