What comfort really means

“Sometimes religion appears to be presented as offering easy cures for pain: have faith and God will mend your hurts; reach out to God and your woundedness will be healed. The Beatitude ‘Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted’ can be interpreted this way too, but the Latin root of the word ‘comfort’ means ‘with strength’ rather than ‘at ease’. The Beatitude is not promising to take away our pain; indeed the inference is that the pain will remain with us. It does promise that God will cherish us and our wound, and help us draw a blessing from our distressed state.“

— Jocelyn Bell Burnell, 1989
Quaker physicist

Today’s Invitation

Allow God to cherish you and your wounds.

This Week’s Query

How has your relationship to quietude, solitude and stillness changed during your life?

What are the spiritual fruits of solitude?

Share your response!

Read the source of today’s quote
Banner art by Georgia Peterson

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Author

  • Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell is a Quaker Northern Irish physicist who, while conducting research for her doctorate, discovered the first radio pulsars in 1967. This discovery later earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974, but she was not among the awardees.

    She is active in the Religious Society of Friends, having served as Clerk to the sessions of Britain Yearly Meeting, Clerk of the Central Executive Committee of Friends World Committee for Consultation, and delivered a Swarthmore Lecture and James Backhouse Lecture.

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