How can we overcome the pain of separation?

St. Ambrose presents us with a wonderful and practical example of overcoming the pain of parting. He and his younger brother Satyrus were both successful lawyers and likeminded. When Ambrose was ordained Bishop of Milan, Satyrus closed his own office and requested that he be appointed in his brother’s place so that Ambrose could devote himself to the service. A few years later, on October 17, 379 A. D., Satyrus fell seriously ill and died. Ambrose was deeply affected by the death of his greatly beloved brother who was also greatly loved by many. He wrote two treatises — the first on the occasion of his brother’s funeral, and the second a week after his death — in which he expresses his emotions with complete honesty, while at the same time showing us how to overcome the pain of separation. Here are some excerpts that relay the secret of his consolation at the time he lost his brother and beyond:

• a. He puts his vocation to share the gospel with the world first. With complete frankness, the saint tells his congregation that he loved his brother so much that he considered his brother to be a part of himself, and that his untimely death feels like the loss of a precious treasure. Nevertheless, he considers his vocation to bear witness to his Christ, the Savior of the world, to take precedence over his own feelings for his departed brother. During his brother’s funeral eulogy, he veered his discourse from his love for his brother to the more general topic of building the kingdom of God and he expressed his desire to give his own life for the life of the people of God. His love for his brother and the bitterness of the pain of separation could not distract him from his love for the congregation: “Nothing among things of earth, dearest brethren, was more precious to me, nothing more worthy of love, nothing more dear than such a brother, but public matters come before private. And should any one enquire what was his feeling; he would rather be slain for others than live for himself, because Christ died according to the flesh for all, that we might learn not to live for ourselves alone.”¹¹⁸⁹

• i. He thanks God who loaned him his little brother for a while and then took him back again. Instead of mourning the death of his brother, he thanked God who gave him this blessed brother who was likeminded about life with the Lord and the service of God’s people: “To this must be added that I cannot be ungrateful to God; for I must rather rejoice that I had such a brother than grieve that I had lost a brother, for the former is a gift, the latter a debt to be paid. And so, as long as I might, I enjoyed the loan entrusted to me, now He Who deposited the pledge has taken it back. There is

1188 St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Letters 197 (NPNF II/7:462).

1189 St. Ambrose of Milan, On the Decease of His Brother Satyrus 1.2 (NPNF II/10:161).

no difference between denying that a pledge has been deposited and grieving at its being returned.”¹¹⁹⁰

• j. He elevates his thought through recollection. He looked back upon his brother’s deep love, his willingness to close his own practice to continue in his brother’s office, and his noble qualities of love, meekness, and a love of serving others. Better still, he raised up his thoughts to imagine his brother in paradise, no longer just his brother, no longer just a member of his family, for all humanity have become his family and his brothers and sisters. Satyrus can now love everyone and pray for them. St. Ambrose feels that his brother’s passing to paradise is a passing to better state. Therefore, Ambrose considers that he has truly entered paradise. What could be more beautiful than Ambrose’s feelings of love for his brother? For St. Ambrose, Satyrus’ departure to paradise has brought them closer together, for paradise is their common inheritance.

St. Ambrose says, “For why should I weep for you, my most loving brother, who was thus torn from me that you might be the brother of all? For I have not lost but changed my intercourse with you; before we were inseparable in the body, now we are undivided in affection; for you remain with me, and ever will remain. And, indeed, while you were living with me, our country never tore you from me, nor did you yourself ever prefer our country to me; and now you have become surety for that other country, for I begin to be no stranger there where the better portion of myself already is.”¹¹⁹¹

• k. He appreciates the love his brothers and sisters showed him in a time of difficulty. St. Ambrose speaks to his congregation as to brothers and sisters who are filled with love and affection. He says, “I feel, indeed, the deepest gratitude to you, dearest brethren, holy people, that you esteem my grief as no other than your own, that you feel this bereavement as having happened to yourselves, that you offer me the tears of the whole city, of every age, and the good wishes of every rank, with unusual affection. For this is not the grief of private sympathy, but as it were a service and offering of public good-will ... I might prefer that my brother were living, but yet public kindness is in prosperity very pleasant, and in adversity very grateful.”¹¹⁹²

• l. He respects the tears of those who weep. When St. Ambrose beheld the tears of the whole city, crying for the departure of his brother, he recalled the tears of the widows weeping over Tabitha. St. Peter prayed and asked her to rise up, and she arose and sat up (Acts 9:40). Likewise did the city weep for Satyrus who had served it. While Satyrus reposed and did not rise from the dead in this world, he will experience the resurrection of the great day of the Lord. He said, “And though he that was dead has

1190 St. Ambrose of Milan, On the Decease of His Brother Satyrus 1.3 (NPNF II/10:161).

1191 St. Ambrose of Milan, On the Decease of His Brother Satyrus 1.6 (NPNF II/10:162) amended.

1192 St. Ambrose of Milan, On the Decease of His Brother Satyrus 1.21 (NPNF II/10:164).

not sat up on the bier, yet he has found rest in Christ; and if he have not spoken to us, yet he sees those things which are above us, and rejoices in that he now sees higher things than we.”¹¹⁹³

• m. He feels that his brother was snatched away early in life to save his thought from being corrupted. St. Ambrose says, “He had no need of being raised again for a time, him for whom the raising again for eternity is waiting. For why should he fall back into this wretched and miserable state of corruption, and return to this mournful life.”¹¹⁹⁴

Other Fathers also reflected on the passing of righteous individuals at an early age. The martyr St. Cyprian says, “Thus, moreover, we find that Enoch also was translated, who pleased God, as in Genesis the Holy Scripture bears witness, and says: ‘And Enoch pleased God; and afterwards he was not found, because God translated him’ (Gen. 5:24). To have been pleasing in the sight of God was thus to have merited to be translated from this contagion of the world.”¹¹⁹⁵

St. Ambrose says, “For if no one mourns for Enoch, who was translated (Gen. 5:24) when the world was at peace and wars were not raging, but the people rather congratulated him, as Scripture says concerning him: ‘He was taken away, lest that wickedness should alter his understanding’ (Wisd. of Sol. 4:11), with how much greater justice must this now be said, when to the dangers of the world is added the uncertainty of life. He was taken away that he might not fall into the hands of the barbarians; he was taken away that he might not see the ruin of the whole earth, the end of the world, the burial of his relatives, the death of fellow citizens; lest, lastly, which is more bitter than any death, he should see the pollution of the holy virgins and widows.”¹¹⁹⁶

• n. He thinks of the death of his brother not as a loss of life, but as a deliverance from the fear and troubles that threatened him. Addressing his departed brother, St. Ambrose says, “So then, brother, I esteem you happy both in the beauty of your life and in the opportuneness of your death. For you were snatched away not from us but from dangers; you did not lose life but escaped the fear of threatening troubles.”¹¹⁹⁷

• o. Finally, St. Ambrose tells his brother that though Satyrus will not return, Ambrose will go to him . In life, they shared many things in common; and in eternity, they will again share.[1198 ]

1193 St. Ambrose of Milan, On the Decease of His Brother Satyrus 1.29 (NPNF II/10:166).

1194 St. Ambrose of Milan, On the Decease of His Brother Satyrus 1.30 (NPNF II/10:166) amended.

1195 St. Cyprian of Carthage, Treatise 7: On the Mortality 23 (ANF 5:474).

1196 St. Ambrose of Milan, On the Decease of His Brother Satyrus 1.30 (NPNF II/10:166).

1197 St. Ambrose of Milan, On the Decease of His Brother Satyrus 1.31 (NPNF II/10:166) amended.

1198 St. Ambrose of Milan, On the Decease of His Brother Satyrus 1.79 (NPNF II/10:173).