Desire Beyond Expression
The last words in the February issue of First Things were written by Richard J. Neuhaus as he came to grips with the cancer that would lead to his death on January the eighth. Father Neuhaus wrote:
Who knew that at this point in life I would be understanding, as if for the first time, the words of Paul, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” This is not a farewell. Please God, we will be pondering together the follies and splendors of the Church and the world for years to come. But maybe not. In any event, when there is an unidentified agent in your body aggressively attacking the good things your body is intended to do, it does concentrate the mind. The entirety of our prayer is “Your will be done” — not as a note of resignation but of desire beyond expression. To that end I commend myself to your intercession, and that of all the saints and angels who accompany us each step through time toward home.
What a succinct expression of the “good death” we all hope for–with our minds focused on God who is our home, as Wordsworth said.
In my experience, most of us will not be visited with this kind of “desire beyond expression” at the end, nor is it possible to will that desire to come to us however much we yearn for it.
Fr. Neuhaus was clearly a privileged recipient of extraordinary grace.
As a survivor of prostate cancer, I can kind of relate to Fr. Neuhaus’ thoughts on death. He had it exactly right, and he expressed it beautifully.
I hope this doesn’t sound offensive, truly, but when I read statements like Fr. Neuhaus’s, I am always left feeling somewhat ambivalent. I rejoice that God is able to give some people this kind of privileged consciousness in the face of death.
But I also wonder about the folks who do not die with that same sense of homecoming–which would be most of the people I know who have died. Did God love them less? Or were they simply less able to accept or see God’s love?
Does the fact that many of us face death with anger, tired resignation or fear say anything about our faith or about the extent to which God loves any one of us?
My tendency is to say that whatever you feel when you die is irrelevant; God still loves you and is with you up to the end. Fr. Neuhaus and Bob give testimony to that. But it’s still true, isn’t it, that not all of us get to feel that. And what your feelings on the point of death actually might mean remain a big mystery, no?
Does this strike chords with anybody else? Or am I just wandering around in the shades of doubt again?
Jean, I don’t think it’s offensive at all. I think it’s courageous to raise the issue, and it’s hard to think of a more important one.
The father of a good friend passed away a year or two ago. He had been a good father, regular church-goer, active in his parish, etc. The terminal illness that eventually struck him down was so drawn out and accompanied by so much pain and suffering that he lost his faith – he didn’t think there could be a God if he could be so afflicted. it scared the $%^&( out of me.
So I think you’re right that Fr. Neuhaus was given a gift at the end. Beyond that, I hesitate to say too much, because I haven’t experienced serious illness myself, and I’ve lived a life that has, so far, been relatively unscathed by death (I’m very blessed). I try to nurture my faith, and the faith of others (although I’m sure I don’t do enough in that respect) so that when I’m put to the test, I can hang on, if only by the tips of my fingers. Whether that is the best way to go about preparing, I don’t know, but it’s all I can think of.
Jean,
I do not know what Father Neuhaus’ last days and hours were like. I hope that he still was able to desire beyond expression: “Your will be done.” And I hope that each of us may so desire, as we commend ourselves, as he did, to one another’s prayer and care.
The practice of eulogizing the departed at funeral masses has its place (though it can be easily abused). However, what we truly need is not the community’s praise, but the community’s prayer.
It is possible that one reason he had such an enviable death is because so many people were praying for him.
In this matter I have always loved Dorothy Day’s conviction that “there is no time with God.” This spiritual advice, which she received early in her Catholic life, was a great comfort to her and informed much of her intercessory prayer.
This is from her diary entry of February 2, 1939, in “The Duty of Delight”: “I have a very bad habit of conversing with the preacher in my mind as I listen to him, and sometimes contradicting him. Tonight, for instance, he told a story of sudden death to a person in mortal sin, and the hopelessness of the loved ones he left behind. And I thought suddenly of a young boy I knew who committed suicide. I asked a priest afterward as to the efficacy of praying for him. He said, “There is no time with God, and perhaps he forsees the prayers you will say and so gave him time to turn to Him at that last moment with love and longing and repentance.” That has comforted me so much. It makes me pray daily for Sacco and Vanzetti, for Alexander Berkman, for others who died to all intents and purposes estranged from God.”
“However, what we truly need is not the community’s praise, but the community’s prayer.”
This is, of course, right. Eulogizing is a wish and the facts are in God’s disposal. Also, Jesus said that the just will be surprised and the unjust will also be surprised. Humility is the preferred course.
Rachel, thank you so much for sharing that! Truly an eye-opener!
Jean,
This passage from Fr. Neuhaus’s essay “Born Toward Dying” seems to speak to your question:
“A long time ago, when I was a young pastor in a very black and very poor inner-city parish that could not pay a salary, I worked part-time as chaplain at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn. With more than three thousand beds, Kings County boasted then of being the largest medical center in the world. It seems primitive now, but thirty-five years ago not much of a fuss was made about those who were beyond reasonable hope of recovery. They were almost all poor people, and this was before Medicare or Medicaid, so it was, as we used to say, a charity hospital. They were sedated, and food was brought for those who could eat. The dying, male and female, had their beds lined up side by side in a huge ward, fifty to a hundred of them at any given time. On hot summer days and without air-conditioning, they would fitfully toss off sheets and undergarments. The scene of naked and half-naked bodies groaning and writhing was reminiscent of Dante’s Purgatorio.
“Hardly a twenty-four-hour stint would go by without my accompanying two or three or more people to their death. One such death is indelibly printed upon my memory. His name was Albert, a man of about seventy and (I don’t know why it sticks in my mind) completely bald. That hot summer morning I had prayed with him and read the Twenty-third Psalm. Toward evening, I went up again to the death ward—for so everybody called it—to see him again. Clearly the end was near. Although he had been given a sedative, he was entirely lucid. I put my left arm around his shoulder and together, face almost touching face, we prayed the Our Father. Then Albert’s eyes opened wider, as though he had seen something in my expression. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Oh, don’t be afraid.’ His body sagged back and he was dead. Stunned, I realized that, while I thought I was ministering to him, his last moment of life was expended in ministering to me.
“There is another death that will not leave me. Charlie Williams was a deacon of St. John the Evangelist in Brooklyn. (We sometimes called the parish St. John the Mundane in order to distinguish it from St. John the Divine, the Episcopal cathedral up on Morningside Heights.) Charlie was an ever ebullient and sustaining presence through rough times. In the face of every difficulty, he had no doubt but that ‘Jesus going to see us through.’ Then something went bad in his chest, and the doctors made medically erudite noises to cover their ignorance. I held his hand as he died a painful death at age forty-three. Through the blood that bubbled up from his hemorrhaging lungs he formed his last word—very quietly, not complaining but deeply puzzled, he looked up at me and said, ‘Why?’
“Between Albert’s calm assurance and Charlie’s puzzlement, who is to say which is the Christian way to die?”
I believe that thoughts and attitude towards death are similar to depression. The cure for depression (with exception of course) is to go and do something for someone else. This is what Jesus means “by dying we live.” So the worst death is not death itself but in not reaching out to others.
Tacitus tells of the daughter of Sejanus who is taken away to be killed for not other reason other than she is Sejanus’ daughter. The German engineer Herman Graebe tells us of the young naked Jewish girl passing before him to the Dabno shooting pit on October 5, 1942, pointing to herself and saying: “Twenty Three.” These two events are recounted by writers as acutely tragic since there seems no reason for them.
Yet more tragic are those who performed or ordered such deaths. Likewise people who do not care for others, including their enemies, are dead before they die. On the other hand those who extend themselves, while always dependent on God’s mercy, truly live forever.
Rachelle–
I second Jean’s thanks for your post. Our parish book club will be reading “The Duty of Delight” in a couple of months. I’m sure it will be filled with other insights as resonating and comforting as “there is no time with God.”
Much of Fr Neuhaus’ non-polemical work has been about death, and since his passing I have re-read portions of them — and been very grateful to him for putting these things down. I had not seen the words which Fr. Imbelli posted. I have found myself praying for people long dead, the recently dead. a friend who suddenly who has a short time to live, and for myself. But I also find it impossible not to wonder why I am praying. The discussion above reminded me of the last section of Spe Salvi, where benedict wrote rather beautifully about the communion of saints and echoes the point made by Dorothy Day’s priest:
“The lives of others continually spill over into mine: in what I think, say, do and achieve. And conversely, my life spills over into that of others: for better and for worse. So my prayer for another is not something extraneous to that person, something external, not even after death. In the interconnectedness of Being, my gratitude to the other—my prayer for him—can play a small part in his purification. And for that there is no need to convert earthly time into God’s time: in the communion of souls simple terrestrial time is superseded. It is never too late to touch the heart of another, nor is it ever in vain. In this way we further clarify an important element of the Christian concept of hope. Our hope is always essentially also hope for others; only thus is it truly hope for me too. As Christians we should never limit ourselves to asking: how can I save myself? We should also ask: what can I do in order that others may be saved and that for them too the star of hope may rise? Then I will have done my utmost for my own personal salvation as well.”
Jean-
How does an honest Christian hadlndle doubt? Same as any other truthful person, i think: he/she tells the truth as the Christian sees it. But the WHOLE truth that the Christian finds is that creation is inexplicable without a loving Reator. So how to handle this paradox???
I think Job tells us what to do, though he certainly doesn’t answer our original question. He speaks the truth to God. But God convinces him that some things are eyond his understanding. — including both the creation of the world and the suffering of innocets. Job finally admits that “he does great things beyond our knowing: wonders past our searching out.”
In the end God rewards Job BECAUSE he told the truth. At the end God tells Job’s friends,
“. . . Let my servant Job pray for you; for his prayer I will accept, not to punish you severely. For you have not spoken rightly of me, as has my servant Job”.
I for one can’t believe that atheists who are convinced that the God of the Bible is impossible will be punised for telling the truth as they see it.
As for God’s loving some people more than others, why wouldn’t He? Some people are more lovable than others. We all love them more, and rightly so. They are the more God-like- the saints.
Bill, off-topic, but you seem to be conflating depression, which is a mental problem, with selfishness and sloth, which are spiritual problems.
Many depressed people do reach out to others. Some have a much higher degree of empathy than “normal” people. Depressed people may derive some satisfaction from being able to cope despite their affliction. But such satisfaction does not cure them.
Jean, thanks for your comments. About 15 years ago I had a young friend by the name of Tom who died of AIDS. A couple months before he died he told me that his mother had quoted Dylan Thomas to him: “Do not go gentle into that good night …Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” I don’t know why but I knew that those were wise words for Tom to listen to. They might not be the best words for somebody else. I don’t think life is primarily about being good and bad. I think life is primarily about being alive or dead. Raging against death might be the what God wills for some people.
Thanks to Fr. Imbelli for bringing up this topic and for your thoughtfulness and your reminder to do God’s will. Thanks to Matthew for the story about Fr. Neuhaus.
I believe strongly in intercessory prayer but I don’t usually know how my prayers are answered. I do know that when I pray for somebody it gives me the opportunity to remember them and to love them again and again.
For me being a Christian is not primarily about believing in a set of beliefs or doctrines or about knowing things. It is primarily something that we do. Sometimes good Christians die peacefully and sometimes they don’t. I don’t know why and I don’t have an answer.
Off-topic I would like to write something about suffering. I once read about Pierre Veuillet who was made the archbishop of Paris in December 1966 at the age of 53. A few months after he became archbishop, he discovered he had cancer and died in February 1968. He was in a great deal of pain for the last weeks of his life. He told a visitor: “Tell priests not to speak of suffering. They don’t know what they are talking about. They don’t know what it is.”
In Commonweal Fr. John Garvey once wrote: “There is nothing that can justify what human beings have been made to suffer. It is impossible to imagine a point at which we would say, having had it all explained, ‘So that’s what makes it all right that a child was tormented to death or raped, or that a father lost his wife and children to the sea.’ Nothing makes it all right, or can. It may be healed in the end, but it will not and cannot be all right, or explained.”
Like Job we sometimes find ourselves sitting in the ashes silently.
Ann-
I like your idea that God has favorites. I certainly hope I am loveable enough to be one of his favorites.
The idea of God having favorites and Augustine’s predestination is a tricky road indeed. Jesus spelled it out clearly that the person who said “Be merciful to me a sinner” came out in God’s favor. S/he who is humble will be exalted.
Jean, we have discussed this before on depression. I wrote that there were exceptions. The psychiatrist Eric Berne (transactional analysis) defined depression as the person”s internal terrorist beating the person up. (He actually said the Parent beating up the child)
That mustard seed dying and becoming a beautiful tree is the image I go by. There is true joy and freedom where the person’s identity is not lost but irrelevant things do not sully. Joy is in accepting the love of God in generous outreach to others. Jesus stressed mercy over sacrifice. One has to persevere to that belief. Many of the so called teachers have no idea.
Bill Mazzella,
I wasn’t being serious when I wrote that I wanted to be God’s favorite. I was just trying to lighten things up. I hope people realzied that. Thanks for the reminder about humility and the mustard seed and joy.
Bill, yes, we have covered depression on another thread, all the more reason that you seem to feel that there are certain types of depression or instances in which depressives can “cure” themselves by reaching out to others. Just doesn’t work that way.
Sorry to press the point.