In his final book, written before his passing in November 2015, Michael Paul Gallagher SJ reflects on the very real prospect of dying ...
Some of my friends are surprised that I talk about facing
death so calmly. Am I telling the full truth? Could I be avoiding the pain by
insisting that I am at peace? A good question no doubt, and yet my serenity has
remained steady over several months of cancer. At our first meeting I asked the
oncologist a straight question, ‘If I don’t do any therapy, what would happen?’
The answer was blunt: ‘You would not last six months.’ Even then I did not feel
panic. A certain hollowness in the stomach, yes. A new loneliness, yes. I
wanted to protect others from this news for the moment. But the horizon of
faith held strong. Even in the dark I would be accompanied by Jesus. More humanly,
I was 75 and had enjoyed a full and varied life. I was about to retire from Rome
anyway, after 25 years there. So my sense of peace was rooted both in
thanksgiving for the past and in trust for the present and the future.
Of course there were occasional feelings of lostness and
alarm, but a freedom to let go seemed stronger and deeper, and this was
nourished by finding myself spiritually unalone in facing this moment of life.
One of my Jesuit friends, who often drove me to the hospital where I went for
three days of chemo every three weeks, once mentioned that it was sad to see me
walking through the doors carrying my case. In fact that moment for me was usually
one of great consolation because of a sense of the presence of Christ with me.
I went through those doors knowing not only that I was not alone, but that the
coming days could be strange times of grace – in a spirit of surrender.
Here is another concrete example of what I am trying to say. After the second cycle of chemo
I was well enough to be able to return to Rome to say goodbye to the community
(nearly 70 younger Jesuits of whom I had been ‘rector’ for six years). A practical
purpose of the week in Rome was to empty my room. To my own surprise I found myself
being happily drastic in my decisions, throwing things out or giving them away.
A filing cabinet was full of notes from reading and courses over many years.
Almost without thinking about it, I emptied it all into black plastic bags. I
had quietly accepted that I would never need this again. In fact it was a joy
to see that untidy room gradually become empty, and to return to Ireland with
two suitcases (and one small box of books sent separately). The farewell to
people was also moving and blessed. I made a fairly emotional speech at a special
Mass where I received the sacrament of the sick, asking people to pray for me,
not necessarily that I would be healed, but that I could live all this time
guided by the Good Spirit.
In this context I have also been thinking a lot about the
significance of death, doing some reading about it, and trying to clarify what
I believe. It is one of the advantages of cancer that a person has time to
reflect, as opposed to a sudden accident or heart attack that can cut life off suddenly.
The prospect of dying
‘Let the shortness of life teach us wisdom’ says Psalm
89. Dr Johnson famously commented that death concentrates the mind wonderfully,
adding, with typical common sense, that a good life prepares us for a happy
death. When you find out that death may come soon, it simplifies the focus of
the heart. But if, in spite of human weakness, you have tried to live generously,
death can often be faced with surprising calm.
Of course there will be some struggle of body and of spirit.
There can be shock and anger. Everyone likes to control their life but now I
enter a time where control will not work anymore. I face decline, physically
but not only physically. As death comes closer, there will be moments of lonely
emptiness and of physical dependence on others. The habit of self-sufficiency,
so deeply rooted in each person, will fail. Trusting in medical technology will
end in disappointment. It can help greatly but this battle too will sooner or
later be lost. So I will need something larger and deeper.
Even for someone without a religious faith, it is possible
to find quiet strength as death approaches. If you have lived small forms of
dying down the years, this letting go will not be totally unfamiliar. Whenever
the ego learns self-giving, or experiences love, the muscles of self-surrender have
been exercised. In this way you have become used to dying before death itself
comes. If your life has discovered love, genuine love that embraces both
ecstasy and tragedy, then it has tasted something of lasting joy. Nietzsche
once wrote: ‘All joy longs for eternity, for deep eternity’. The French writer,
Albert Camus, himself an unbeliever, wrote about a capacity to transcend
tragedy:
In the midst of tears, I found within me an invincible smile.
In the midst of chaos, I found within me an invincible
calm.
In the midst of winter, I found within me an invincible
summer.
No matter how hard the world pushes against me,
within me there’s something stronger –
something
better, pushing back.
If we learn to die long before we face death, we are liberated
slowly from the pettiness of ego. But faith gives these transformations a whole
other context, as part of a divine drama. The biggest difference is that I am
no longer alone. Listen to St Paul: ‘even though the outer body is wasting
away’ (2 Corinthians 4:16), ‘I know in whom I place my trust’ (2 Timothy 1:12);
‘He loved me and gave himself for me’ (Galatians 2:20). Does this sense of
being accompanied by Christ make human anguish easier to bear? Sometimes, but
not always. Faith does not suppress physical pain or a sense of helplessness. At
times the so-called consolations of religion will seem illusory. But for the
believer these times of despondency need not be the dominant music. Beyond fragility lies gift.
Faith becomes real as a promise from God: even when you pass through fire, fear
not for I am with you (Isaiah 43:2, 5).
The key Christian reality has not been mentioned yet:
obviously the Resurrection of Jesus becomes the hinge of history and the source
of all our hope. When the Crucified Jesus showed himself to his friends, it was
too much to take in. They were overcome with fear and joy together. The
philosopher Wittgenstein put it well: ‘it is love that believes the Resurrection’.
And he underlined ‘love’. Belief in the Resurrection involves more than a unique
physical event. It needs a wavelength of the heart, not just an objective
inquiry of the data. We love best when we know ourselves loved. And the
Resurrection of Jesus is God’s love-pledge to us. It opens a totally different
perspective on life and death. It is the ultimate sign that God is always a God
of life and always an enemy of death. It offers an explosive new image of who
we are and where we are going. We are not made for the finality of death but
for fullness of life, here and hereafter. The poet Hopkins captured the novelty
and revolution of the Resurrection in these compressed lines:
Away grief’s gasping, joyless days, dejection.
Across my foundering deck shone
A beacon, an eternal beam…
In a flash, at a trumpet crash,
I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I
am, and
This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood,
immortal diamond,
Is immortal diamond.
These powerful words express both an end to mourning or panic,
as on a sinking ship, and the experience of a light that changes who I am. If Christ
became one of us, and if we now suddenly share in his Resurrection, then we are
no longer fragile, useless selves, where humanity seems almost a joke. We are ‘immortal
diamond’, treasures of beauty for all eternity.
For St John that fullness begins here and now. He stresses
again and again that ‘whoever believes has eternal life’ (John 6:47). To
believe in Christ and to try to live like him becomes a ‘fountain of water
welling up to eternal life’ (John 4:14). Whatever I have known of love, and
whatever I have tried to give in love, makes death less of a break and almost a
gentle crossing. The seeds of eternity are already present, burgeoning, giving fruit,
and all this is made concrete when we live with love: ‘We know that we have
passed out of death into life because we love’ (1 John 3:14). What God is doing
in me here and now, if I receive the gift, is initiating me into a fullness
that continues beyond death. The movement towards heaven is already happening.
All that may seem too spiritual when someone is faced with
a daily decline of energy. Yet this music of faith can be heard even in dark
times. This faith-vision can easily be eclipsed by the weakness or fatigue of
approaching the end. We cannot know what it will be like. When I am close to
death there may be distress, but I hope to have the freedom to surrender into the
hands of God, so that dying can be a prayerful letting go. There may be
unresolved hurts or unfulfilled hopes, or worries about those left behind. But
gratitude and peace come from having made a difference to some people during
your life. And above all from trusting that the Risen Lord may now carry me
across the dark threshold. God specializes in resurrection.
The outer process of dying may be frightening, but do I
really want to stay here forever? If I listen to my heart, I know I am made for
more life than I can yet imagine. When God’s promise overcomes my fears, what
St Paul calls the ‘last enemy’ becomes an unexpected friend.
Some theological writing on death seems distant from the
drama of dying. Decades ago they talked of the moment of death as the climax of
human freedom, where a basic decision can be made about eternity. I find this
unreal. The drama of freedom marks all of life but as death approaches freedom
can become more limited. The deaths that I have witnessed have been marked by weakness
and gentle farewell. I don’t imagine that behind the physical decline a person
is able for existential options. For myself, I expect to fade away gradually,
even to lose the capacity to relate to people around. There may be pain and
struggle, but perhaps with quiet trust, I will have the freedom to surrender into
the hands of God. I hope my dying can be prayerful in its sinking, marked by a
simple attitude of letting go, and with a background music of gratitude. But
those theologians were right in one way: one’s way of dying echoes one’s way of
living. If I have lived in tune with Christ, in spite of forgetfulness and sin,
I will be free to die in tune with Him.
There is a different theologian who has helped me, William
Vanstone, an Anglican who died about 15 years ago. His book The Stature of
Waiting made me realize a deeper meaning of the word ‘passion’. It does not
mean only pain but more a state of passivity or ‘waiting’. When the Scriptures
speak of Jesus being ‘handed over’, in Gethsemane and elsewhere, he entered not
his outer suffering but vulnerability, non-activity, no longer in control. This
is an inner quality of going silently towards death, marked by deep trust and
by dark glory. It involves more than being active to the end. It is a different
surrender to God, more than a sharing of pain. Instead it brings a state of
intense meaning and dignity, strangely received.
Over recent months, several friends, knowing I have a
potentially fatal illness, have asked me whether I have any regrets about roads
not taken. Not really. Certainly the roads chosen could have been travelled in
many ways. I could, for instance, have opted for more specialisation in my
university work, both in literature and in theology, but I felt called to be a
good teacher, without dedicating myself to highly demanding research. I also
wanted to be
a priest as well as a professor, and the balance there
was not always easy. Yes, there were many situations I would like to have lived
more wisely. Inevitably I wonder about possibilities that I did not choose,
including marriage. There was one special friend, Monique, with whom I lost contact,
and even fifty years later I would love to meet her again and know how her life
has gone. I can’t say with the famous French song that says ‘Je ne regrette
rien’, but I can die with no crippling regrets. Gratitude for how life blessed
me and allowed me to serve others, that is the dominant feeling, and the one
that I hope will accompany me at the end. I include a poem about Monique at the
end of the diary section, even though it has nothing to do with the illness.
MONIQUE
IN CAEN
The
heart carries more than memories:
When
I think of you, of us, or see a photo,
All
is alive like yesterday.
I
wonder what happened to you,
what
you did with that tenderness,
With
the shy strength of your gaze.
Did
the years harden or soften your beauty?
Did
you forget me, hurt by my silence
Let
down by my different path? Or can you visit,
as
I do, wonder echoes
Of
hands held and eyes knit,
Symbols
of a love bigger than
we
were able for at twenty one,
but
changing me at least forever.
~
Michael Paul Gallagher SJ died
on November 6, 2015 after a year-long battle with cancer. During his life he
wrote several books on faith and contemporary culture, including Faith Maps, Clashing Symbols and Dive Deeper. He was a lecturer in modern
literature at University College Dublin before going to Rome where he was
rector of the Bellarmino College and professor of fundamental theology at the
Gregorian university.
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