A Turn Toward Surrender
Standing at the Foot of the Cross
Soul of Christ, sanctify me.
Body of Christ, save me.
Blood of Christ, inebriate me…
A favorite friend and mentor, Sr. Jean Hinderer, reminds me often of the “gospel story” that each of us lives: a story complete with encounter, parable, growth, and transformation; each of us moving through many deaths and resurrections. Our sharing of these gospel stories is where we find and feel the one story and the one Spirit that underlies all.
As my dad entered hospice at the beginning of Lent, this liturgical season began more clearly as a time of deep reflection than most. While my family is relieved by the compassionate care he is receiving, this has pushed each of us to enter our own desert journey via different paths, framed by different life experiences. Here in the desert, we all remain witnesses to the rest of Dad’s gospel story.
What I would call my dad’s last “passion story” began in June 2021 with the first symptoms of a strange illness. “Strange” meaning that it took three surgeries and included two neurosurgeons and an ENT to find a diagnosis. By the time a source was found, cancer had paralyzed the right side of his face, including his eye, ability to swallow, and the hearing in his right ear. He has not eaten since that time, instead relying on enteral feeding.
Chemo and radiation have given Dad almost five more years. These years have often been times of struggle physically and emotionally for him, and for all of us who love him in our complicated and different ways. The man who was awake at 5 AM for 35 years to sort and carry mail, golfed four days each week, and cooked two pounds of bacon and a dozen eggs for our visits, is now a little less recognizable as he sits in his chair most of the day.
The word “passion” derives from the Latin “passio”, meaning “enduring” or “suffering”. Fr. Ron Rolheiser takes this a step further saying, “Passio meaning passiveness, non-activity, absorbing something more than doing something. Hence, the ‘Passion’ of Jesus refers to that time in his life when his meaning for us is not defined by what he was doing but rather by what was being done to him.”
The idea of hospice can feel counterintuitive to striving humans, and yet this is the example that Jesus gave as he entered into his own passion. Jesus fully surrendered, receiving both pain and gift on this path. The Agony in the Garden – that place of mental and spiritual wrestling – could perhaps be imagined as the grief of letting go that we experience so many times throughout our lives. Letting go of control, of outcome and expectation, of imagined futures. “…if you are willing, take this cup from me. Yet not my will but yours be done.” The physical suffering was great, but the surrender of ego and will is greater.
A posture of equanimity in the face of suffering is a grace. Throughout his time of illness and the loss of my brother three years ago, my dad has gifted us this grace. Never has there been a question of “why me?” He does not complain. At the same time, there is an unspoken understanding that our mom has heard his agony prayers often, many times in the wee hours of the night.
Where is the gift in this walk with suffering? Jesus’s pain was witnessed fully by his mother - no turning away. Simon of Cyrene shares the weight of the cross for a short while, and Veronica wipes his weeping face. And in the end, the women, including Mary Magdalene, stand as witnesses at the foot of the cross. These were gifts of presence in the midst of physical, emotional and spiritual suffering.
My dad’s story is not yet fully written, but when the time comes that his physical body is no longer with us, I feel peaceful in the knowledge that these gifts of presence have been offered. We have not looked away from his suffering. During this final walk, Simon and Veronica appear in the form of hospice nurses and bath aids.
Who stands at the foot of the cross in this moment? Brothers and sisters, good friends, children and grandchildren. We cannot carry this cross, but we can stand at the foot. And the most fully present - my mom. Each night my parents pray together, concluding with Anime Christi and the words:
O Good Jesus, hear me...
At the hour of my death, call me
and bid me come to you
That with your saints I may praise you
For ever and ever. Amen.
