Let's talk about suffering

I wrote this observation on my Facebook page to mixed reviews among faithful Catholics (some loved it, some thought it was insensitive, more an accusation than an observation):

"I am stunned at how often Christians wish to throw off and avoid their crosses and sufferings, considering how often Christ told us we would and must suffer on this earth. I think it's an American thing."

A non-Christian friend thought the whole thing was interesting and suggested writing about it on the Bubble. I think that is a good idea.

We already discussed redemptive suffering here, something that even most Christians have never heard of. And I wrote of how the worst suffering in my life so far brought me the most peace I've known (I am not saying I will do well next time suffering comes, but that's where it stands right now).

And I've mentioned before that abandonment to God, no matter what He sends our way, is the only way to peace and joy, according to Jesus (who insisted we must suffer with Him) and the saints. Total death to our own wills, total surrender to His.

This passage from my favorite book is so powerful to me -- it was like a lightbulb going off in my head, and it might be powerful and helpful to some of you as well:

This understanding, and this spiritual principle of surrender, or total abandonment, has helped me immeasurably in my journey. I believe to my core that it is the key to the peace and joy that our loving Father wants for us. I want to share it with everyone, because there is so much suffering all around us, and so much fear and anxiety. 

If this discussion might be of any help to someone who is suffering, it's worth having. Let's talk. 

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A great means to preserve continual peace and tranquility of soul is to receive everything from the hands of God, both great and small, and in whatever way it comes.

--St. Dorotheus

57 years ago, Eileen Suiter wrote this for us

Eileen Suiter* would have been 102 years old today. She was born on February 28, 1914, and died nearly 36 years ago, on July 15, 1980. I never met her in life, and yet I know her profoundly. Catholics, you will also instantly recognize Eileen and that familiar, eternal bond that springs from a shared faith. 

This charming wife and mother from 1950s South Dakota is about to tell you her story of great tragedy, presumption, and pride, and how, by finally ceding control and trusting God, she learned to accept and even bless her immense and seemingly unbearable crosses. She wrote this piece with the intent that it be published -- and today it finally has been. Happy Birthday, lovely lady!

His Ways are Wondrous

 by Eileen Mannion Suiter

c. October, 1958

My husband and I will be married twelve years in a few weeks during which time we have had eight children of whom we are raising five. We have had the consummate nerve at various times to question God’s dictates, but He has not made us wait for eternity to mark the wisdom of His ways.  We are humble in the face of His immense generosity to us and overwhelmingly sorry for people who try to out-smart His knowledge.

My husband was born in a rural village of the West which he described to me as a cross-roads town. Having been born in New York City and raised in Chicago, I assumed it was very small, perhaps 10,000 people or so. But the quality of his honesty was not strained, then or ever. My first visit disclosed an abandoned hotel, a combination post office and general store, a gas station, and a Protestant church occupying the four corners and comprising the town. Rolling farm and ranch lands hid the homes of folks who used these facilities.

My husband had been taught a rigid code of personal integrity within the framework of his Protestant religion with one glaring exception—an innate animosity to anything Catholic. We cannot now figure out the reason for this. It was just generally assumed throughout the area that Catholics aimed to take over the country one day and had arsenals concealed here and there on Catholic property against such a contingency. This, however, was just one of the Catholic failings, and many of the other accusations annoyed me far more than the charge of treason.

When we met in Chicago during his Navy days, it did not appear like a promising relationship since my mother and father (God rest their souls) had been born in Ireland and we children had been raised accordingly. Anyone raised in a genuine Irish home can appreciate how all-encompassing is Catholicity. My parents were the type who spoke in their soft sweet voices of hiding the priest in the kitchen in Ireland while the children summoned the neighbors to hear Mass on an improvised altar by the light of a turf fire.

Religiously speaking—and what other way is there to speak—we did not for long talk the same language. The enforced separation of the war, however, made us resort to the written word. One writes with more consideration than one speaks. One shakes off the momentary displeasure of an opposing view and gives a measured reply. I was smug in my Catholic complacency and he was seeped in a bog of erroneous impressions concerning it. But God had plans for us. My husband-to-be talked with many Navy chaplains and gained an understanding of his obligations should we marry, but it was left for our family friend, a forthright, blunt speaking priest, to be God’s instrument in my husband’s conversion.

Father Smith (we’ll call him) is a belligerent Irishman of complete charm who brooks no nonsense about religion. He did not have a velvet touch and I knew the fur would fly on any subject of Catholicity between him and my future husband. Though I loved Father Smith myself, I was once again proved wrong as I so often am. Their personal liking for each other was instantaneous but the fur did indeed fly—sometimes far into the night—with my husband’s objections, questions, queries, doubts falling like towers before the explosions of Catholic logic.

Father Smith gave him a laughing, merry tour of the Church basement on the day of his acceptance into Catholicity, as that he might check for himself the quality of the hidden arsenals, while Father chuckled mightily and made snide remarks.

Just before our first anniversary, our daughter Maureen was born, and 13 months later our son James arrived, and forgetting the lessons of the past I settled into a worse complacency than ever before. I had the world by the tail. Perfection had been achieved. I loved and respected my husband with very good reason to do so, and I had a beautiful daughter and a lovely son. My cup was full—my life complete. It didn’t occur to me to wonder if I had Heaven by the tail too.

So God gave me a well-deserved jolt and I rebelled bitterly.

The night my son was 27 days old, angel wings brushed past me in the night, and when I rose to see what caused it, I found my son was dead.

For a few wild hours I didn’t believe in God. No good God would treat me so. I have no idea why I thought God should treat me with kid gloves, but such was the depth of my presumption.

Then it occurred to me that if there was no God, my boy was as well dead at 27 days as at 127 years, and cold reason returned to leaven my grief.

He is buried in a wild, desolate, wind-swept cemetery atop a high butte overlooking the Missouri River. He was dressed in his Baptismal robe and it was his privilege to be buried on Holy Thursday (March 25, 1948).

Even that day standing there in a raging blizzard grieving for my son, I tried to infringe on God. “It is my fault. There is something I could have done.” You see I still wouldn’t concede God the right to accomplish His will.

But my well laid plans were shattered; I had no son.

Thirteen months later my first reaction was one of disappointment with God because my new baby was a girl. That wasn’t according to plan. Kathleen was supposed to be a boy so the pattern would return to its original perfection. One look into her wide blue eyes and my heart was lost forever. “Ok,” I told God, “you were wise this time. I really do need this extra one because I never saw such sweetness before.”

I thought to myself that we would have a boy next, and, while not exactly arguing with God, I felt sure I could make Him see things my way. I was still trying to boss the show in my heart. I never saw my third daughter, Elizabeth, because she was stillborn.

Once again I usurped God’s prerogatives and took all the responsibility myself. My grief-ridden heart felt that I, and I alone, was the cause of this second disaster. If I hadn’t been so set on a son it never would have happened. If I had done this and not done that she would at least have lived to be baptized. Although I gave lip-service to God, my sense of personal blame accused Him of being a rather vengeful, spiteful God who was taking things out on me. I hope He has forgiven me my vast pride.

Somewhere along the line, though, I began to improve a little. I grew closer to God and began to consider that perhaps He had His Blessed Hand in the pie. I knew my son was in Heaven with nothing on earth to do except pray for us. My daughter was happy to the fullest of her capacity for eternity, whether that be in Limbo, or through God’s unknown mercy, in Heaven. What more could I ask for either of them if they lived for three score and ten?

I won’t tell God what to do anymore—I’ll just go along with His wisdom. This I promised myself.

That’s when we had a perfect set of twins, a boy and a girl. My heart almost broke with gratitude. Why the minute I stopped trying to boss God, He gave me back a boy and a girl, Patrick and Jeanne. Oh the wonder and glory of God’s ways. I think, in deepest reverence, that He sits in Heaven and often laughs at the torments we make for ourselves. As He loves the most because He is love, surely He laughs the most because He made laughter—gentle, tender laughter that knows all things will come right.

But by the same reasoning, how bitter must be His tears. Once again, I rebelled.

I was so busy with my wonderful twins and darling girls that I was reluctant to find myself pregnant again. I hope I will never be so foolish again. Whatever else my sins, and they are plenty and black, I pray to be preserved from trying to boss my life when it’s been proved again and again that God has a special generosity for me and mine.

However would we get along now without this reluctantly-accepted extra boy? Kevin is the joy of our family and so closely aged to the twins as to make them near triplets. At least we found our trouble was RH incompatibility, and it took blood transfusion, oxygen tents, and God’s perfect love to present us with our charming little boy.

Then came the medical warnings, but God had primed us well and we were ready. Another child would very likely not survive or would be handicapped if it did. The variety of handicaps were dreadful, and we were told it was a miracle we had five healthy children as it was. Well we knew it was a miracle all right. It wasn’t too hard to give God His proper authority this time. He’d given us the five we had to raise—good-looking, intelligent, God-fearing children who were a joy to our lives and a blessing to our home. We guessed this time we’d let God make the decision.

Our last child, our beautiful Anastasia, lived only a few hours, which was long enough to ensure her an eternity of delight. What more could anyone ask for their beloved child? She was named from the Remembrance for sinners in the Missal, because although we expect her to remember her parents, make no mistake, we want her to remember we are sinners, too. She’s such a little Saint.

So now we are warned by many, “You were lucky so far, but how dreadful if a child should survive and be handicapped.” Well it hasn’t happened yet. It may never happen and again it might. We think we are being honest with ourselves when we say that we would accept it as one of God’s mysterious blessings—maybe His best one.

I have read of the heroic things the parents of such a child achieve. I read of their special love for such a child. We have five well children. It wouldn’t hurt us to strive to care for a child who was only important because of his immortal soul.

We do not solicit such a situation, because we are frail vessels indeed; but if it should come, we know God will be laughing gently with us. We know that although such an occurrence may be wrapped in the tissue of tragedy, God’s humor will have it chock full of His choicest blessings.

The Suiter Family, 1954
Top Row: Kathleen (my granddaughter Felicity's other grandma!), Eileen, Maureen, Dale
Bottom Row: Kevin, Jeanne, Patrick

Eileen Mannion Suiter

Epilogue 

Baby Anastasia was born and died in 1957, and this piece was written in 1958. About three years later, Eileen suffered a traumatic brain injury after being struck by a car. She was not expected to survive, but she did, living for many more years. 

Although never really her old self again, Eileen had some good and functioning days, retained her charm and humor, and was even able to return to work for a time. Eventually though, a steady decline in memory and mood took over. There was no real treatment for brain injuries back then, and the medications themselves were often contributors to a patient's lapses or confusion.

She and Dale had no more children after Anastasia, but the last part of her story seems prophetic, as she herself became the handicapped person that she had been willing to accept as a gift to her family. We can apply her words to her own circumstance:

We do not solicit such a situation, because we are frail vessels indeed; but if it should come, we know God will be laughing gently with us. We know that although such an occurrence may be wrapped in the tissue of tragedy, God’s humor will have it chock full of His choicest blessings.

Some of Eileen's children and grandchildren have gone on to adopt children with special needs. The fruit of her love, trust, and acceptance of God's will continues to this day in her family, as it grows. With a grateful heart, I thank her for her beautiful witness of the Catholic faith, which has become a gift to all of us, including her great-granddaughter Felicity, who happens to be my granddaughter.

*Eileen's daughter Kathleen is Felicity's other grandma!

My mental breakdown and my spiritual breakthrough, Part One

Part I: The Beginning 


In the summer of 2014, I had what I consider a mental breakdown. I have no idea if that is clinically true, but from my perspective, that's what occurred. I will spare you many, many details, but I am so excited to tell you my story. That may sound strange until or unless you understand that the worst experience of my life so far is the one that I thank God for, nearly every day. I can say without any hesitation that my total breakdown was the very best thing that ever happened to me spiritually.

The first little wave of "trouble", if you will, came in April of 2014 when some tests from my routine physical came back with red flags. More lab work, several scans and images, and an invasive procedure finally ruled out anything serious. But the word "cancer" had popped up more than once, and it was during this week that I had what I call a mini-breakdown (not the big one). My beloved cousin Michelle was battling non-smokers lung cancer at the time, and that gave rise to inordinate fears for myself, I believe.

One thing that came up during those April scans was an incidental discovery of some small nodules on my lungs, which was not the initial area of concern. My doctor told me that they were almost certainly nothing to worry about, but that based on their size and non-calcified state, protocol dictated a follow-up scan in three months. I was a little uneasy, considering Michelle's own surprise diagnosis, but I put it out of my mind and went about preparing for the June birth of my first grandchild and the June wedding of my second daughter.

Here is where a perfect storm of incidents started to gather and rise:

~~ My younger daughter left straight from her wedding reception to her new home across the country. She had lived in our home until that day and it was devastating to say good-bye.

~~ My elder daughter and her husband had announced just weeks earlier that they would be moving half-way across the country themselves, and that this would occur six weeks after my first and much-anticipated grandchild was born. So, more crushing good-byes were to come within weeks of saying good-bye to my younger daughter. Both my daughters, my best friends, would be gone -- just like that.

~~ My father was in precarious health with a recent congestive heart failure diagnosis, a subsequent pacemaker and defibrillator implanted, and a recurrence of cancer. He was in decline, and we didn't know if he was going to live much longer.

~~ My cousin and dear friend Michelle, just 44 and a single mom, was battling deadly, metastatic non-smokers lung cancer, as I mentioned above. She had been the picture of health, vibrancy, and beauty just months earlier, and now she stood to leave us and her three teenaged girls.

~~ My children's most beloved little Catholic elementary school, tiny and loving and a haven of goodness, lost its lease and was closing its doors on short notice. We had been at Kolbe School for over ten years, and it was not only a school to us, it was our community. From faculty to parents to students, we were all family. This was a devastating blow, a real loss for so many. It was our own little diaspora.

~~ And finally, add to this the full-blown hormonal effects of peri-menopause. I had absolutely no idea that hormones could wreak such havoc on a person, especially with all the above stressors in place. I had no idea that a common symptom of peri-menopause was anxiety/panic attacks! How come no one tells us these things??

So many worries, changes, losses, and grief, all at once. But still I was steady and strong. I was coping.

But then it came: The trigger, the spark that lit this tinderbox into an inferno. On July 29, 2014, I received a phone call with the results of my CT scan of the lungs, the routine three-month follow-up after April's scan. Some new nodules found, one oddly shaped, one of the old ones had grown, no need to worry, can't completely rule out metastasis, but have another scan in three months, per protocol.

The stirrings of panic began. New nodules on the lungs? Can't completely rule out metastasis? No need to worry? I asked a couple of questions, pretended to be okay with the answers, and hung up the phone. My mind was a whirlwind and I was unable to concentrate on anything around me. I walked around the house in a daze. I called back and asked the doctor's assistant why I didn't need to be seen earlier, and why this was not more urgent? I feared waiting three months, but simultaneously feared knowing what the nodules were. I just wanted it all to go away. I love my doctor's assistant, and in her kind voice, she sincerely assured me that if the doctor had had any real concerns he would have referred me to a pulmonologist immediately. She could sense my anxiety, though, so she gently suggested that I call the doctor personally at 5:00 the next morning, when he always answered his own calls. I thanked her politely and told her I would.

That evening, Dean and I hosted an engaged couple in our home, to go over their marriage prep (FOCCUS) materials. I was on autopilot. I don't know how I got through it, but for the grace of God. I was full-on acting, because inside the terror was creeping forth, more and more. I went to bed full of fear, from head to toe.

After a fitful sleep, I woke early to call my doctor, and he answered immediately. He heard my fears and gently insisted that I should not be alarmed, that I needed to trust him (and he is a thorough and trustworthy doctor, one who truly cares about his patients). He spent a lot of time with me on the phone, trying to reassure me in different ways. But by the end of the conversation, with my flat affect and short, unconvinced responses, I'm sure he realized that I was not reassured; he probably also remembered my mini-breakdown that past April, when I had had a very uncharacteristic sobbing fit in his office. Those who know me know that I am not a crier.

Because of my clear state of anxiety, my doctor ultimately said that he would get me in to see an excellent pulmonologist, even though it was unnecessary, so that my mind could be set at ease. I knew at that point that nothing the pulmonologist could say would make a difference to me, that the visit could not pull me out of my panic, but I had no other course of action. I can't remember how or when, but before long I had an appointment set up for the following Friday, nine days away. I didn't know then that the pulmonologist didn't even see patients on Fridays, and that he made an exception for me at the request of my primary doctor. Looking back now, in a lucid state, I am grateful to both of them.

So, essentially, that initial phone call with scan results on July 29 marked the start of a 13-day, full-blown, unrelenting panic attack. I don't mean 13 days of high anxiety. I mean a 13-day panic attack. It started in one instant and it never let up until almost two weeks later, with more recovery that came after that. If you have ever had even an hour-long panic attack, you can begin to appreciate what I experienced. It was seemingly never-ending; it went on and on, day after day after day, night after night after night, with no relief.

In my next post, I will bring you into those two weeks with me.

To be continued...

Read Part Two, here.

Fearful? Surrender your will.

This post is going to be pretty stream-of-consciousness, because it's the stuff that has been, well, streaming through my consciousness for many months now. So hard to put it down in words when so many spiritual lessons are pouring down. It's all so amazing and I want to talk to everyone about it all the time, but that is simply not possible. I do think it's easier to talk to people about it one-on-one, rather than write about it. But I will try to write something coherent.

First: If you are full of fear, cede control. Actually, even if you are not full of fear, cede control! Give it up. You are not in control. The only thing you can control is your will. That is all. Nothing else. Nothing else. You certainly cannot control other people, you cannot control circumstances, you cannot end suffering, sickness, disaster, and death. The illusion of control is a detriment to your spiritual life, to your interior peace, and to your relationship with God.

At some point, if you don't give up control, it will be forced from you, and painfully. I had my huge spiritual turning point and near-breakdown in July 2014, which snuck up on me in the middle of my very charmed life, quite unwelcomed. I have promised to tell you about it, and I will, but it's a bit like writing my mother-in-law's conversion story -- big and awe-ful and beautiful and terrifying and hard to express and oh yes, it may turn into a three-parter, just like that one [Note: It actually turned into a four-parter]. Because it's that HUGE in my life. My "breakdown" was the greatest spiritual lesson I ever received. It was both the darkest, most terrifying time of my life and the experience for which I am most grateful. (I hope I learned enough that I never, ever have to repeat anything like it, but I'll leave that decision to God.)

In the aftermath, I keep pondering and learning and processing, talking to others who have had amazingly similar experiences, thinking about the way so many of us move through the world with such fear (even those of us who never consciously knew that we did fear) -- fear of not being in control, fear for our families, our children, our financial security, fear of sickness, of suffering, of loneliness, and ultimately a fear of our own death, which is a subject we love to ignore in this culture of materialism, comfort, convenience, and pleasure-seeking. Anxiety and fear seem to define so many of us (though not all of us, and that is part of the story I'll tell, too).

Yes, I'm rambling.

But guys, this is so big! After I came out of my crisis, God opened up a wealth of knowledge about things that hadn't mattered to me before. I am not special; this has happened to many of you, too. Providentially, things were put in my path that had the exact application for my life at the exact moment and season that I needed them, including a book that I had picked up years ago and put down in boredom, but then picked up again last fall and subsequently had my socks knocked off. I already gushed about that book, here. I have given away many copies, recommended it to countless friends, and I now return to its principles daily hourly.

It's so brilliantly simple. It's about ordering our spiritual life around one central idea, and in doing so we change everything.

From the Forward of this book, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us, by Fr. Wilfrid Stinissen (emphases mine):

... [As Christians] we are told to deny ourselves, forgive one another, carry our cross, fast, and give alms. We must also love our neighbor, pray with others and in private, bring our troubles to the Lord, and be peacemakers. All of these things have their place, and nothing may be overlooked, but they may cause us to feel confused and divided, and we might even ask ourselves where we will find the strength to do all that is required.... We are pulled in different directions, and instead of finding peace, we become restless. What we need most is a central idea, something so basic and comprehensive that it encompasses everything else. In my opinion that central idea is surrender. 

Surrender.

Total abandonment to the will of our Loving Father.

But, what is God's will? It's whatever circumstance you find yourself in right now. The life you are living today is God's will for you today. The people you are in contact with today, the work you are doing today, the cross you are carrying today -- all these are God's will for you, today. You needn't dismiss your current duties, tasks, or interactions, nor look past your current dissatisfactions and restlessness in order to go seek God's mysterious will somewhere "out there", because God is always present to you in this moment -- not only in the joys and satisfactions, but even in the tediums, confusions, aggravations, and grave sufferings.

Live with God in the present.

If you are someone who wallows in the past: You need to stop.

If you are someone who worries about the future: You need to stop.

We are not to live in the past or the future, we are to live in this day and in this moment. If one thing has guided my Lent this year, it's a commitment to live in the moment and not fret about the future ("What if...?") that was my tendency.

Do we trust God or not?

Another thing many of us need to hear: Stop trying to save the world! We are not responsible for that. If you need both living Popes to tell you that straight out so you'll believe it, then here you go, starting with Pope Francis' Lenten Message for 2015 (emphases mine, in light of the theme of surrender):

"The suffering of others is a call to conversion, since their need reminds me of the uncertainty of my own life and my dependence on God and my brothers and sisters. If we humbly implore God’s grace and accept our own limitations, we will trust in the infinite possibilities which God’s love holds out to us. We will also be able to resist the diabolical temptation of thinking that by our own efforts we can save the world and ourselves."

And from Pope Benedict XVI (again, emphases mine):

“There are times when the burden of need and our own limitations might tempt us to become discouraged. But precisely then we are helped by the knowledge that, in the end, we are only instruments in the Lord's hands; and this knowledge frees us from the presumption of thinking that we alone are personally responsible for building a better world. In all humility we will do what we can, and in all humility we will entrust the rest to the Lord. It is God who governs the world, not we. We offer him our service only to the extent that we can, and for as long as he grants us the strength. To do all we can with what strength we have, however, is the task which keeps the good servant of Jesus Christ always at work: 'The love of Christ urges us on' (2 Cor 5:14).”

You got that? You are not in control, and you cannot save the world or even yourself for that matter. So, take that weight off your shoulders and feel peace.


To wrap up today's ramblings:

Stop dwelling on the past (right now!).
Stop worrying about the future (right now!).
Stop trying to control everything (because you can't!).
Stop searching for God's mysterious will somewhere "out there" (because His will for you can be found right where you are!).

Start trusting God in everything. He's got you!
Start abandoning yourself totally to His will.
Start realizing that every person and every circumstance in your life is there for a good reason.
Start seeing God in this moment, right now, because this moment is where He meets you.
Start to feel the peace that Christ gives, the peace that surpasses all understanding. It's real!


Abandon yourself to the God who loves you. Cede control. Surrender.

He can be trusted.

Jesus saves Peter