Two Journeys: Father and Son Wresting Meaning and Hope Through Suffering, Forgiveness, and Prayer

By Joe Smith

This book is about the spiritual journey of two people, a father and his son, who found purpose and meaning in their lives through their individual episodes of suffering, their struggle to forgive, and their faith in the power of prayer. As Joe journeys with his son Christopher during the final weeks of his short life, he acknowledges the profound spiritual learning that he experiences as he witnesses the courageous and truly Christian behavior of his son. The experience is so utterly powerful that Joe felt compelled to share it with other people who may also be struggling to understand suffering, forgiveness, and prayer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669847984

Joe Smith

After a very successful career as a corporate executive, Joe Smith decided to take early retirement in order to pursue a second career as a pastoral minister in the Catholic Church. In order to prepare himself properly for this calling, Joe achieved several academic degrees including a MA in Pastoral Ministry, MA of Theology from Boston College, and a doctor of ministry from Andover Newton Theological School. Additionally, Joe became a board-certified Catholic chaplain, a certified spiritual director, and a permanent deacon in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston.

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Rev. date: 10/12/2022

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CONTENTS

Abstract

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1   Father and Son: Finding Meaning in the Midst of Suffering

Chapter 2   The Pursuit of Meaning in the Midst of Suffering

Chapter 3   Accepting Suffering: A Pathway to Meaning-Making and Hope

Chapter 4   Embracing Forgiveness: An Intimate Connection to Meaning and Hope

Chapter 5   Prayer: The Door that Opens the Horizon of Meaning-Making and Hope

Chapter 6   Conclusion

Epilogue

Bibliography

I

dedicate this writing and this degree to my wife Nancy and to my children, Joseph, Matthew, David, and Kathleen. Each of you has contributed to this project in your own unique way, and I thank you for that. Most especially, I dedicate this project to you, Chris, because without you, this project would never have happened. Through you, Chris, my Christian faith, hope, and love have deepened to a level that was made possible by your example. I love you with all of my heart and soul.

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this dissertation is articulate how it is possible for a person to find meaning and Christian hope through suffering, forgiveness, and prayer.

[Motivation] Throughout the course of life, we continually seek to find meaning through the various experiences that come about including our joys and successes, as well as our trials and tribulations. Seen through the lens of the Christian faith, profound meaning-making can be found through suffering, the need to forgive, and the need for prayer. [Research Focus] This project focuses on the reality of personal experiences of suffering, forgiveness, and prayer as essential catalysts for finding meaning and hope in life. [Research Methods] This project met research aims through the inclusion of various authors who offer particular insights relevant to each major section of the project. The project engages both my own personal narrative and the personal narrative of my son with insights from the authors. [Conclusions] The main conclusion drawn from this project is that profound meaning and Christian hope can be found through the acceptance and understanding of suffering, forgiveness, and prayer. [Recommendation] This project offers pastoral ministers and other people who seek a closer relationship with God, an example of how one can find meaning and hope through suffering, forgiveness, and prayer.

PREFACE

What is it that brought me to this point in time—this point in my life where I feel compelled to write about what for me is the true meaning and purpose in life? Like most other people, I am a person who has experienced many things in life that have in one way or another shaped who I have become today. Like other people, my lifetime journey was never a straight line from here to there, rather, my journey was one that began in one place as a result of circumstance and moved to another place as a consequence of that circumstance. More often than not, that place where I landed was not always planned, it seemed to evolve as other influencing circumstances entered into the equation of my life. My lifetime journey has been one that has witnessed a myriad of trials and tribulations, joys and successes, dark moments and holy moments, growth and decay, and new life and end of life.

What prompts me to write this paper stems from the journey of my son Christopher, who died at the age of twenty-nine from cancer, and my own journey along with him. It is about how Chris found meaning and purpose during his final days, and how through witnessing my beautiful son, I found my own meaning and purpose. This meaning-making is intimately related to my Christian faith and the fact that my meaning-making is deeply connected to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

I have found that with a transcendent reference point, the grief process has transformed into one of the most meaningful and spirit-filled times of my life. Central to this understanding is the belief that the Christian religion is good news because it announces how God out of love and mercy reconciles humankind back to God’s self. This salvific action by God occurs in the present as the believer freely chooses to accept God’s gratuitous offer and transform interiorly into a reflection of Christ. This interior transformation ensures that death is not the end but a transition from this life to eternal life in the presence of God. Hence, the meaning-making process becomes one that seeks to understand all experiences, feelings, and thoughts through the trust and belief that God is active and alive in this present life and in the life to come. The capacity to understand and participate in this transformative meaning-making process is available to all people but requires one to freely choose God’s self-revelation that comes to completion and perfection in and through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh who alone brings salvation to the world.

But how is it that some people, who call themselves Christian, are able to transform experiences, thoughts, and feelings into life-giving spiritual meaning-making encounters while others seem to struggle? Is it possible that there are experiences in this world that are meaningless and that offer no appropriate explanation or rational purpose for what has taken place? Certainly, there have been tragedies throughout history that defy meaning and purpose, and simply block the rational human mind from accepting the experience as one that has the capacity to create life-giving meaning and purpose. Yet the human mind and spirit do have the capacity to find even the smallest ray of light in the midst of the most heinous events in recorded history. Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning¹ recalls the horrific events that took place in the Nazi death camps in which he argues that we cannot avoid suffering, but we can choose the attitude we take toward it, how we cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Although Frankl’s great work focuses exclusively on his theory that a person’s primary drive in life is not pleasure but the pursuit and embracing of meaning that comes about in the very act of living, his work does lay the foundation for what is necessary for spiritual meaning-making. For it is the very act of living, living in light of the Gospel of Christ that Christians find true meaning and purpose in living. Human beings journey through life accepting the various trials and tribulations that will inevitably cross their paths, and faithfully continue to move forward knowing that eternal life awaits those who trust in the promises of Christ. And so it is with countless men and women throughout the ages who have experienced pain and suffering in various ways and have been able to move forward with a sense of meaning and purpose that transcends this world.

This incredible experience began the very day that Chris was diagnosed with stage four melanoma. While both his mother and I were completely stunned when the oncologist informed Chris of his condition, he simply looked at the floor then up at me and said, Mom and Dad, don’t feel bad; I don’t want you to feel bad. It was as if he had already accepted his fate and made the conscious decision to live out the rest of his life as fully as he could, which included a positive frame of mind. Moreover, he told us repeatedly that he did not want to die in bed. He had every intention of living each of his final days to the very fullest of his ability. As the weeks painfully moved along and as his condition worsened, Chris demonstrated incredible interior strength as he never once felt sorry for himself, rather, he was more concerned about what life would be like for others after he died. Chris demonstrated, in a most beautiful way, the need for human relations as we journey through this life together.

During the final eight weeks of his life, Chris and I engaged in many conversations ranging from practical issues that were pertinent to the lives of his siblings, to deep spiritual conversations that focused on the meaning of life in this physical world, and the importance of living in such a way so as to be able to interpret experiences of this life through the lens of Christian faith. Chris, much like my mother, chose to accept his pain and suffering as an opportunity to participate in the passion and death of Christ. Up until the very end, Chris would literally struggle to breathe and endure his excruciating pain in order to remain present with his loved ones. He would say, Dad, I’m OK, please don’t feel bad. Yet I could see the pain and suffering that he was enduring as he would roll on the floor seeking relief from relentless cancer that had invaded his lungs, liver, and brain.

Each day, I would bring Holy Eucharist to Chris, and together, we would pray and talk about eternal life. He would bravely enter into discussion and offer insights that were unique to a dying person, insights that have helped inform and shape my own spiritual journey. Moreover, he chose to receive the sacrament of reconciliation and the sacrament of the sick essentially because he firmly believed in and openly acknowledged the presence of the Holy Spirit in each of the sacraments.

While Chris demonstrated to me and his family precisely what it means to be a faithful and trusting Catholic man, his acts of seeking and offering forgiveness were transformative for those around him. He freely chose to reconcile with certain people that he thought he may have been at odds. One of those people was one of his brothers. Chris sat face to face with his brother and humbly said, Matt, I’m sorry for the times that I offended you. Please forgive me. I also forgive you for the times that you violated me. I forgive you. I did not want you to go on with your life after I die regretting that we did not have this conversation. I firmly believe that there cannot be a more pleasing and holy prayer that a human can utter than the one that Chris shared with his brother.

And so Chris demonstrated to me and others that the pursuit and attainment of Christian hope can be found through a deeper understanding of the true meaning and purpose of life, the acceptance of suffering, the embracing of forgiveness, and the intimate connection between prayer and hope. This writing is about how the final days of Chris’s life enabled me to understand the vital connection between meaning-making, suffering, forgiveness, and prayer toward finding true Christian hope.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

While there have been many people involved with this project offering conversation, advice, and encouragement, there is one person who clearly stands out as an invaluable source of guidance: Professor Brita Gill-Austern. Through her generous sharing of time and energy, Brita has afforded me immeasurable wisdom, knowledge, and experience that has allowed me to effectively journey through this project. Moreover, she openly shared her own spiritual journey and relationship with God which helped me to go to a deeper place within myself as I sought to more clearly reveal God’s presence within this project. Without question, God graciously placed Professor Brita Gill-Austern along the path of my life guiding me through this project. I would also like to thank Professors Sharon Thornton and Melissa Kelly for their valuable advice and guidance. And finally, I would like to thank my friend, Fr. John Grimes, who was actively involved in my life during the final weeks of Chris’s life.

INTRODUCTION

****I). Personal Story

This paper is about my faith journey, a journey that has witnessed many experiences of joy, happiness, and holy encounters, and at the same time encounters with suffering, pain, and sorrow. Most particularly, it reflects on how the death and dying of my son Chris have influenced my own understanding of meaning-making in the midst of suffering. I feel compelled to write about this journey because, along the way, the various chapters of my life were largely influenced by how I found meaning and purpose in the pursuit of answering the question, What is this life really all about? For a significant period of my life, meaning-making was the pursuit of things in this physical world that seemed to be necessary and important in order for my life to be considered successful. Thus, I found meaning and purpose in life through the pursuit and attainment of prestige, power, and wealth. Yet in the midst of this pursuit, I gradually came to understand that true fulfillment and purpose in life were about the pursuit and the embracing of a way of life that reflected who God created me to be: a being created in the image and likeness of God. Hence, my meaning-making process became influenced by my spiritual growth and my faith in the promises of Christ, who proclaimed, For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it (Matt. 16:25, RSV). Now as my faith journey continues to unfold, I have come to the realization that my meaning-making process is intimately and inseparably connected to Christian hope, the unwavering conviction that God bestows eternal life to those who die to the ways of this world and rise to a new way of life in this world as a reflection of Christ.

As I reflect back, I can say with certainty that very early in life, my pursuit of meaning was always present. Although I was not consciously seeking meaning in a deliberate way for I was much too young to understand such a complex subject, I nevertheless remember thinking about why I was being asked to do certain things in life. As a young boy growing up in the midst of a chaotic and dysfunctional family setting, I remember thinking that already life was hard and difficult to understand and endure. Somehow, I instinctively knew that life could not possibly be about the constant pain and suffering that I was forced to endure, there had to be more that gave life meaning, positive meaning that made life worth living.

I clearly remember thinking how miserable life was for me as a small boy as I was forced to accept a seemingly endless list of chores around the house while my friends would be outside playing. I painfully recall the terrible physical and emotional abuse that was inflicted upon me that always left me frightened and emotionally confused. In fact, on many occasions, I can remember crying myself to sleep at night wondering if my mother and father loved me, and if they did love me, why were they so demanding and abusive? Why did they never tell me they loved me? Even at that young and tender age, I was already trying to understand the world that I lived in, and desperately seeking meaning and purpose in my life.

And so as my life began to unfold, meaning and purpose were about work, work, work, with no time to play. It was about pleasing my parents so as to avert further abuse. It was about living out of fear. Life was not meant to be joyous and happy, there was no time for that! Needless to say, I had a much-distorted view of the true meaning and purpose of life.

Yet, in the midst of this chaotic setting, somehow, my faith journey was taking root. Early in life, my mother was very instrumental in developing my spirituality. In spite of her incredibly crazy way of being (as I reflect back now, I am convinced that my mother was mentally ill), she was able to instill deep spiritual roots within me. And while I am grateful for this now as I look back, I think that her efforts to instill faith and trust in God only confused me more. On the one hand, I was continually exposed to an unholy way of being, and on the other hand, I was constantly encouraged to seek God in prayer. The only connection between the two seemingly contradictory ways of being was that my mother always encouraged me to accept my sufferings as a way to participate in the passion of Christ. In fact, my mother always insisted that suffering and pain were very important aspects of life. We were not placed here on earth to play and be happy; we were placed here to work hard, endure our suffering and pain, and in so doing, we would be pleasing to God. While this way of thinking could very well be considered masochistic, it was nevertheless the way that I grew up, and it was not until later on in life that I was able to recognize the difference between unjust suffering and normal suffering.

However, the somewhat distorted understanding of suffering and pain that I got from my mother remained with me for much of my life and provided me with a framework through which I was able to survive and therefore find meaning in life. As I worked my way through high school, the military, college, and my corporate career, life for me was about working hard, enduring suffering and pain, and praying regularly, which gave meaning to my life and proved to be instrumental in attaining success in life. In fact, I would go so far saying that this is what defined me as a person. I was driven to be successful probably because deep down within my subconscious, this formula of working hard, enduring suffering and pain, and praying regularly would be pleasing to my overly demanding parents. By succeeding in life in ways that neither of my parents was able to attain, I would be able to forever silence their abusive voices.

However, as my corporate life reached its pinnacle, I began to question this meaning-making formula or at least the motive behind the formula. For a large portion of my life, I was driven to succeed with success being defined as the attainment of prestige, power, and wealth. This gave me meaning and purpose in life. Yet in the midst of this worldly pursuit, my spiritual life was continuing to deepen, and serious questions about the true meaning and purpose of life began to surface. Two years before I left the corporate world, I can remember sitting in my office reflecting upon what was the true meaning and purpose of life. As I sat there reflecting upon the success that I had achieved as it relates to prestige, power, and wealth, I began to experience a distinct empty feeling within myself. There was a growing sense that life was really not about where I was moving, there was something more. In fact, it was becoming more and more apparent that the meaning-making process that I had relied upon for most of my life was nothing more than an illusion that was made up of false meaning, false promises, and false hope. While this worked for me for many years, I was now recognizing that it was beginning to break down, it no longer had the value that it once had. There was something else at play that was seeking to take center stage in my meaning-making.

I knew precisely what was going on. My spiritual life had grown significantly over the years in spite of my corporate pursuits. In the midst of my corporate goals and aspirations,