November 26, 2023
Mass for Suicide Healing and Remembrance – St. Mary’s Cathedral
How fitting that we gather together with those who have lost loved ones to suicide on this day, the Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. Often, we human beings need to be reminded that no matter what happens to us or to our loved ones while on this earth — no matter what storms we human beings endure, no matter how dark the clouds overhead — the love and mercy of Christ conquers all in the end. In Christ, love has the final say. Love wins!
All of us here know people who have lost their lives to suicide. Of course, when it’s a parent, a child, a sibling, a spouse, or a best friend, words cannot describe the shock, the overwhelming grief and pain, the constant second-guessing, and the legacy of anger. Sometimes it feels as if we’ll never know happiness again.
Our hearts go out to those who died from suicide. What we now understand is that suicide is first and foremost a mental health disease, and perhaps the most misunderstood of diseases. It is a breakdown of the emotional immune system, beyond the control of the individual. Only God knows the depth of the emotional pain and anguish that a person goes through. We now understand that a person in such pain is taken out of life against his or her own will. That’s why we speak of someone as a “victim” of suicide.
I was truly touched by learning of the experience of Bishop John Dolan of the Diocese of Phoenix, who has lost siblings to suicide. When he was a teenager, his older brother, whom he idolized, fell in with the wrong crowd, started using drugs, and was sent to prison because of his involvement in a robbery. While in prison, though it seemed he was turning his life around, he [died by suicide]. He and his family were devastated beyond words.
Then the unthinkable happened a few years later. He wrote, “We had gathered together for Thanksgiving dinner, the table was set, and we were waiting for my sister Therese and her husband, Joe, to arrive. Instead, the police showed up and told us the horrible news that Therese had [died by suicide] in a local canyon just hours earlier. Then the news got worse. The police officers told us that Joe was expected to tell my parents about my sister’s death, but instead he died by suicide … that morning” (Responding to Suicide: A Pastoral Handbook for Catholic Leaders, p. 7). He knew that Therese and his family had struggled for years with depression and suicidal thoughts, but they didn’t talk about it or seek any counseling.
Bishop John never really dealt with any of it until in his unhappiness as a young priest he asked for a leave of absence. With a good counselor and a spiritual director, he began to process his grief. This process changed him and brought him a joy that is with him to this day. He simply said, “I abide in his love who has loved me first.”
His advice is to tell your story to others, so that others can benefit from it. He said, “If you are a survivor of one who has died by suicide, you will have your own story. Tell your story. It will only bring growth. But if your story does not begin and end with being yourself, with the unique Christian self that God has made you to be, your journey will be difficult and your story will be incomplete. Christ never wanted our journeys to be difficult. In him, even with tragedies and daily crosses, we can find joy. Only in Christ will we have complete joy.”
As a priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross, our motto is Ave Crux, Spes Unica: Hail the Cross, Our Only Hope. Our symbol is a cross with anchors. It means that in the storms of life, the cross is a sure anchor. It is also the tree of life. Who would have thought that the death of Christ who was nailed to a Roman torture instrument, would lead to resurrection? Can we finally dare to believe that the worst thing that could happen to our loved ones, if accepted, can bring about our spiritual transformation and be a blessing for others?
My congregation was placed under the patronage of Our Lady of Sorrows. Our Constitutions state that, “There stood by the cross of Jesus his mother Mary, who knew grief and was a Lady of Sorrows. She is our special patroness, a woman who bore much she could not understand and who stood fast. Like Mary, many of you have born much you could not understand when you lost a loved one — as she did — in a sudden and violent way. She also holds you close.
I am glad that our Church has come to a much more enlightened understanding of suicide, in large measure because it has embraced modern psychology. I grieve to think of those people in the past who lost loved ones to suicide, and who were denied a funeral Mass or burial in a Catholic cemetery.
I recently read a book of letters that children wrote to Pope Francis. Francis wrote to a boy named Ivan about God’s mercy: “Once, a woman went to a holy priest whose name was John Maria Vianney. He was the pastor of a parish in Ars, in France. The woman began to cry, because she lost her husband when he jumped off a bridge. She was desperate because she thought that her husband had certainly ended up in hell. But Father John Maria, who was a saint, said to her, ‘Look, between the bridge and the river, there is the mercy of God.’”
We must be bearers of hope and mercy to those affected by suicide. We can begin by acknowledging grief does not go away. We need to accept help from many places: counseling, spiritual direction, and the support of family and friends. We can ask ourselves: Who needs to hear my story and when and how will I tell my story? We need to reflect on how we can help others affected by suicide to tell their stories, too, so that they can find healing.
I’m so pleased that the Diocese of St. Cloud has established a new Mental Health Ministry. Our guiding vision is a world in which the dignity of everyone impacted by mental health challenges is affirmed, all stigma associated with these realities is removed, and all are empowered through the sharing of Christ’s message of mercy, hope and justice.
May God touch our hearts where we still grieve and are in pain, and may each of us become Christ’s ambassadors of mercy, hope, and justice!
Bishop Patrick Neary, C.S.C.
Diocese of Saint Cloud