Good Friday

The Resurrection of Christ was God’s supreme and wholly marvelous work.
St. Augustin

It’s probably three decades ago, but he remains one of the most memorable, and certainly the most odious, human beings I’ve ever met. He was a modern day Gestas, the impenitent thief crucified – by tradition – to the left of Jesus.

First in the prison infirmary. Then daily for more than a month while he was handcuffed to a bed in a hospital prison unit.

By the grace of God, I no longer remember the full history of his crimes; I do remember they included murders and cringe-inducing acts of horror.

When the inoperable, terminal diagnosis came down, I was asked – as part of my chaplain’s role – to discuss end-of-life issues, including Do Not Resuscitate orders.  He would have none of it. One night, after I had been visiting him almost daily in the hospital for three weeks, frustrated nurses pulled me aside. “Father Flynn, something has to happen. He is bleeding out of every place; he’s bleeding through his skin, through his mouth and nose and eyes, everyplace. He’s dying and there’s nothing we can do. Please, please ask him to sign a No Code. If he were a dog, we’d have put him down weeks ago.” 

“I’m going to die. But I’m going to cost the State every penny I can,” he insisted. At the time, he was receiving more than five units of whole blood a day, but refused to consider allowing himself to die – peacefully and with as little pain as possible. His hospital bill was more than 14 pages and $150,000 – a lot of money in 1989, but in his anger, he refused to die.

Some years later, a young inmate walked into my office. “Did you know John G.?” 

“Yes.”

“How did he die?” 

“I’m sorry. I’m really not supposed to speak about that.”

“I need to know. How did he die?”

“I’m sorry….”

“Was he in pain? Tell me! He was my father.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Tell me how he died.” 

The pace, the inflections of his voice. The expression on his face. I broke all the rules. “I’m sorry. He died the most difficult, the most painful death I’ve ever seen.”

“Good. He was a son-of-a-bitch to my mother and to me.” He turned and walked out.

As a reporter prior to entering the seminary, I had the unique experience of interviewing Sister Marie Carol, OP shortly after she survived a nearly fatal accident on the Florida State Turnpike.  

It’s now more than half a century since that meeting and some things may be a little blurry, but I still remember her understanding of Death and the Resurrection. Sister, who headed the Speech and Drama Department of Miami’s Barry College (now Barry University) and was often referred to as “one of the great women of the American stage,” had been travelling several times a week back-and-forth to the diocesan seminary in Boynton Beach – about an hour’s ride up the Turnpike, where she was directing a production of A Man For All Seasons. 

One night, headed back to Miami with two preteens in the front seat (these were the days before seatbelt laws), Sister realized that an apparently drunk driver was swerving lane-to-lane and was certain to slam full into her. In an instant she recognized her choices: Take her car into the highway-side canal and risk the children being trapped and drowning or attempt to take the car into the wooded area on the driver’s side and aim it so that her side would take the full brunt of the impact. 

She chose the latter and, just before impact, threw her body across the front seat to cushion the blow on the kids, praying “Dear God, not the children.”

In the hospital, Sister recounted how, when Fire Rescue and police were using the jaws-of-life to cut her from the wreck, “I must have said some very un-nun-like things. Then I would apologize and tell them ‘I’m sorry. I’m a nun and I’m not supposed to say that sort of thing’ and then I would say it again and apologize again.”

As I recall, Sister had been a national championship caliber diver and named to the US Olympic team when she was faced with a significant conflict. Her entry into the Dominican Sisters was scheduled for the same time as the Olympics. As painful as it was, she chose the convent.  The anonymity of the convent over the glory of the Olympics. “It was a ‘death-to-self’ with a little D,” she explained. 

“All my years in religious life have been filled with deaths-to-self with little Ds and always followed by resurrections with small Rs. Help a student and miss dinner. Death-to-self. Years later see that student get a Broadway role – resurrection. Go out of my way to help another Sister at expense to myself. Death-to-self with a small D. An unexpected thank you days or weeks later. Resurrection with a small R.

“So, it only made sense. If God has consistently granted me small resurrections all these years, He must surely grant me a final Resurrection.” 

The birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus
Means that everything sad will one day come untrue.
J.R.R. Tolkien