CAUTION: This story contains references to suicide and grief.
As we prepare ourselves for Holy Week, there are some in our community who understand better than most the suffering that Jesus endured, but also how out of darkness and tragedy can come some form of personal resurrection.
Tony and Barbara* are one such couple.
Members of the Diocese for more than 40 years, their youngest son died by suicide 15 years ago. Since then they have been on a long spiritual journey back from the deep despair and abandonment they felt at the time of his death, to a point now where they feel more than ever supported by, and involved in, their Catholic faith.
Nevertheless, they say this journey is ongoing: nothing can make up for the loss they have suffered, and they are still pushing the Church for better spiritual support for loved ones affected by suicide.
This is part of their mission to make sure that in the future other families in the same situation don’t suffer as they did. They have also set up a bursary that funds a PhD student in the field of schizophrenia research, which their son suffered from.
Tony says this journey has made him more able to question God and be angry at God, but also be a more compassionate person, and someone ultimately strengthened by his faith.
“My son’s death has brought me back to being an involved Catholic,” he says. “I now feel more comfortable in myself, and a lot of my religious beliefs are stronger now.”
He says he was never good at praying – “my prayers are my thoughts” – and in the early years he attended support groups run by Wesley Mission and The Salvation Army, and private counselling through his employer, all of which he says were “excellent” and “very comforting”. The missing piece was the spiritual healing he felt he needed, but which he says the Catholic Church was unable to provide in a coordinated way.
“I wanted to be able to talk about this in a spiritual context,” he says. “The Church was not good at dealing with this. Sure, if your husband dies there’s grief counselling for that, but not for anything else.”
Now after years of struggle, he feels able to question his faith just as Jesus did on the Cross when He cried out: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”.
“If He can say that, I can say it to Him,” Tony says.
For Barbara, grief “slowly settled in” around her until finally, she says, she felt she had to make a choice: “Walk away from faith or persist.” But the longer she persisted, the more she realised it was not a choice.
“Through the deep despair, darkness, hopelessness, consuming grief and searching – slowly, slowly we came to understand that in fact we were not going through this by ourselves,” she says.
“Jesus was walking with us on our journey every step of the way, and still is.”
If this article has raised issues for you, you can contact Catholic Care on (02) 8843 2500, Lifeline Australia on 13 11 14, or Beyond Blue at www.beyondblue.org.au
This article was originally published in the 2024 Easter | Autumn edition of the Catholic Outlook Magazine. You can read the digital version here or pick up a copy in your local parish.
*Names have been changed.
