There was no fear, no anger. But there were low spots—witnessed only by her husband.
After three months and more tests, Maria learned that the cancer was spreading, and this time the doctors recommended radiation. She agreed. Again, she took charge of her treatment and her outward behavior, but this time she suffered many more side effects, including fatigue and loss of hair. She withdrew inside herself and came to Mass only occasionally. People began to ask about her. I knew more than anyone, including her children, but I told people, “She needs some time for herself.”
Whenever she called, I visited her at home. She would call me whenever she needed an ear, often to vent about her doctors. During these visits, I did a good deal of pastoral counseling, but we did not do much praying.
After several months of radiation, she showed dramatic improvement and then started a rigorous cycle of treatment—radiation, then chemotherapy, followed by more radiation and chemotherapy—lasting more than six months. For the first time, she asked, “What do you think God wants me to do with this?” I responded, “What do you mean?” She said, “Does God have a plan for my treatment? Shall I continue it or stop it?”
I told her, “I don’t know the mind of God—never known it, never will know it.”
Maria said, “I believe God has a plan for my treatment, but I can’t know it for sure.” She asked me to pray for her that God would give her wisdom to know God’s will.
“Prayer alone is not enough,” I said. “We need to have conversations to discern God’s will.” I left it with her to call me back.
After a couple of weeks, she called. When we met at her home, she said, “I keep asking, ‘Is this God’s will or my will?’ I think I’ve decided it’s my will when the choices involve control and purpose—something visible and tangible. And it’s God’s will when the choices are open-ended. I think God’s telling me, ‘I am with you. I just want you to fall back into my arms.’” Then she asked me to pray, and I asked God for perspective—to give Maria the wisdom to understand how her will and God’s will were intertwined.
Following this dramatic spiritual insight, she endured more tests and chemotherapy, and then she received word: remission. Now her fighter instincts returned. She was in charge. “I’m going to beat this,” she told me. “I won.”
All the talk about God ended. I wondered where this was going. I had so many questions, but I didn’t discuss them with her.
The remission lasted more than a year and a half. But one day after Sunday Mass, she came to me in the foyer again—same place, same time, with the same prayer for discernment. The cancer had returned, and this time it was a very invasive form of cancer, affecting not only the lymph nodes but other parts of her body as well. The doctors recommended an aggressive course of chemotherapy. I prayed that God would grant her discernment to know the right path.
This time she decided to fight on her own and chose a program of alternative medicine. She went into it aggressively with vitamins and a new diet of herbs and health foods. She went full speed ahead into this attack on her disease. It was as if she was saying, “I beat this with surgery. Then I beat it with chemotherapy and radiation. Now I’m going to prove the doctors are wrong and beat it by myself.”
She convinced her family. “There’s no way in hell this will beat her,” they told me. “She’ll beat anything under the sun. She knows better than her doctors how to handle her disease.” To my surprise, she went into remission.
As her spiritual counselor, I noticed she stopped talking about God and God’s guidance to give her wisdom. I found this very disconcerting. I never said this to her, but I thought that if the cancer reappeared, the battle would be nastier than anything she had ever seen. It would be the end of her life.
During this period of alternative medicine, she would stop me after Sunday Mass. We talked about her cooking and other day-to-day matters. We did not meet regularly. Everything seemed satisfactory.
But then the cancer returned, and this time it was in the early stages of metastasis. She was completely and absolutely devastated. And so we had another prayer moment in the foyer of the church. I prayed that God would give her the courage and strength to listen to her doctor. She called me immediately after her consultation with the doctor, who had recommended treatment with a highly experimental drug currently in clinical trials. They spoke on Friday, and the doctor told her he had to know by Monday if she was interested.
We met on Sunday afternoon. Maria was totally miserable and very depressed. She was angry with God, with her husband, and with herself. She was all over the place. Her opening line to me was,“I can’t fight this anymore.”
At this point her husband emerged from his quietude and told Maria that he loved her very much and wanted her to know that he was her faithful companion for whatever might lie ahead. He would be with her no matter what. I was moved by his wisdom and love for her. His affirmation of her quelled the distress and depression in her heart and soul. The next day she called with her decision: no more treatment. “I wanted you to know,” she said. “Now is the time for me ‘to prepare myself to meet the One who loves me,’ and I am counting on your help.”
I was astounded. I feared that she believed God had abandoned her. Her affirmation of preparing to meet God face to face touched my soul. It was the first time anyone had told me this. I burst into tears.
A few days later, she said, “I need your help in this process. I want you to pray with me. I want you to be with me when I pray. I don’t want to do this alone.”
“What about your husband?” I asked.
“No, I don’t want to burden him with anything more.”
This was the beginning of my extraordinary prayer sessions with Maria. When I would arrive at her home, I would go to her bedroom. She was dressed and ready, sitting in one of two chairs placed side by side.
At the first session, I pressed her to explain what she actually wanted me to do. She declared, “I can’t do this unless someone else is listening to me. Things in my life are not settled. I need to go into a new territory. I need to say it out loud.” She said she wanted to be honest enough “so I can meet God. Otherwise, he’ll see right through me.” She continued, “I can do this if you will be here with me.”
We met weekly in the late afternoons or Saturday mornings. Sometimes she sent her husband away. We held hands.
Here’s what she did. She went methodically through every relationship with every person in her family—alive or dead—covering all kinds of unresolved issues. In many of these incidents, she had been mean or cruel. She started with her mother, then her father, then her siblings, other members of her family, and some friends. She described these events in unbelievable detail.
She led; I followed as her prayer companion. I never prayed aloud, but silently I asked God that she would trust me. And she did trust me. She told me about some painful things she had done. She had willed them and she knew it. That kind of exposure really surprised me. All I could do was listen. It was almost like watching Maria talk to someone on the other side. It was an actual conversation with God and the person she hurt. She did it all. She wanted reconciliation, and she knew it was up to her. It was as if she had decided, “Death is my last choice.”
As Maria weakened, she said her prayers from her bed. I sat on the bed, holding her hand. Sometimes her husband sat at the foot of the bed. The prayers began with silence, and then she would start to speak in a stream of consciousness. “What I feel in my
