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Beyond Mortality: A Priest's Challenge to Love While You Can · My Brother's Journey

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, welcome back to my brother's journey.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'm half the tag team here.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Brett Joseph Chuck, and with me is Baron, great to see you again.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's been uh been a while, and I am so unbelievably excited about this morning because with us.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: Go ahead.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: Father Bernard.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: Father Bernard.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: Good morning, Father.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: Good morning.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: Good to have you here with us.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: We're delighted to have you, and we've been trying to have you for quite a while, and uh we're we finally captured you, so I'm excited about that.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, uh, Baron, we always start with a prayer.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna, if it's okay, I'm gonna toss it over to you.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, absolutely.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Name is Father, Son, Holy Spirit, amen.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Dear Lord, we're grateful for this opportunity to get together, Lord, to share just our experience with living in this world with you, Lord, to follow your will, to to seek understanding, Lord.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And we uh we pray that you help us uh further our mission, which is always to bring people to you.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Help us to do that uh today.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: In Christ's name we pray.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: Fire Son, the Holy Spirit, amen.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um so today is going to be kind of a I think a heavier, meatier subject.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if it gets any heavier or meatier than mortality and hospice care and immortality.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: And uh the reason that I'd like to talk about this is and and and and maybe I've never done this before, but I'm actually going to um dedicate this podcast segment um to uh my father-in-law, Ron Walzinski.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sorry about that.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, my father-in-law Ron, who uh passed away um a couple weeks ago, um, and that is uh why I was on a two-week hiatus, and I'm glad to be back.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um but uh as I briefly mentioned to you, Baron, just before we uh started the podcast, um this is the first time that I have ever been in a room when somebody passed away.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and actually um I was in that room with my father-in-law for about six days while he was transitioning.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: And um so I wasn't there when my my dad, my own dad passed away, I wasn't there when my mom passed away, and uh so I had never been in that situation before, father, unlike probably you.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: I I would imagine you've been into many of those cases.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, so um in many ways, I was an observer in many ways, right?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I was a participant in the in the fact that I I prayed.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: I prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet, I had other prayers for the dying, uh, that I had, Catholic prayers that I had looked up, um, and I prayed.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it really got me thinking as as I was watching other people come in and out of the room and kind of uh, you know, the first the first few few days uh he was lucid uh and and and he could talk to to others, but over time less so, and then and then he went into a coma.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um and uh it was amazing for someone that was so cancer-ridden and was really down to just a skeleton with skin, um, how much strength was still in his grip?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and um and how long it it actually took him to pass away.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, his and I asked a good friend of ours who was providing hospice, she's a uh a uh nurse practitioner that does hospice work.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, you know, is this usual or is this unusual?
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: And and she said, Well, you know, he he was very active, and he so she said, he has a very strong heart and very strong lungs, even though the rest of his body is shutting down.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: She said, you know, and so that really got me thinking about mortality, our own mortality, but then immortality, you know, as the soul separates from the body.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: And and and, you know, where does the soul go, of course?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: Does it go to heaven?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: Does it go to hell?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: Does it go to purgatory?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: We know that judgment, or at least the belief is that judgment is immediate, at death, that at the point of death, immediately, Christ has judged that that soul.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: So that got that still has me thinking.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, the other thing I think I was thinking about, and you brought it up actually, is this whole this whole expression of love.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: Now, Ron was very fortunate in that he had a very loving family.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: He himself was a very loving man.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so, even though he only had two children, um, my wife and and her brother, um, you know, they had children, and and now our children are having children, and um all of us were surrounding him with love and being there and praying and and and holding up his wife.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I, you know, I guess my thought is he's he's fortunate.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: He's a fortunate man in the sense that he had a family that loved him, that didn't wait to sell his break his life until the very end.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, my my wife's family had family reunions every year for probably the last at least 40 years.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: Every single he had seven brothers and sisters, came from a large family.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: Every year, including this year, they had their family reunion.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that's kids and grandkids and great-grandkids.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: My family never had that.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: The only time I ever saw my family, my aunts and uncles, generally speaking, was at funerals and weddings.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: That was it.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I didn't have that growing up, but they did.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: But I wonder, Father, like you, you're you're in a lot of these situations.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: How heartbreaking is it for you to observe people that only come into that hospital room at the very end of a person's life to show them hopefully their love and respect for that person.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: And and and and and waste waste that time that God gave them to to show love throughout that person's life instead of the very yet.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really so happy to be here with you guys today, and um I'm so excited that I'm able to be here to speak about one of the things that is really very close to my heart, and that is love at the end.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Or love outside the hospice, love beyond hospice.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: As a priest, this has been the ministry that is so challenging to me and the hospice ministry.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I remember I spoke to a man who is working in the hospice, and the man told me that last year he witnessed close to 420 people die from the hospice.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: So it is really difficult when you get into the place and see families there showing love to their loved ones, saying goodbye to their loved ones.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: But I have always thought that how I wish the love of the hospice could be taken out and it becomes the love of families.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: The love I encounter in the hospice when I go around different rooms, could that come back to the families?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's very difficult in the end things, the reality of the end things, and um, we have death, we have judgment, we have hell, and we have heaven for end realities, and when it comes, I know it's very difficult.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: But the Lord is asking us, we are not just preparing for death, our preparation is for heaven, and for us to get ready for heaven, it doesn't matter how many years the person lived, it doesn't matter how the person died.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: The goal is to see Christ who resurrected, who is the resurrection and the life.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, and that is why we preach, um, from what I see, sometimes it's really heartbreaking.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: When you see families who never come together, those who never met their parents for many years, those who never sit cared to see their sons or daughters.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: But at the point of death, when they are in the hospice, people are flying in to show love, people are flying in, oh I'm flying in.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Why are you flying in?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: When this guy was alive, healthy, and active, conscious, you deny the person love.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: You never cared.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: But at the point of death, when the person can hardly feel this, the love you are given, you are flying in.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is the thing that Jesus would have said.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Woe to you! Woe to you, hypocrites, and this is really what I really I feel so touched saying this.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's it's a hard reality.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: But first of all, I think we need to begin to love from the family.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: When we love from the family, at the point of dying, wouldn't be so difficult again to let go.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I agree 100%.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: It actually starts way before that.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you mentioned, I mean, you know, we'll all reach that point at some, you know, when we are dying ourselves, but we're dying every day.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're just getting a little bit closer with that.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so why should today, why should that day need to be any different than this day?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Why would I not spend this day, you know, reestablishing or rekindling relationships with my friends, with my family, with my aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, things like that.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Why wait for that moment?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I mean I've often found situations where you we we experience that.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: We go to uh uh you know, someone we haven't seen, maybe an uncle, I'm going to uh uh you know an aunt's funeral, haven't seen my extended family for 15 years.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And and you see them, and it's like, oh, you know, we should we shouldn't have to meet like this, you know, we should we should get together, you know, a month or two from now, we should do something.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And those things never happen.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so why would it be surprised that we find ourselves in those same situations again?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: If we don't put the in the the investment in that those relationships now, then they won't come back at that point.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be a fruitless trip, as you said.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: We'll do it out of obligation, you know, because that's what we're supposed to do, but that conveyance of love is not going to be nearly as effective as it would be now.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: So how do we do that?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: How do we begin that path?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: Because um there are there are people out there, to your point, who maybe for legitimate reasons, have been hurt so deeply by their own family members, who whose family may have turned turned them out.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and so they've they've created this wall.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I'll just speak to my own experience.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: I had that experience with my dad.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: My dad and I literally fought physically with each other.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: I was about 17 when it happened, and I left home.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I told my dad I never wanted to see him again.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I didn't speak to my dad for probably two years.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: And it was only at the insistence of my mom and other family members who were begging me to please turn the corner and forgive him and get on with life.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: And it eventually I did.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: I don't remember exactly how long it took, but somewhere in that two to three to four years period, I think somewhere in there, I finally forgave him.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: Now I realize I and I've been praying that he forgives me because I was the son, I was the younger one.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: It was on me.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: I should have been the one that that asked his for his forgiveness.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: But, anyways, this isn't about me, but I'm just saying there are other people that are are are down that same path where they have this very strong denial of wanting to reconcile themselves.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: How do we reach out and begin to to try to talk to them about how much they're missing and how much they're gonna wish they had started to love and reconcile and forgive.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: Because to your point, when they fly in, it's way too late at that point.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, I I tell people that Christian religion is totally different from every other religion you could think about.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Last Sunday I gave points why Christianity is so different.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the points I gave is forgiveness of sin, forgiveness of enemies, love of enemies.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: It could be very painful, but our leader and savior, Christ Himself, told us that this is the way.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to be a Christian, we don't need to choose and pick the life to live.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's about the sincerity of the life of forgiveness.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: No pretense of forgiveness, but the sincerity of the life of forgiveness.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why we need to daily, like what Baron said, daily forgive.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: We don't need to wait for that to knock before we could forgive.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: We need to daily begin to forgive.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: I know you could have good reasons why you should hold back things and hold grudges.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: But if we are Christians, we have to that is the the the that is like the martyrdom.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's like we are being martyred by that art of you just it's it's like taking a knife to your chest.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you just have to say yes to forgiveness.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: To absorb that pain.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: Call right.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean look at our savior, right?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: Look at the pain he absorbed for the entire world, right?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: Those are our in effect, those are our stripes.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's our lance and the side, right?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it's you're talking before you're talking privately about pain playing the uh uh divine mercy chaplain, yeah, at the bedside of of your father-in-law.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that same thing, my my wife did that with her sister at her dad's uh bedside, and and he passed on the last word of chat.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that that had a very lasting, you know, very meaningful impact, you know, and it gave my my wife great solace in knowing that and he was a religious man anyway, but just just knowing that that whole thing happened, um, it brought a piece to a very you know unsettling thing, you know.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: And uh you know, like looking at families surrounding their loved ones in prayer, so excellent and so good.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we are not saying that those things are not good, they are quite really very good.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: But the thing is, we need to uh give somebody that flower beside his bed when the person could smell it, smell the roses.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: We need to reach out to these people.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: You can't stay the whole year without reaching out to someone you loved, someone you claim you loved.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: If there is someone in your life you are spending all through the whole year without reaching out, there is a problem.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Return.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: There is a problem.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: It becomes an abuse when the person is passing and you just go to the hospice, it's an abuse.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: If you can't couldn't make any contact with the person in one whole year, two years, why now?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, do you think do you do you think father it's do you think it's that they're trying to make a feeble attempt at reconciling it, or do you think they're just trying to clean their own conscience before their mom, dad, sister, brother passes away?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes their coming is for their good.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's selfish, if I'm to say.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's like selfish, you know, you just want to clear your conscience and be happy.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's you know.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: So at that time, there is no charity there.
• 18:57
  unknown: Right.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: The life of a Christian has to be constantly spent in charity, and that charity is not about flying in from like uh New York or flying in from this when the person is dying.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: Flying in when I'm around, when I know that oh, Greg is flying from New York because I'm celebrating something.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: Greg is flying, Baron is flying in from this place because I'm just I just love you.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: I need to see you.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: I just need to see you for like an hour or two hours, then I could fly back to my work.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: That could be a love the person couldn't forget.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: And with that, when I'm dying, you do not need to be present.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: I know I'm surrounded with those who love me.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: If you are there, you are not there, it's fine.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: But every year, you always have a tradition of flying in to come and see me.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: I do not, I I I cannot doubt your love.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: You don't need to come in to clear your conscience when I'm dying.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: That is an abuse.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, uh, heavy subject, but uh believe it or not, we felt our podcast segment.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: You know, Father, you said something right toward the end.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: You're talking about charity.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: That sounds like another great podcast.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think that's my gosh.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: I think I think, Father, we might have to invite you back.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: Interrupt your busy day to talk about charity and what does that mean?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: But uh, Father, I want to thank you very much for joining our podcast today.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, Baron, uh, it's great to see you.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: And uh to our listeners out there, thank you for tuning in, being part of my brother's journey.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, seek Jesus and all you do, and be fishers of men.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: God bless you, and please join us again viva Jesus.