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The Gift of Peace

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As a native Chicagoan, I was living there when the allegations of sexual abuse against Cardinal Bernardin came out back in 1993. Being quite young still, as well as not being Roman Catholic, and not having a whole lot of contact to the Roman Catholic Church, I didn't know who he was before then. However, from that point onward, Cardinal Bernardin became more of a presence in Chicago, in good part because of his loving attitude toward his accuser, whose charges were false, and because of all the work he did trying to work for the good of all people, Roman Catholic or not. Therefore, when he died in 1996, I, as well as most of the city of Chicago, mourned the passing of a truly great man.

This book is an autobiographical "letter" from Cardinal Bernardin chronicling the last three years of his life. It's written as somewhat of a long letter to the reader, and at once one gets drawn in to the utter love and the kindness that radiate through the words written in the pages of this book.

I had been looking for something to learn more about the kind of person Cardinal Bernardin was and the sort of things that he taught. I was fairly dubious that I would "get" much from this book, as a lot of it is written about his battle with cancer, and with him facing an imminent death. However, I ended up enjoying it immensely. It's just a bit eerie as well, because by the time he finishes it up, he knows his time on earth is extremely short, and the reader is kind of put in a place of seeing glimpses of the world as he must have seen it in that fall in Chicago. Here I was, in that same city, seventeen years old, and "starting" life as a college freshman. And yet, despite this disparity, there is something very comforting, and something that rings very, very true in the writing, something that made me devour the words, ending up reading the book in the matter of a few hours.

Cardinal Bernardin finished this book on 1 November 1996, and died two weeks afterward. The Gift of Peace. Yes. May his spirit be eternal.

Recently I lost my father to a 10 year bout with cancer. This book provided me with joy, tears and abudance within a month of my own fathers death. Cardinal Bernardin was a remarkable man who had the courage to face his accusers, his illness and ulitmately his death. He has reconfirmed that faith, hope, love, forgivenss and kindness is the very essentials of what life needs to be about. It is clear from the Cardinal as it was from my experience with my own father that even when you think you are at your darkest human hour you need to reach out and make a difference every single day until your final moment in this part of your journey here on earth.

This book is a must read for anyone who has doubted that there is peace in death. He reconfirms that the lessons most important in life are to continue to give of yourself every day despite the adversities you face. In his illness, through his false accusation and his wonderful rediscovery of a deeper faith in Christ it makes accepting God's plan for you important.

Anyone who has an ill parent or someone close to them should read this book it will give you a much clearer spiritual understanding of illness, death and living every moment under God's plan.

A year ago, on November 14, 1996, our beloved Cardinal Bernardin died, as we the people of his flock, spent time in prayer and reflection over his years as our shepherd. It is amazing to realize how we were enveloped into his loving care, even as he lay dying. Some months later, his book, "The Gift of Peace: Personal Reflections" was published, as his gift to us. More than its worldwide sales, is its personal value to those who read it, perhaps once, maybe several times. How many people near death will ever have the energy to focus on the Lord's Presence, amidst physical pain? For Cardinal Bernardin, the pain he wrote about may have focused on physical and emotional difficulties that surfaced in the final three years of his life, but clearly, there are words in his book that can yet feed the flock, "how if we let Him, God can write straight with crooked lines," if only we let go of the control and allow HIM to direct our life's journey. This does not mean we should make no plans, but rather, set aside time daily to draw close to the Lord, and let go of the concerns that may grip us --- to make room for HIM in our lives. Is there room for HIM in the inn of our deepest selves? There is no other option. No matter what difficulties or hurts arise, we are all still family, always needing to work on healing; the other choice leaves us without family and friends. Cardinal Bernardin speaks of redemptive suffering -- the kind Jesus felt, the kind we may experience. The message clearly leads the reader to know that we, like Jesus, can move beyond the suffering, toward something better, allowing the Lord to work in our lives, bringing us into communion with Him and others who are feeling pain and suffering. In the midst of his pain, Bernardin's faith was strong, but he was preoccupied with the pain. His message is this: develop a strong prayer life in your best moments so you can be sustained in your weaker moments. Lean on family and friends, and church community, as they minister. As you read this book, you may feel the connection with Cardinal Bernardin because either you or a family member or friend is experiencing the pain and suffering of illness. Cardinal Bernardin's presence remains with us, in these words, "Pray while you're well, because if you wait until you're sick, you might not be able to do it."

Joseph Cardinal Bernadin of Chicago was one of the leading lights of the Roman Catholic church through the past few decades; in the last three years of his life (he died in 1996) he endured the beginnings of the scandals of the church (including accusations, later proved false, against himself) as well as a recurring battle with cancer. Through all of this, Bernadin was able to find peace, and it was the peace of God, a peace that is a gift and grace from God.

While the issue of the false accusation is the first piece of the text, it does not dominate it. After a few pages, it is over and done with. One wonders at such power of forgiveness. Perhaps it was in response to the next, final battle that became much more dominant. Prominent throughout the book is the battle with cancer. Bernadin speaks of his own struggles and fears, but puts these in perspective as he became acquainted with the others who were getting treatment with him. He became, in his words, an unofficial chaplain to the other cancer patients. Bernadin struggled to maintain his sense of faith that all who similarly suffer must endure - as Bernadin said, it was finally time to practice what he preached! He renewed his sense of the importance of prayer, and his sense of ministry. While his post-operative treatments would only require ten minutes, he often found his visits would last for hours, as he visited with others. When the hospital staff offered to make private entrance and exit arrangements so that he would not be `disturbed', he countered with the observation, `I'm a priest first, a patient second.'

Bernadin shares letters he received from other cancer patients, their families and friends, all added to his prayer list. It grew from the handful of people he met to well over 700 names in a very short time. The letters are touching, some asking for prayers, some also offering prayers. The farmer who knew the seasons, who wished the Cardinal faith as his harvest time drew near; the fathers and mothers of children who asked for special prayers for children or gave thanksgiving for recoveries; all these letters are important.

There is a difficulty with dying publicly, as Bernadin had to endure. There was also a responsibility, to make valid a lifetime spent in the ministry. Relating the story of his recent visit with Fr. Henri Nouwen, Bernadin found peace in the idea that life is a preparation for death, and those who have lived life in the faith should see death as a friend. Bernadin also found faith in the example of Jesus - when the doctors gave Bernadin his final pronouncements of `inoperable' and `incurable', he finally knew what Jesus felt in the Garden of Gesthemane.

One touching aspect of this book is that it was completed in draft form less than two weeks prior to Bernadin's death. Being a man who took pride in his penmanship, he decided he wanted to write (actually write, not type or draft for typeset) the opening section (done on All Saints Day, 1996), the cover, and section dividers. The publishers kept this promise, so one feels a real sense of connection with the text.

It is not an easy thing to die. It is even harder to watch someone else. Walking with Bernadin during his final days as this book permits the reader to do in many ways will help all of us for a journey we are destined to make, and to relate more fully to others who are on the same journey, on the road to eternity.

America was drawn to the story of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin when he publicly shared with the community of the Archdiocese of Chicago the news that his liver cancer was inoperable on August 30, 1996. The Cardinal wrote The Gift of Peace to share his thoughts on the last three years of his life. His writing reflects the principal role of a Roman Catholic bishop - - the teaching office, to nourish within the community the principles of faith illustrated by the realities that present themselves in the course of everyday life.

Like most Americans outside of Chicago, I first learned about the Cardinal in the news coverage that accompanied his last year on the front pages of the newspapers. He wanted to walk with the community as he confronted his death. Sharing with the community both the pain of his illness and the discoveries of the intellect that bridged for him, first acceptance of his terminal illness, and then the process of personal reconciliation of his life journey.

There are so many books upon the shelves of Amazon.com on the topic of Death and Dying. None of them adequate to the task of being "how to's", but offering reasonable guidance for that most personal of tasks, confronting personal death and death in the family. Yet, I keep coming back to The Gift of Peace. Perhaps, because of the Cardinal's one-to-one conversation by which he engages the reader.

For those of us that can prepare for death, a struggle may develop as we form a personal inner conversation to embrace with grace and maturity and purpose our changed fortune. The Cardinal models in the journey of his illness the direction our own path may take.

Upon hearing the first fateful news of his illness, the Cardinal experienced a feeling of helplessness. The same helplessness I nervously experienced when the heart specialist began taking my history. The Cardinal acknowledged then, as I did also, the state of great anxiety as patients wait to hear from doctors what their fate will be. "God was teaching me yet again just how little control we really have and how important it is to trust in him."

The Cardinal describes how terrible illness changes lives - - not only the life of the person carrying it, but also the lives of friends and family members who love and care for that person. We follow in the book's narrative the Cardinal's trajectory along illness as described by Therese A. Rando: keeping alive, understanding and acknowledging the illness, experiencing the pain, framing realistic expectations and completing unfinished business.

And in the midst of the Cardinal's struggle, he continued his own ministry to others with cancer. "Somehow when you make eye contact," he says, "when you convince people that you really care - - that at that particular moment they are the only ones that count - - then you establish a new relationship." It is all about entering into an intimacy with those we minister to, however brief, forever permanent.

Jesus learned this lesson from the Canaanite woman to whom he first avoided, saying he was sent to minister only to the house of Israel." She continued to confront him, to engage him. She established a relationship that from that moment forward propelling Jesus' ministry beyond Israel to embrace all the nations. For ministry, the Cardinal concludes, is about imparting a sense that "somehow you truly care and have somehow mediated the love, mercy and compassion of the Lord."

Ministry to the dying is all about strengthening the relationship between each person and God. I understand that each of our ministerial encounters is unique. Our need for healing is no different in dying than in living - - however the more apparent and actively sought out for. I strive to go to the bedside with practical skills fashioned around a dynamic toolbox of appropriate pastoral applications.

A dynamic shaped by what the Cardinal would call prayer and prayer's search for peace. Peace that accompanies recognition, acceptance, reconciliation. And as a pastor, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin offers us a simple prayer that we may find the gift of peace. It is in the journey toward death's great mystery that we call out to the Lord for peace. The peace that finds voice in prayer. Prayer that nourishes. Prayer that heals. Prayer that reconciles. Prayer that brings us to salvation.

Former Cincinnati archbishop and Chicago Cardinal-Archbishop Joseph Bernardin knew he was dying when he undertook this final goodbye to the peoples of his Church. It is impossible to open this slender volume and not have that foremost in mind. Even the opening pages here are hand-written in the Cardinal's beautiful penmanship. This man, once seriously considered American's one great hope for the Papacy, lived a life in so many ways worthy of imitation. The late Cardinal was imperfect, needless to say, and his personal epistemological beliefs were not shared by all Americans, but in the good things that may be known of him, he was inspiring in a highly positive way. He personified modesty, dignity, grace, and exercised almost super-human powers of personal forgiveness as demonstrated in his laying aside all enmity toward the troubled young man who falsely accused him of molestation. Bernardin was a man who committed the first hour of every day of his life to prayerful meditation, and in a reversal of the past dogmatic intolerance of Catholicism, advocated the ecumenical consanguinity of all humans regardless of race, religion or creed. When visiting a Chicago-area synagogue during his time as Cardinal, Bernardin greeted the Jewish worshipers there by telling them, "I am Joseph, your brother."

This book tells in his own words Bernardin's battle with the cancer that ultimately killed him. He was a man who did not shun death, he embraced it as part of life, and--in his view-the doorway to a better existence. It also tells of how his faith sustained him in his darkest hour (far more dire, he confesses, than the terminal cancer) which came in the months that followed the unfounded accusations of pederasty made against him by a one-time seminarian.

Bernardin, through this last book, founds a legacy of moral goodness that should stand as a challenge not just to Roman Catholics but to humanity everywhere, to lay aside anger, pessimism and violence, and strive toward a life in which hope, peace, selflessness, form the foundation. In this post-911 world, we probably need more than ever to remember that there are, were, and will be good people in human society who set examples for all of us. In The Gift of Peace it is our privilege to know one.

Bernardin, who completed this work on November 1, 1996, passed away on November 14th of that same year. I remember waking up to the news on local television as I was preparing for classes in my final year at a Catholic school in his one-time archdiocese. I was struck then that he was truly gone and that such a figure of profound importance, about whom I'd grown up hearing so much, wouldn't be there any longer. However, through this book, in a way, his life and works can, via inspiration, still prove influential.

This man will one day be a canonized Saint of his church, and this is his last earthly "talk" to those of remaining in this life.

Cardinal Bernardin honored us all with this book. He reveals his personal struggles with a humiliating false accusation, a devastating diagnosis of cancer, and, almost miraculously, it comes as close to a man's account of his own death as we can get. He closes the book just days before he died and writes of knowing that he will die. And yet there is nothing creepy about reading it. The reader can only hope and pray that he or she will meet adversity, even death, with the courage and compassion of Cardinal Bernardin. His relaxed and intimate writing style add to this fine memoir. Among the most powerful spiritual writings I've encountered.

This book touches the heart and inspires peace. It's insight into the sacred human elements of dying reveals a deep seeded peace that lies within. It is a gift. This peace sustains us through any transition in life. It is the same peace that brings life out of death. It is eternal love. -- Samuel Oliver, author of, WHAT THE DYING TEACH US: LESSONS ON LIVING.

Joseph Cardinal Bernardin tells a gripping and yet restful story. It is supreme sadness, if measured only on an earthly scale. The Cardinal surmounts two crippling blows, to his reputation, and to his health, to come to the realization that God has our destiny in hand. A teacher to the end, Cardinal Joe shows me personally how to absorb the tough love that God lays on some of his chosen, and not flinch, nor doubt the Supreme goodness of creation. Rest in peace, kind and noble servant. You have earned it. Goodbye.

The The Gift of Peace : Reflections by Joseph Cardinal Bernardin is a spectacular book on three levels: 1) He shows how to die and find meaning in our suffering, and how to use it for a higher good; 2) He shows how to live in relation to other people, even those who have wronged us; 3) He shows us how to grow closer to God through prayer and meditation, regardless of what our "God concept" is. For these reasons, this book is for everyone!!!!