Living after Death

“I’ve just returned from lunch,” he says to me while making available two chairs. “I always find that I get hungrier after I eat a snack. Isn’t that funny?” Father Donal Godfrey S.J. of the University of San Francisco continues to amuse both ourselves with ramblings about his dietary habits until we are both seated comfortably beside his office desk.

            Following the loss of a loved one, it is not uncommon to seek comfort in those pious enough to mend our confusions of Heaven, to provide us with closure, and to help us carry on with life on Earth. The intent of my conversation with the Jesuit priest was to better understand the role of his spiritual guidance in the healing process that proceeds death. Much to my surprise, Father Donal revealed not only his approach to healthy grieving, but also the duty of a presiding priest and the emotional struggle behind his clerical responsibilities.

            “Death doesn’t have the last word,” he begins. Contrary to my presumptuous belief, services are more than a commemoration of the deceased, but rather a way to bring closure to those still living. “I had a friend die of AIDS many years back. And he didn’t want a funeral and I was terribly angry with him!” he says to me with alarm in his voice. “I was angry because, well, that’s what we all needed after we lost him.” He continues to assert his firm belief in community involvement following loss. “It’s tragic when a person dies, and people don’t want to feel alone.”

I ask him to describe his role in bringing those in mourning closer to peace. “My job as a priest is to provide a space for hope,” he says. “I help them to accept where they are, and often times they’re in shock or denial. They should never be told how to feel or what they should do.” Additionally, it is also important for a presiding priest to get to know the deceased through his families and friends in order to conduct a favorable service. “It’s much easier if there is a deep faith within the family,” he admits. “If they’re not religious, it is a more delicate process. It’s harder to understand what they would want for their service.”

But perhaps the more difficult task of a presiding priest is the necessity to suppress personal feelings.

“I’m quite good at it,” he says, nodding his head reassuringly. He pauses for a silent reflection before redirecting his gaze in my direction. “But I feel it afterwards [the funeral]. I’m depressed, I’m down. My body is aching for days, sometimes weeks.” The Jesuit priest reveals how presenting a calm façade during times of loss has become a second nature in his line of work. “I want to help these families grieve, but if I’m a mess then I won’t be of help,” he says while swiftly flipping through a book with a cover that reads, Order of Christian Funerals.

            Father Donal recounts his greatest strife with grief when he presided over his father’s funeral just four years ago. “I was his son, but I was his priest first,” he explains. “I had to bracket my grief until later.” I ask him how he was able to suppress such anguish. “I prayed about it. I told myself this was something I’d do for my father, to honor him, and to respect him,” he responds with eyes staring blankly at the floor beneath our feet. “That was a very hard one.”

The room falls silent before he releases a light hearted chuckle. “I’m hungry again, can you believe that?” I exit his office with a newfound understanding of the Jesuit priest, and the clerical collar that seems to hold him all together.