Saving Pat Ryan

Saving Pat Ryan

The first time I saw Pat Ryan was at the Parish Elementary School Christmas Pageant.

Our children were attending Resurrection School and were expected to sing and perform in the school gymnasium for the benefit of the parents and parishioners, followed by Christmas treats and a visit from Santa Claus.  The two oldest boys were in kindergarten and first grade.  The teachers did a remarkable job of organizing and getting the children to perform their parts, but as the evening wore on, the focus was turning more and more to the treats at the tables.  Finally, the pageant was over and kids erupted into a frenzy of anticipation over the treats waiting for them.

Just as the crowd of youngsters was ready to make a break for the tables, the principal of the school stood up with the microphone and thanked the children and their teachers for a wonderful pageant.  He remarked that we were waiting for that special person who represented the holiday season before treats would be served.  Groans came from the crowd of kids as they fidgeted and eyed the goodies.

All of a sudden there was a clamor of sleigh bells and a shout from the front door as Father Christmas walked into the gymnasium, carrying a big, bulging bag.   I say Father Christmas because Pat did not look like any Santa I had seen before.  He was over six feet tall and lanky, but he had long wavy white hair down to his shoulders and a white, bushy beard that reached to his chest.  He smiled and had a big laugh, not a Ho, Ho, Ho! But a belly laugh that communicated pleasure in the moment.  He was enjoying himself as the children gazed at him in awe.

He seemed to know the principal and recruited him to distribute the presents.  For the rest of the evening he was surrounded by children with whom he had some pretty involved discussions.  As I looked at Pat I thought that this man must be very happy.  Little did I know the real story.

The next summer, I attended a Charismatic Healing conference in Ann Arbor, led by pastor John Wimber.  He helped to found the Vineyard movement that impacted Christians of all denominations.  Being a Catholic, I was skeptical, but interested in what he had to say, since I believed in the power of healing prayer.  I came away from the conference refreshed and ready to pray with people for healing.  The message from the conference was that, while not all people are healed, there is a power in prayer with the sick that has other dimensions than only physical healing.

When I got back from the conference during a flurry of activity, our parish began to form “Renewal” groups in an effort to promote the Charismatic Renewal in the Catholic Church.  I started attending, but was disappointed when the group leader suddenly became timid when we discussed the gifts and powers of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthian 12:1-11).  The room went silent.  Margaret, one of the older ladies in the group finally asked, “Does anyone here believe in healing prayer?”  I replied, “I do.”  The meeting ended with a “thud” as the group leader was clearly not trained to discuss the gifts of the Holy Spirit, much less healing prayer, to a group that was eager to learn.

Margaret came up to me after the meeting and asked if I would be willing to pray with someone who was dying of cancer.  I swallowed hard and blurted, “I would be glad to.”  As she left, she said that she would ask the person for permission to have someone come and pray with him.  I agreed and left without thinking further about it.

Two weeks later Margaret called me and asked if I would still be willing to pray with the sick person.  I asked who it was.  To my surprise, she said, “Pat Ryan.”  We set up a date and she gave me his address, which was only five blocks from our house.

I approached Pat’s house with some trepidation.  I knew that Margaret would be there, since she was Pat’s housekeeper.  I knocked at his front door, and Margaret came to answer.  She thanked me for coming and introduced me to Pat.

I was shocked at the transformation.  He may have been over 6 feet tall, but that day he appeared shrunken and slumped in his chair.  He had lost all of his hair and beard, which I later found out dropped out after chemotherapy treatments.  His skull protruded through his translucent skin.

My original impression from the prior Christmas was that he must have weighed well over 200 pounds.  That day he seemed to be little better than half that weight.  His face was wrinkled and his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep.

I asked him, “What did the doctors tell you?”

“They told me I have brain cancer.”

“Do they have a prognosis?”

“Yes.  It is incurable and I am not expected to live much longer.”

“Would you like me to pray with you?”

“Yes!.”  He was adamant.

“Have you ever had anyone pray with you for healing before?”

“No.”

I told him that as Jesus healed the sick, he gave his apostles the power to heal as well.  After His Death and Resurrection, He left us the Holy Spirit, The Comforter, who gave us the power to heal.

“Well, what are you waiting for?”

I laid my hands on his bald head and asked Margaret to put her hand over mine.  As I started to pray,  “Come, Holy Spirit.  Come Holy Spirit.  Come Holy Spirit.”

I felt a warmth coming to my hands.  I asked Pat if he felt it and his response was, “Yes.”  Margaret exclaimed, “I can feel it, too!”  I resumed my prayers.

As I was praying, I felt Pat’s body straighten up and suddenly there was a loud “Pop!”  that came from his head.  I stopped and asked Pat if this had ever happened before.

He said, “No, something happened because the pain in my head has gone away.”

Margaret said, “I heard it, too.”

I prayed some more, but it seemed that the noise from his head is all we were going to get, although Pat was definitely feeling better.  I began to lose my concentration and felt that my session was finished.  Something had happened, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.  I told Pat that I would be willing to come back for another prayer session if he wished.

Two weeks later, Margaret called and asked if I would be willing to pray with Pat again.  I said, “Yes.”

That was the session when I learned what I had been really praying for.

Pat was sitting up in his chair and seemed to be ready for me.  I held his hands and invited the Holy Spirit to be with us.  The atmosphere was relaxed.

I asked, “Tell me about yourself.”

Pat began his story.  “My father died when I was twelve.  At his deathbed, my father told me, ‘Take care of your mother and your younger brother.’”

Pat dropped out of school and by the time he was fourteen he was working two jobs to support his mother and brother.  When his brother finished high school, Pat took him aside and made a pact with him that he would support his brother through college and that, after graduation, his brother would then send Pat to college.  His brother agreed.

His younger brother got a degree in engineering from Michigan State College, but forgot his agreement with his older brother.  After college, he disappeared.  Pat found out later that he accepted a job with an aviation company in California.  Pat wrote his brother several letters, but got no reply.

The war was on and soon Pat found himself drafted in the military.  While serving in the military, he learned that his brother got an exemption from the military since he was working in a company vital to our national defense.

Pat wrote several letters asking his brother to at least for help in supporting their mother, but the letters went unanswered.  So Pat ended up in the military and sending most of his paycheck to his mother, while cursing his brother.  Pat became bitter from the lost opportunities and little money to support a family of his own, so he didn’t form any relationships with women while in the military.  He served in the Korean War and was among the troops that were attacked by the Chinese Communists during the middle of winter in the battle of Chosin.

Upon his discharge from the military, he obtained his GED enrolled in Michigan State College under the GI Bill.  All the while he was supporting his mother, who had become ill.  He tried to contact his brother when their mother died, but his letters went unanswered.  His bitterness grew.

Pat finally married in his late thirties, but it was not a happy marriage.  He was constantly bickering with his wife and his children.  His wife did not understand the waking up in cold sweats and his hair trigger temper.  His bitterness did not go away, but festered over time.  His wife died of cancer.  One by one, his children left him.  His eldest son disappeared the day after his high school graduation and never came back, even when Pat located him in California, wrote him and asked him to come home.  His daughter eloped with a non-Catholic man and moved to Florida.  Another son went to a university out of state and eventually got a job in Oklahoma.  One son remained in town.  Sadly, this son was an alcoholic and showed up whenever he needed a place to crash and dry out from another binge.

He turned to me and said, “Tony, my biggest fear is dying alone.”

Pat and I were both crying at the end of this session.  I sensed a familial spirit that may have been harassing Pat, so I walked him through a forgiveness prayer, starting with his father. Pat needed to release his father from his own anger at abandoning him when he was so young.   We also prayed forgiveness for his mother who nagged him into supporting her while he was struggling to live his own life.  Pat forgave his wife who did not understand what he had gone through.  He forgave each of his children who could no longer live in a toxic environment that was his home.

I realized that Pat had PTSD from his wartime experience in North Korea.  He defended a hill against wave after wave of Chinese soldiers singlehandedly that overlooked a field hospital caring for wounded American soldiers.  It was during the middle of winter and the temperatures plummeted 20 below zero while he was defending the hill.  He remembered his gun barrel getting so hot that it became useless.  He then picked up another gun from the frozen hands of a dead comrade.  We prayed a healing of his memories of his fellow soldiers dying around him while Pat held back wave after wave of attackers.

“Why me?” he said.  “I should have died there, too.”

Jesus made Himself known to him at that moment. He was at Pat’s side during the entire conflict.

We also prayed a forgiveness prayer for his wife and their children, praying that they would forgive him for passing on the bitter spirit of unforgiveness.  Finally, we asked Jesus to allow Pat to forgive himself and to release him from all of the memories, hurts, injuries and disappointments.

The atmosphere was much lighter now.  Pat exclaimed that, “It took a load off my conscience” that he was able to do this and we agreed to another session soon.  However, the “healing” had not affected Pat’s physical health.  Pat ended up hospitalized in intensive care as his health deteriorated.  I checked in with Margaret, but did not get a request for another visit.  Margaret let me know that Pat had received the Anointing for the Sick, confessed his sins and received the Eucharist.

It was December and the Michigan weather was turning colder.  Our family lived in an old house that was drafty, so I turned my attention to weatherproofing and making storm windows for it.  I was working in the garage on replacement storm windows when I heard a voice say, “Pray for Pat.”  I said an Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be, then resumed working.   A few minutes later, the voice became more insistent, “Pray for Pat!”  So, I turned to say a decade of the Rosary, but soon became involved in my task again.

Suddenly, the voice shouted, insisting. “PRAY FOR PAT!”

I was shaken by this outburst that came from just above my right shoulder.  I put my tools down and went to the door to let my wife know that “I’m going to Pat’s to pray.”

As I walked to his house, I noticed that the wind was gusting fiercely and the clouds were scudding across the sky.  The weather was ominous, but fortunately, it wasn’t raining.  As I walked down the street where Pat lived, I noticed cars that were parked along the street with out-of-state license plates.  Here was a Florida plate.  There, an Oklahoma plate.  A California plate and a Michigan Plate.  I knew that Pat’s children had finally come home.

The wind was so strong that I had to lean into it to get to Pat’s house.  Suddenly I looked up to see a 50-foot flag pole with a huge (10 ft by 20 ft) flag of the United States and a smaller flag of the State of Michigan (Pat’s former employer) whipping and cracking in the wind.  They were making such a racket that it appeared as if the wind would tear them off the pole or take the whole thing down.

“That’s funny.” I thought, “I have never seen that flagpole there before!”

Then I looked at the house.  The overgrown bushes in front of the house were gone, and as I stood by the street, I could see the entire house, inside and out.  The front porch was surrounded with windows, but I could see more than the front porch.  I was literally looking into the bedroom where Pat lay.  There, surrounding Pat were his children.  His daughter was holding his hand and his sons were standing around him, singing Irish hymns and ballads.  Then silence.

As Pat’s hand slipped out of his daughter’s, I looked at my watch.  It was 6:22 pm.  One of the sons sighed, “He’s gone!”

I looked up to see Pat’s spirit ascending into the sky, like a flickering candle.  Suddenly, I heard a shriek.  I saw a pack of demons like wolves snarling and barking, “After him!” as they pursued Pat upward until they came to a great light.  Pat stopped in front of it, waiting.  Meanwhile the wolves (demons) approached.  The lead wolf snarled, “He’s mine!”

I started praying.  All I could do was beg, “Have Mercy on him, dear Lord.  Have Mercy.  Have Mercy!”

The leader of the wolf pack started accusing Pat of all of his sins, while a panorama of those sins rolled in front of us, like a movie.

“He’s mine!  He beat and cursed his wife and his own children in outbursts of anger.”

“He’s mine!  He hated his own father for abandoning him!”

“He’s mine!  He resented his mother for nagging him!”

“He’s mine!  He cursed his brother for not holding up his agreement!”

“He’s mine!  He cursed the Chinese soldiers as he killed them!”

It seemed as if the panoramic scenes lasted a lifetime.  It probably was…Pat’s entire life.

Then there was silence.

A kindly but powerful voice coming from the Light replied, “He’s not yours.  Pat has been washed clean by the blood of my Son.  All memories of his sins have been hurled into the abyss.  Enter into Paradise, Patrick.”

I stood there, shaken to the core.  I could not get that frighteningly incredible scene out of my mind.  It haunts me to this day.  But I also saw the Mercy of God through it all.  Pat died a year after I first met him at that Christmas party.

The next day I saw Margaret at Mass.   She came up to me and said, “You know, Pat died last night.”

“Yes, I know.  He died at 6:22 pm.  I was there.”

She looked at me, startled.

“Well,” she shrugged, “He’ll spend a lot of time in Purgatory for what he did to his wife and children.”

“Don’t be so sure of that!” Was my reply.