It Begins with...You.

Though the ultimate purpose of the email I received is fundraising, the story of one man's marriage and the healing of it is worth reading. Most would have had papers filed almost immediately, been forced out of the family home, with the children bounced back and forth...and little healing of the death of a marriage would ever have taken place. The children would have been affected for the rest of their lives. Instead.....................well, read it for yourself.

The final few paragraphs are not the point of my putting this on my blog, so it is completely up to YOU to decide what you want to do about them.

My intention is the miracles in this couple's story, the healing of a marriage that would be given up on by most, and the lessons that can be learned and applied to our OWN lives and marriages... so ... read the miracles... and remember that with God nothing is impossible, and that He created marriage...and He knows how to heal them... EVEN YOURS. Remember that He hates divorce. Remember that Moses only permitted it for the... hardness... of our hearts. But remember also, it does NOT begin with your spouse....it begins with YOU.....

We’re in bed, arguing . . . it doesn’t matter about what.

After ten years of marriage, our arguments are never about the issue at hand. Our words grow scornful. I say something cruel; Susan gives it right back.

I can’t take it any longer!

I grip her neck and squeeze with both hands.

Eyes bulging, Susan gasps a final taunt: "Go ahead! Strangle me! Send yourself to Hell!"

* * *

A year later (in 1983) and with Susan’s help, these hands that gripped her neck establish Sophia Institute Press to publish Catholic classics. Despite the horror our marriage has become, Susan and I -- like many strong-willed converts before us -- are seized by the compelling truth of the Catholic faith.

Though our private life is rugged, we hunger to spread the faith we’ve discovered. By night, we defend our proud selves against each other; by day, we’re just as aggressive in defending the Church against its critics. Pity the unwary Protestant who crosses us: we’ve never strangled one, but we do preach the love of Christ with vengeance.

* * *

Then come four miscarriages, causing such distress that when Susan gets pregnant after the fourth one, we don’t speak of it until Jimmy is born alive and well. Worse troubles humiliate and break us, leaving no room for pride, scant place for confidence, and no strength for anger and triumphal Catholicism.

Our bad fights end. As partners, we raise our seven children. As friends, we work together at the Press, which occupies a small room in our basement.

One morning as Susan is editing Dietrich von Hildebrand’s Marriage, I look up to see her tears falling onto the page. She reads a passage aloud to me:

"Marriage is the closest and most intimate of all earthly unions. In it, one person gives himself to another without reserve. . . . Marriage has been chosen as the image of the perfect union between the soul and Christ because in marriage likewise the center and core is love."

It’s good that Susan and I have stopped battling. But mutual consideration (rather than love) is the best we’ve achieved so far. Not for the last time, a passage from one of our books shows us what, as Catholics, we’re called to be, but aren’t yet. And we are ashamed.

* * *

Four years pass -- years in which we grow kinder to each other, and closer -- years in which God’s mercy shields us from the fact that even at the instant I tightened my grip on Susan’s neck, cancer had begun tightening its grip on her body.

That night back in 1982, I let go; the cancer didn’t.

Now in 1987 it has surged forward. Susan has undergone months of chemotherapy. We are at Elliot Hospital after her second operation, which failed. Although Susan can swallow, nothing stays down. Glucose injected into her veins keeps her alive. A broad tube goes into one nostril and threads down into her stomach, fixed in position with tape. A stomach pump hooked to this tube keeps Susan from vomiting up bile and the fluids she drinks to moisten her mouth.



Susan and I hear death knocking hard at the door, and know we can’t keep him at bay longer. With nothing left to be done medically, we decide to go home, where Susan can be with me and the children.

Here in the hospital, Susan’s most important machine is the electric stomach pump; by her bedside at home, another waits. For the brief ride home, the hospital gives me a manual pump, a large suction syringe I have to pump every five minutes to keep her from vomiting and choking. With the ugly tube hanging out of Susan’s nostril and me tagging along behind carrying Susan’s belongings, the nurse wheels her to the front door of the hospital. Nervous about having her in my care only, and eager to drive the five miles home to west Manchester to get Susan hooked up to the electric stomach pump by her bed, I start to take the fastest route home.


"No," Susan says. "Take me to Lake Massabesic."

I protest, but Susan -- weak and in pain -- insists. So, on that bright July morning in 1987, I drive with apprehension the three miles to Lake Massabesic, and park near the water, in the lot that faces east over this lovely New Hampshire lake.

I reach for the pump to remove the stomach bile that has accumulated in our ten minute drive from the hospital.


'How good God is," Susan says quietly. "How beautiful His creation!"

I operate the syringe and foul green fluid flows into the basin.

"How grateful I am for the life He has given me! What a privilege it is to live."

I pump at the syringe again, while Susan, oblivious to my concerns, continues to stare with wonder and awe at the wind on the water, the breeze through the trees, and the ducks landing gracefully near us on the shore.

Susan knows she’s near death and yet she praises God like someone graced with health, energy, and the prospect of a long and happy life.

I marvel at the goodness of the words coming from these lips that just five years before spat at me the bitter challenge: "Go ahead! Strangle me! Send yourself to Hell!"

After a few minutes, noticing me struggling with the syringe and seeing how troubled I am about her condition, Susan says we can go, so, with hands too big and too strong for such work, I clumsily pump the syringe again and drive us quickly home.

* * *

Despite our best efforts, death comes swiftly upon us.

In a few days, Susan’s kidneys and liver fail completely; her skin turns a dull orange; she ceases taking even small sips of water; and just ten brief days after I bring Susan home, she begins to drift in and out of consciousness.

I spend the last night awake next to Susan’s bed, holding her hand gently in mine. She’s now so helpless she can’t pray on her own, so I pray for her, finding in her prayer book the prayers she loves so well, and praying the strong ones from my own prayer book.

Too late I’ve achieved the devotion von Hildebrand described in the passage that made Susan weep.

When morning comes I take each of our seven little children, one by one, into our bedroom to kiss Susan goodbye and to tell her that they love her. Although she’s been unconscious already for nearly a day, as each child kisses her goodbye, Susan opens her eyes slightly and smiles a weak smile of recognition.

Toward midmorning, Susan’s breath grows slower and the quiet room is rent by the dread sound of that wheezing that is death’s messenger, warning all present that, do what you might, he will arrive soon.

Fr. H is the first priest to win the race against death that morning, entering the room around 11 a.m. to hear what feeble confession Susan can make and to give her absolution and the Last Rites of the Church; then he leaves.

Susan’s breath grows labored, her struggles for air piteous.

At 12:30, the second priest, Fr. M arrives. All of us know that Susan’s life is now measured only in minutes. I sit by her on the bed and take her hand. With Fr. M leading, those of us in the room begin praying for my Susan the Rosary she loves so well. Soon after we begin, Susan starts gasping -- there is no help we can give! -- and then, her sweet hand still in mine -- her struggles end.

* * *


"Her sweet hand still in mine. . . ."

Hands can learn.

These rude hands that once choked Susan learned to work with her on the holy books we publish here at Sophia Institute Press; they learned to make coffee for her each morning and to carry a cup to her in bed; they learned -- as von Hildebrand said they should -- to give themselves to her without reserve.

Once colon cancer seized Susan, these repentant hands learned tenderly to wipe her fevered face, to operate her stomach pump so she could praise God at Lake Massabesic, and, thank God, to hold her small hand gently in prayer all the long night before she died.

Tongues can learn, too.

Susan’s tongue, that once so cynically taunted me to kill her, learned to praise God, even in the face of death. Her words grew wise . . . even holy.

* * *

During Susan’s eight month descent into death, I break down only once.

Susan is still in the hospital a few days before our trip home by way of Lake Massa- besic. It’s long after midnight. I’m at home and despite my exhaustion, I can’t sleep. I see too clearly the magnitude of the tasks each of us are now being asked to accomplish -- Susan to die soon and well, and I to take up by myself the care of our children for who knows how many years, and to carry on the work of this Press.

I don’t have the strength -- or the goodness -- to do what God is asking of me.

Lost and alone, I fall to weeping. Not wanting to burden Susan, but having nowhere else to turn, I call the nurse’s station and ask them to put me through to her room.

Sobbing, I can only say her name: "Susan."

"Yes, John? What’s wrong?"

"I’m afraid."

"Of what?"

"I don’t know what I’ll do if you die."

"That’s simple," she replies softly. "Say your prayers; don’t drink; be kind to the children; and if a good woman comes along, marry her."

"It’s that simple?" I ask.

"Yes, it’s that simple."

* * *

The morning after Susan dies, I get up, make breakfast for myself and the children, wipe the table, wash the dishes, take the dirty laundry downstairs, and start the washer.

I return the hospital bed we’d rented and convert our bedroom into an office so I can keep an eye on the children while I try to resume publishing Catholic books.

My heart’s not in it . . . or in anything.

Nights, I throw a blanket on the office floor and sleep there. (I’ve taken to the dump the bed in which I almost murdered Susan. I have no desire ever to sleep in a bed again.) I’m grateful that in her last years I was good to Susan, but too often, usually late at night, I remember the grip of my hands and the harsh words of my tongue.

Each man’s life is a book, and a saint can read in it what God is writing there. The problem is that I’m a publisher, not a saint.

After Susan dies, I find consolation not in prayer, but in the fury of midnight tempests: when late night thunderstorms strike, I throw open the curtains and lie on the hard floor of the office glaring out wild-eyed at the wind and at the rain buffeting the trees, reveling in the noise of the storm and the frightful power of the lightning.

Mornings, exhausted, I roll up the blanket, shove it under the desk, get up, make breakfast, wipe the table, wash the dishes, take the dirty laundry downstairs, and start the washer, day after day, day after day, with despair walking silently with me every step, gripping this now-defeated hand that once, in cruel triumph, came near to killing Susan.

A few weeks pass and I develop courage enough to clean out Susan’s purse. Among old receipts from the grocery store and some laminated holy cards, I find a well-worn booklet by Padre Pio, the Italian priest who bore in his hands the wounds of Christ. Susan must often have turned to one passage in it, because the booklet falls open to it:

"Why should you worry about whether God wants you to reach the heavenly home by way of the desert or by the fields, when by the one as well as by the other, one arrives all the same at a Blessed Eternity?"

Susan once cherished these words. Are they now for me? Padre Pio continues:

"Keep far from you all excessive preoccupation which arises from the trials which the good God wishes to visit upon you. And if this is not possible, put away the thoughts, and in all live resigned to the Divine Will. . . . "

"That’s fine, Padre. But you and I are different. Your hands bear the wounds of Christ; mine bear the memory of hurting Susan. You find consolation in prayer; I find it in storms. I’m a publisher, not a saint." (But even as I argue with him, I know I’m just making excuses.)

"O.K. You’re right and I’m wrong. I’ll begin again."

I shove out of my mind questions of why things have happened as they did; I put away the remorse that’s crippling -- rather than healing -- me.

I will listen to Susan and Padre Pio, trust God, and live resigned to His will.

I take up again, by myself, and one day at a time, the raising of our children and the work of Sophia Institute Press, tasks that, in hope, Susan and I began together, and that, because she and Padre Pio are right, I must now carry on alone.

I say my prayers. I don’t drink. I try to be kind to the children. And, as Susan urged me to do that night, when a good woman comes along a number of years later, I marry her.

* * *

Twenty-three years have passed since my hands came close to murdering Susan; eighteen since she died nonetheless. The world is different now: the Berlin Wall is gone and the Soviet Union, too. AIDS has killed millions. Terrorism stalks the innocent. Bill Clinton is history and Padre Pio is a saint.

The world has changed, but not God.

Now as then, He approaches souls with a word or a whisper.

In 1983, just one paragraph in the book Marriage opened our eyes to what our marriage ought to be and brought Susan to tears; in 1987, a single paragraph in Padre Pio’s booklet gave me strength in a dark hour so I could care for the children and take up publishing again. With a word or a whisper, He has sustained me and will sustain you, too.

The 2 million Catholic books I’ve published since Susan’s death contain countless paragraphs God uses to speak to souls: angry souls, frustrated souls, lonely souls, repentant souls, souls that hear a word or a whisper, and, like Susan and me, are changed forever.

Through these books and much suffering, I’ve learned in the years since Susan died to read more of the book that God wrote with Susan’s life . . . and is writing with mine.

But I’m still just a publisher, not a saint.

Which is why I’m troubled this morning as I was that morning at Lake Massabesic so long ago: not about the need to pump a syringe to keep Susan alive, but about the need to pay $75,000 in overdue bills to keep this Press alive.

The difference is that now God has given me the grace to put such troubles in their place. Without forgetting this dangerous debt and despite what may happen to Sophia if I don’t raise the money, I now live (as Padre Pio told me to) resigned to the Divine Will and, even in difficulties like this, happily join my voice to Susan’s in saying: "How good God is! How beautiful His creation! I’m grateful for the life He has given me!"

Gratitude and acceptance of God’s will: I know now that these are keys to the spiritual life. How blessedly different they are from the anger and scorn that provoke one person to scream at another, "Go ahead! Strangle me! Send yourself straight to Hell!" or to put hands around another person’s neck.

That was long ago.

Here in those same hands this morning, I hold the tattered booklet from Susan’s purse and an equally worn copy of Marriage. Though the world changes, the holiness in such publications does not. It never loses its power to tame lips that snarl "Send yourself to Hell!" It never ceases to teach cruel hands to pray, sharp tongues to say gently, even as death comes near: "It’s simple. Don’t drink. Say your prayers. Be kind to the children."

Such holy simplicity runs like a river through all the Catholic books I publish.

It’s what souls need. But it’s threatened today by our $75,000 in overdue bills, bills that remain despite my severe cost-cutting measures in the difficult days since Sept. 11 and after the scandals that rocked the Church these past few years.

Having received so many graces, it would be wrong for these hands to put down the work that Susan and I began together so long ago and in less promising circumstances.

So I must turn to you. Will you help me pay these bills so that through our books God can speak to others -- as He did to Susan and me -- even if only in a word or a whisper?

Lack of money will strangle this Press as surely as angry hands will strangle a human.

My repentant hands are eager to continue this work, but they can’t do it without the help of yours. Please contribute today. And please pray for Susan . . . and for me.

Sincerely yours,
John L. Barger, Publisher
Sophia Institute Press

Our vows:
The groom says:I (...), take you (...) to be my wife.
I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad,
in sickness and in health.
I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.

The bride says:I (...), take you (...) to be my husband.
I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad,
in sickness and in health.
I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.


"Right is still right if nobody is right,
and wrong is still wrong if everybody is wrong,"
Archbishop Fulton J Sheen author of The Life of Christ