This is an Extraordinary Book (Into Extra Time – Living Through the Final Stages of Cancer and Notes Along the Way by Michael Paul Gallagher, Published by Darton Longman Todd, 2016), but first an admission: in 2011 I myself was diagnosed with cancer, I went to the hospital and had two major operations, I almost died, but by the grace of God I came out the other side: walking again in the sunlight and breathing fresh air one more time. . So in admitting this, I suppose I am also saying that I have a certain bias in favor of a book that recounts such sufferings, since I have experienced some of them myself. And of course, to chronicle such sufferings is not to wallow in them or exalt them in any way; They are part of the human condition. As Philip Larkin observed in one of his great poems, Ambulances, they visit us all at one time or another: “They come to rest on any curb: / All streets in time are visited.”

In fact, for Michael Paul Gallagher it was his third cancer visit that proved fatal. He had had cancer before, starting in 2002, but it was his return in early 2015 when he was traveling from Rome to Ireland to give a course that led to his death at the age of 76. What the book does is multifaceted: it provides a mini-autobiography of his life as a distinguished Jesuit priest, teacher, and author; a deep insight into his beliefs and concerns, especially those related to unbelief in the modern world; fragments of ideas about openings, darkness, revelation, imagination, transformation and transcendence; a cancer diary, detailing real experiences and emotions as they happen; and, finally, some of his stabs at poetry, which by his own admission “were never my talent”, but which in certain lines achieve a serene beauty.

Intermingled with all of the above, there is also a wonderfully revealing aphoristic quality in which he either clarifies some issue definitively, or simply cites the proper authority to do so on his behalf. So here are three wonderful lines from his book:

“Now I began to see that faith is blocked much more by lifestyle than by ideas or philosophies”

“Trusting in medical technology will end in disappointment”

“It’s very simple: how you live reduces or expands what you can see”

It should be obvious from the above and from the contexts in which these quotes occur that Gallagher is a deep thinker, which is not surprising given that he was a professor of fundamental theology at the Gregorian University. But along with the depth of thought also goes a deep humanity. Quoting Dr. Johnson, he observes that “death focuses the mind beautifully” and so, during the course of the book, the problems in his life begin to unravel: we sense his doubts, his hesitations, even his very real reservation that he should die. . him knowing in truth, as we all know, that he will do it and that he must do it.

Particularly poignant is our growing awareness of how active and capable he was: always planning, scheduling, being useful and productive, but now finally having to live when he can no longer be any of these things. We even learn and explore if she had made the right decisions in his career. Yes, it rationalizes, but should it have been more specialized and less generalist? Is he, we think, really convinced by his own response? And most revealing of all: Monique, the girl he met at 19, and the path she didn’t take. Where is she now? What happened to her? Pray for her happiness and there is a poem for her. In fact, it is that poem that closes the book: Monique en Caen. Think about it: this Catholic priest, this Jesuit since he was 22 years old, his last word from him, a poem to Monique? Is this a code for the Virgin Mary? I do not think so; here he achieves in the final sentence a quite sublime beauty:

… Or you can visit,

As I do, I wonder echoes

holding hands and united eyes,

Symbols of a love greater than

We were able to at twenty-one,

But changing me at least forever.

The syntax of the last two lines is as tortured and complex as the emotion behind it; and for all of us as human beings we resonate as we reflect on our paths not taken, as death wonderfully concentrates our minds as well.

There is much more to this book than space allows, but it should be obvious that, despite my bias in its favor, it is an eloquent, absorbing, and fascinating work that I highly recommend to all readers of Towards Wholeness: the most Impressive of all, Michael Paul Gallagher keeps his faith in God intact despite all the illness and suffering that cancer throws at him. Buy and read this book; it’s uplifting.