By
Robert R. Schwarz
OUT OF THE
DEPTHS I CALL TO YOU, LORD; LORD,
HEAR MY CRY !
( PSALM 130:2 )
FIGHT THE
GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH. ( 1 TIMOTHY 6:12 )
BLESSED IS THE
MAN WHO PERSEVERES UNDER
TRIAL. ( JAMES 1:12 )
Peter Ruddy, age
54, sometimes rises at 3 a.m. and to say his morning prayers followed by a
decade of the Rosary . Since diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in
October, 2011, he says he gets by well with 4 ½ hours of sleep. Most mornings
he's up at 5 a.m. , before his two-story
Cape Cod home with the large red front door is filled with the voices of sons
Peter and John and daughter Clare—all high school students—and wife Susan. The senior Peter
then hikes a short distance to a
McDonalds for coffee with friends. He
likes to walk and at times he'll trek five or six miles. But this morning it's
a quarter-mile walk to Mass at the St. James Catholic church in Arlington
Heights, Illinois.
 |
| Reading at a weekday Mass |
By 7:30, Peter is sitting
in a front pew , waiting for the an altar server to ring the bell that sounds
Mass. Before Mass is over, he'll likely have to leave his pew for a
brief , roundtrip walk to the back of the church. "My MS," he says,
" makes it difficult for me to stand up for any length of time."
On this
particular day it is his turn as lector , and he will stand—he's six-feet, one inch tall—at the lectern and
read verses from the Old Testament and the Psalms. One phrase from Peter and you know he's British- born and educated. He articulates his words perfectly with a resonance that brings to
mind dialogue from the televised "Downton Abbey." ( Though he grew up 15 miles from Shakespeare's
home town , Stratford-upon-Avon, Peter admits he's never read one of the bard's
dramas. )
Peter will
spend the rest of the day reading—he says he
reads magazines voraciously, but seldom reads a book cover to cover , unless written by Catholic convert Graham Green—and journaling
; there will be more walking and then , at 3 p.m. , "divine office " prayers and more Rosary decades. "
I don't like my routine to be altered in any way, " he avers. Much of his happiness , he says, comes from prayer and solitude. He describes his
occupational skill as a "senior buyer" for industry.
 |
| In front of church at his first communion in Coventry , England |
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a
potentially debilitating disease in
which your body's immune system
eats away at the protective
sheath (myelin) that covers your
nerves. Damage to myelin
causes interference in the
communication between your brain,
spinal cord and other areas of
your body. This condition may
result in deterioration of the
nerves themselves, a process that's
not reversible ( By the Mayo Clinic staff ) … More than
400,000
people
in the United States have MS. An estimated 2,500,000
around the world have MS. ( from a
report by the Multiple Sclerosis
Foundation )
Peter was candid about
a life smitten with unhappiness that has left him
with a long-term disability and current unemployment—as well as forty pounds under his normal weight of
225. A large piece of unhappiness he received three and half years ago when told that his
MRI scan showed multiple
sclerosis. " I could not walk or
use my legs , " he wrote when
preparing for a retreat at St. James.
" I remember that night wanting desperately to be angry with God...I mean, I
don't miss Mass ; I'm a lector at St.
James; so what in the hell is going on
?! I wanted to be like Jacob [ who ] …wrestled
with an Angel of the Lord. But I could not…Although God
seemed so very distant…it turns out that he was closer to me then that at any
other time in my life; he was knitting me back together in His supernatural
womb."
Nowadays
Peter says , "I don't let my MS
define me; I define it…I embrace it more as a friend than an enemy. " He adds, however, "when you have MS , it's like your brain
is attacked by a tsunami. "
Major Depression is a mood disorder that causes a persistent
feeling of sadness and
loss of interest….it affects how you
feel, think and behave
and can lead to a variety of emotional
and physical problems.
You may have trouble doing normal
day-to-day activities, and depression may make you feel as if
life isn't worth living. More
than just a bout of the blues,
depression isn't a weakness, nor is it something that you can
simply "snap out" of. (By the Mayo
Clinic staff)….About 9 percent
of American adults from all walks of life suffer from some
form of depression. In fact, major depression is the leading
cause of disability for Americans between the ages of 15 and
44, according to the CDC. Understanding these very real
depression statistics helps paint a fuller picture of the
impact of depression in
America. (Medically reviewed
by
Pat F. Bass III, MD, MPH for a 2014 report from the Major
Depression Resource Center. )
.jpg) |
| In 1997 with 18-month-old Peter junior and one-week- old John |
Peter's depression
would normally emerge in September or October and stay with him through
April or May. " Some years it was
bearable; I wouldn't miss any time from work; other years , I would have to have a complete break [from
work] for several weeks and occasionally a hospitalization. It was awful just
trying to get through the day…It's almost impossible to do anything. You're so far in the depth of your despair
that there's no way you can get out. If
in November you want to look forward to springtime in May , you can't because
you believe you will still have your depression."
Peter
remembers that often the depression was
so overwhelming that he couldn't even
pray; he didn't want to live. For 20 years he took medication but it lost its effectiveness in five or six years
, and new meds would have to be prescribed.
He
reports today, however, that he hasn't had a bout with major
depression for two years. His advice for people with major depression: "
Take care of your diet, your health—and exercise . " Peter also stresses the importance of
seeking professional help, understanding the nature of major depression, and having a "spiritual dimension to
one's health. "
Born on a Small Irish Island
Peter's
grandparents and parents were born on
the small ( six miles long and three wide ) Clare Island off the west coast of Ireland . Its many
rocky outcroppings gives it a "moonscape" appearance, says
Peter, who visited family members there last year . According to Peter, the tragic Irish Potato Famine in 1835 eventually reduced the Island's then population of 5,000 to its current 350 residents,
many of whom today are sheep farmers. His parents were Catholic . "I commend
both of them for passing on the faith . " Regarding his five siblings ( three sisters and two
brothers ), Peter says, " I suppose
I'm the only one who has kept the faith.
"
In
1948 after the World War II, the Ruddy family moved to England , where Peter
went to High School Upon graduation, he went to work in a factory as did his father.
His father has played a major role in
Peter's faith life. While on night maneuvers
in a peat bog with the Irish Army which he had joined
at age 16, his father contacted pneumonia; it afflicted him for most
of his life . Stricken in 1968 with double pneumonia and
tuberculosis, he was given last rites in a hospital. He went home to die but
recovered. A parish priest suggested that Peter's father go to Lourdes to give
thanks for his miraculous recovery. He did.
"Once there, " Peter wrote in a memoir, " he was immersed
in the holy waters daily…He returned two weeks later a changed man, a man that
had been totally and utterly immersed in
God's loving care. This was the first time I experienced my spiritual Father's loving
care for my earthly father, a gift that kept on giving throughout my life. "
Later in England, Peter did office work at a Rolls Royce plant , which
sent him to night school for further training.
In April of 1992 he immigrated to America at age 32 to marry Susan, whom he had met incidentally ten years earlier
on a Chicago CTA bus in which he was
riding with his two teenage cousins . When Susan, then 18, got on the bus, she recognized the two cousins
from her neighborhood and asked why they weren't in school. When they replied they were showing the
sights of Chicago to Peter, she
expressed skepticism. Peter then vouched for his cousins' honesty . When Susan exited
the bus, she unexpectedly turned to Peter and asked, " What are
you doing for lunch ?"
With
that memory now making him smile, Peter looks
across the library table at me
and says , " that just blew me away…these Americans , I said to myself."
Honeymoon, then Egypt and Bible
School
The
couple honeymooned in South Carolina for two weeks. One day Susan saw a help-wanted ad in the New York Times for a
logistics coordinator to work in Egypt for
a global quasi-secret
organization—as Peter describes it—called Multinational Force and Observers . The organization consisted
of peacekeeping troops for Egypt and
Israel. Peter flew to New York City for an interview
and got the job because, he says, the firm was impressed with his knowledge of
it . Peter had spent hours at the Chicago Harold Washington Library researching
the firm's operations.
But
things just didn't work out for Peter ,
who , once on the job in Northern
Sinai for two months, declined a
directive to relocate to Israel, which he thought unsafe for Susan . His wife now commutes from the Ruddy home to
Lincolnshire, Illinois , where she
is employed as a company resource
manager.
Back
in Chicago, Peter enrolled in a four-year curriculum in Bible study at the Chicago Catholic Scripture School of the archdiocese . " And I've been
continuing my education ever since, " he says with obvious pride . For example, he says he's "always been
very keen to understand other faith traditions. "
He counts Muslims, Jews , and Indians among the friends he has
made. " From the Hindus I learned
humility and service, and from the atheists I learned to question things. I learned we're all brothers
and sisters. " Peter has three
validated passports: British, Irish, and
American.
A meeting
with some monks in 1984 during a retreat in
England he claims as a life
milestone. One of his friends is a
priest in England and was best man at
Peter's wedding. " My friends told
me I had a different way of looking at
the world ." When asked to be
specific , Peter replied by quoting what
he considered the greatest compliment ever paid him : It came from a foreign student who told him
how very "eloquent" Peter was. And when asked what has shaped him most in
life, he replies without hesitating,
" My faith and my sense of humor [which ] is very avant-garde… but
it's me and it's very English. " He
would like his tombstone epitaph to be: He was a nice guy. He listened. He
had compassion. He says he does pray
for more humility and compassion.
He also wants to complain less.
" Since my MS, I began to fall in love with myself all over
again, not in a perverted way, but in a
generous way and to appreciate my faults. Although a handicap, MS …frees me to be more humble and to be with
people who interest me. I have no time for small talk. "
He
aims to fight harder in spiritual
warfare against demonic spirits. " The closer you come to the Lord, the
more angry the devil becomes, and then he
brings in his best team ." Peter
is looking for a spiritual director.
Meanwhile, he attends a faith
group of men who meet at 6 a.m.
Saturday mornings in the church basement. "It's one of my great bonuses, " he
says. "It's been a tremendous inspiration for me to meet like-minded people. "
In
the closing moments of our interview, Peter credited his father as a major
inspiration during his own his life's journey. " He was a man with a
"great sense of humor and a very compassionate heart who was prepared to
get down in the trenches with you. "
There were a few last words about
his family , particularly daughter Clare .
With a twinkle in his hazel eyes , Peter said, "She's 14 going on
44 ; she keeps me young." Then
came a final, fitting tribute to his
father: " From him I got my love for children."
###
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© 2014
Robert R. Schwarz
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