Book Review: After Suicide by C. Alar and J. Lewis

After Suicide: There's Hope for Them and for You by Chris Alar, MIC, and Jason Lewis, MIC

As the title suggests, this book is divided into two parts. The first part deals with a theological understanding of suicide from a Catholic perspective. Father Chris Alar's grandmother died by suicide, an event that initially traumatized Alar. In his journey to find understanding, he came to hope in Jesus's mercy, especially as it is presented in the diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska. Through the guidance of a priest, the young Alar learned it was not fruitless to pray for his grandmother's salvation. Since God lives in the Eternal Now, all moments of time as we see them are present to Him simultaneously. Our prayers for past loved ones are, in God's perspective, contemporaneous with past actions (indeed, contemporaneous with all of the past and all of the future). We can pray that they have the grace of conversion at the last minute. God loves us and wants us to be with Him. Naturally He provides every opportunity to turn back to Him. Hope in the Lord is hope for their salvation. Committing suicide is a grave sin but many circumstances can affect its willfulness and we cannot see into a person's soul to judge them.

The second part of the book deals with the grief of the relatives and friends of those who have died by suicide. After discussing the standard stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) with their physical, mental, and spiritual impacts, the authors present three spiritual principles to help move through grief. First is powerlessness in loss--we have no control over the situation and cannot fix it on our own. Second is trust in Jesus--He is the merciful God Who wants to draw all people to Himself, especially sinners. Third is entrustment of the situation to God--we give over all of it to the One Who can bring good out of evil, Who desires our true good, which is often hidden from us. Healing comes from effort, from perhaps the hardest effort of all, giving the problem over to someone else to take care of, someone who can take care of it and wants to take care of it. 

I found the second half more comforting and valuable than the first half. Father Alar's description of his grandmother's situation, her hard life that led her to do what she did, did not feel quite complete. He has excellent theology but I was not quite convinced of everything in the beginning. The second part was surer. It built somewhat on the theology from the first part and gave more concrete actions that readers could take in their own lives. 

Recommended, though if you are like me, you might need to persevere through the first part.