Chris McManus drove to the emergency room at Inova Fairfax
Hospital as fast as he safely could. He’d just witnessed his
father, an Arlington physician for more than 55 years,
undergo a massive stroke and had seen him off in an
ambulance. A doctor himself, Chris knew the prognosis was not
good.
But someone else beat Chris to his father’s bedside.
Father Stefan P. Starzynski was watching the nightly news in
the rectory of St. Ambrose Church in Annandale when he got a
call that Reginald McManus, a longtime parishioner of nearby
Holy Spirit Church, was being taken to the hospital.
As one of two Catholic chaplains at Inova, Father Starzynski
rushed to the hospital to administer the anointing of the
sick and an apostolic blessing to the 85-year-old.
While doctors and nurses care for the physical needs of the
ill and injured at Northern Virginia’s largest hospital,
Father Starzynski and his fellow chaplains tend to another
component of healing.
“Humans are body and soul,” said Father Starzynski. “So
pastoral, spiritual care is at least as important as medicine
and operations. It is not an addendum to what the hospital is
about, not in conflict. It’s all about healing.”
A 24/7 ministry
Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde named Father Starzynski
chaplain of Inova, with residence at St. Ambrose, last June.
But the down-to-earth priest with a sense of humor always had
a place in his heart for healing. He helped with the
Arlington Healing Ministry for several years and eventually
began celebrating healing Masses at his various parish
assignments.
“Throughout my whole priesthood I’ve seen everything through
the lens of Jesus the Healer,” said Father Starzynski, who
most recently served as parochial vicar of St. Timothy Church
in Chantilly. “So this is a great fit.”
Father Starzynski and Father Michael R. Duesterhaus,
parochial vicar of St. Timothy, minister to Catholic patients
in the 1,000-bed hospital. According to Amy Johnson, interim
chaplain manager in the Inova Pastoral Care Department, about
15 percent of Inova patients are Catholic.
The hospital’s 77 chaplains include members of all major
religions, including Judaism, Buddhism, Islam and a number of
Christian denominations.
“We all work together and respect each other as one team,”
said Father Starzynski. The chaplaincy “is not a Catholic
thing; this is a shared ministry caring for souls.”
In the hospital’s interfaith chapel, Muslim prayer rugs form
a colorful tapestry in one corner, and a Star of David and a
dove mark the two respective podiums.
Father Starzinski celebrates Mass in the chapel every
Saturday night and on first Fridays and holy days.
Along with anointing the sick, he and Father Duesterhaus –
aided by about 25 Catholic volunteers – bring Communion to
around 25-50 people daily.
Father Duesterhaus is on duty from 10 p.m. Monday to 10 p.m.
Wednesday. Father Starzinski serves as chaplain the rest of
the week. Their pagers can go off at any time, indicating
there is a medical emergency and a priest is needed
immediately. “It is pretty much a 24/7 ministry,” he said.
When Father Duesterhaus was out of town recently, Father
Starzinski worked 23 days straight.
“You get sleep here and there,” Father Starzynski said.
He doesn’t have much time to socialize or even attend a movie
like he used to. “However when you love what you’re doing
that’s OK,” he said. “It’s kind of like a son taking care of
his aging mother or a mother taking care of her baby. In some
ways it does not restrict your freedom but actually makes you
more free. It can be freeing knowing exactly what your life
is about.”
Father Starzinski acknowledged it is not an easy ministry.
“There’s a time to be born and a time to die, but some people
seem to die before their time: the baby, the young mother,
the father who is only 50 years old,” he said. “You are
bringing comfort, but bringing comfort to a situation where
you really feel for the mom or dad, for the person whose life
is turned upside down.
“Even in the worst situations, though, you feel you are
bringing God’s healing. Because without it, it would be so
much worse.”
One thing that makes the Catholic chaplaincy unique is the
sacraments, said Father Starzinski. “If someone is dying, you
call a priest because you have a fundamental belief that
something is objectively being done in the anointing of the
sick, in confession, the Eucharist.”
Each day he prays with two or three patients who are dying.
Along with administering the anointing of the sick, he
recites the Litany of the Saints and the Chaplet of Divine
Mercy. “One of the most beautiful parts of this ministry is
escorting a soul into heaven by prayer,” he said.
Prayers – those he recites for patients and those he says
when stealing a few solitary minutes in the chapel – fortify
him. “Everything has to be rooted in prayer,” he said.
Father Starzinski also wants patients to see the beautiful
potential of prayer.
“Archbishop Fulton John Sheen said one of the greatest
tragedies is wasted suffering,” he said. “I believe in
redemptive suffering, and I ask people I pray for to pray for
me.” Hospitals, he added, “are powder kegs of grace.”
‘Present with people’
It was around 6:15 p.m. on a Thursday when Reginald was
admitted to the ER. Doctors soon discovered a massive blood
clot in his brain, likely the result of an irregular
heartbeat that caused a clot in the heart to break free and
move up through the cerebral artery.
“My dad envisioned him on feeding tubes and was thinking
about someone needing to care for him and my grandmother (who
has Alzheimer’s)” around the clock, said Kelsey McManus, one
of Chris’ four children.
Due to the massive size of the clot, doctors decided the
clot-busting medication they’d given him wasn’t enough and
immediate surgery was needed.
Just about two hours later, scans showed something shocking:
The clot had started to dissolve.
The doctors had “never seen anything like it,” said Chris.
“The drugs may have helped, but it was miraculous to me what
happened. It was not supposed to go away without surgery.”
“It’s unbelievable,” said Kelsey. “I believe it was with the
Holy Spirit.”
Over the next few days, as Reginald’s health continued to
improve, Father Starzinski visited him multiple times with
prayers and Communion.
Father Starzinski was “very, very helpful to me,” said
Reginald three weeks after the stroke.
“Having Father Stefan there meant a lot to all of us; having
Christ there meant a lot to all of us,” Chris said.
Although Father Starzinski visits many patients each day, “he
has a gift to be present with people,” added Kelsey. “His
visits never felt rushed.”
On the Saturday following his stroke, surrounded by family
members, Reginald was well enough to attend Mass celebrated
by Father Starzinski in the chapel. Monday he was discharged
from the hospital and soon after, with medical clearance,
returned to his private practice with Chris.
Looking back on the experience, Reginald believes God had a
hand in his healing. And he’s grateful for the human hand
that brought him God through the sacraments and reached out
to his worried family members.
“The good Lord has for some reason suggested that I can
continue to be functional,” laughed Reginald. “But this is
key: Everybody is going to die. I’m going to die, and you’re
going to die, and we realize that.” What we really want while
sick or dying, he said, is someone to attend to our spirit.
Some are not freed from pain and illness, but Father
Starzinski believes in his ministry’s capacity to bring God’s
healing grace through the power of the sacraments. His job is
not “just to make people feel better,” he said. Through God,
“love and compassion heal.”
