Saying goodbye: Priest, widower’s friendship was a model for loving your neighbor

Father John Mannion and Charlie Ressler celebrate Father’s Day in 2006. (Submitted photo)

By John Shaughnessy

Father John Mannion still smiles and laughs as he shares stories about his friend, Charlie Ressler. Yet the tears come quickly, too, these days.

The priest acknowledges he has been on a “rollercoaster” of emotions ever since Ressler died at 89 on Jan. 2, ending a remarkable relationship that many people have described as a model of how we should care for one another.

Their relationship began nine years ago when Father Mannion received a page one night, calling him to the hospital room of a dying woman.

Entering the room, the priest realized he had never met the woman or her husband who sat by her side, praying that their 41 years of marriage weren’t coming to an end.

Father Mannion administered last rites to Rita Ressler. When she died minutes later, the priest tried to comfort her husband as he whimpered, “I lost my Rita. I lost my Rita. What am I going to do?”

After Charlie Ressler mentioned they had no children, he looked into the eyes of the priest and asked, “Will you help take care of me?”

Father Mannion promised he would. He kept that promise for nine years, spending part of nearly every day taking care of him. In the beginning, after Rita’s death, Ressler came to the hospital every night and waited for Father Mannion to finish work. Then Father Mannion would take him home and talk to him for at least an hour.

A story about Father Mannion and Charlie’s special friendship was published in March 2006 in The Criterion.

During the past four years, while Ressler resided at St. Paul Hermitage in Beech Grove, Father Mannion visited him twice a day, seven days a week.

“Father John cooked for him, he shared meals with him and he was the last person Charlie saw at night,” says Benedictine Sister Sharon Bierman, who is the hermitage’s administrator. “And every morning at 7 o’clock, Charlie would call Father and say, ‘My eyes are open. I’m still breathing.’

“Their relationship meant the world to both of them. Father John became the son that Charlie never had. And Charlie became the father that Father John had lost. It was the most beautiful father-son relationship. Everyone here loved to see them. It just made everyone happy to see the love between them.”

While the friendship left its mark on workers at the hermitage, it also caused people to marvel at Father Mannion’s dedication to Ressler.

Father Mannion is the director of spiritual care services at St. Francis Hospital and Health Centers in Beech Grove. The

65-year-old priest from the Lafayette diocese supervises a staff of 21 people, including 19 full- or part-time chaplains. He chairs the hospital’s institutional ethics committee and reviews hardship cases for employees. Yet he still made time for Ressler.

“I think we came at it from two different perspectives, which made the bond so deep, so significant,” Father Mannion says as he sits in his office. “Charlie was very lonely, very opinionated and very set in his ways. Why not? He was 80 at the time.

“I have a tendency to be very gentle, soft-spoken, and God gave me a talent to be a good listener. In the course of time, those two approaches melded together. I listened to him reminisce. I listened to him cry. I could hear the pain of his loneliness. Once he trusted me, it was almost like a rosebud that opened up.”

A fellow chaplain at St. Francis saw the relationship blossom.

“Having had a mother in an extended care facility, I saw John as a model of how you care for an aging parent or relative,” says the Rev. Annette Barnes, a Christian Church-Disciples of Christ minister. “Even on days he didn’t feel well, he was faithful.

“It also shows the need for people in extended care facilities to have someone who loves them regardless of their physical condition. It was a real indicator of the commandment, ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ John really loved his neighbor.”

Father Mannion insists the connection touched his life just as much.

He laughs as he tells the story of the first day he brought Communion to Ressler, a daily ritual that would mark their nine years as friends.

“The first time I took him Communion, I said all the prayers,” he recalls as a sheepish smile marks his face. “After I gave him Communion, he said, ‘If you’re going to bring Communion again, those prayers have to get much, much shorter.’ ”

He smiles at the memory of one of the lunches they shared last year at St. Paul Hermitage, a lunch when all the tables were decorated with bud vases filled with daisies. As Ressler grabbed the vase from the table, he told Father Mannion that it was the date of his 50th wedding anniversary. He also told the priest he wanted to give his late wife flowers and asked Father Mannion to drive him to the cemetery.

As they walked together to Rita’s gravesite later that afternoon, Father Mannion whispered to God, asking for forgiveness for helping a friend who had stolen flowers from the hermitage.

“He kissed a picture of Rita every night,” Father Mannion says. “That was his love. For the last two months, he would relentlessly say, ‘Rita, come get me. Please come get me.’ It wasn’t a death wish. He just wanted to go with Rita.”

Ressler got his wish at 5:45 a.m. on Jan. 2. On the night before, Father Mannion did what he has done for nearly every day of the past nine years. He made dinner for Charlie, he helped him get ready for bed, he hugged him, and he told him he loved him. Ressler told Father Mannion he loved him, too. When the priest arrived at Charlie’s room the next morning to check on him, a nurse told him his friend had just died.

“Love gives life, and energy and purpose,” Father Mannion says. “At the same time, it can be painful. The pain for me now is the lack of phone calls and the extra time on my hands. It’s left a void. The other chaplains recognize there’s a void for me. I miss the confiding in Charlie. I would always share the frustrations of the day with him. Charlie was a smart man. He would always help bring me back to what’s really important.”

For the funeral, Father Mannion honored Ressler’s request to have the Mass at Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Indianapolis, where Charlie and Rita had been longtime parishioners. In the casket, he also placed the picture of Rita that Charlie kissed every night in Charlie’s hands.

During the funeral Mass on Jan. 5, Father Mannion gave the eulogy, talking about how Ressler had taught him about the beauty and pain of love. He also stressed how his friend had showed him that life is for living, not existing.

He also drew smiles and laughs from his fellow mourners as he recalled stories of how Ressler never tired of their trips to White Castle and Dairy Queen.

“How many people at 89 have a White Castle apron, cap and golf shirt?” he said.

The smiles and laughs continue as he talks about Ressler in his office. The tears come again, too.

“I miss him. I miss him,” he says. “I sure miss him. But that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

(To read the earlier article about Father Mannion and Ressler, log on to https://www.archindy.org/criterion/local/2006/03-10/mannion.html.) †