In April 2024, Adam Wright traveled to Jefferson City to give a talk at a men’s conference on a topic he’d spoken on many times before:
“Don’t waste your suffering.”
Drawing from St. John Paul II’s 1984 letter “Salvifici Doloris: On the Meaning of Human Suffering,” Adam told the men that every experience of suffering, large or small, is an invitation to participate in the life of Christ.
“What are you ready to take on?” Adam asked at the end. “It might be unpleasant, but if you unite it with Jesus on the cross, not only will you love Him more, but He can work through it.”
On the car ride home to St. Louis on Saturday evening, some latent back pain returned with a vengeance.
By Wednesday, he was in the emergency room.
On Thursday, he learned he had a mass on his small intestine and lesions on his liver.
For the first time, he heard the word from the doctors: Cancer.
Suffering well
The diagnosis came a couple of weeks later: stage 4 neuroendocrine tumors, a relatively rare form of cancer that can go undetected for years because the tumors are slow-growing. Adam’s primary malignant tumor was located at the terminal ileum — where the small intestine meets the colon — and more were found in his liver and lymph nodes.
He learned of his diagnosis first through a notification on his medical app that popped up while he was at work at Covenant Network Catholic Radio, where he hosts the local morning show “Roadmap to Heaven.” He happened to be sitting in the studio near an image of the Sacred Heart.
“I remember a great grace in that moment, that Lord, I’m not ready for this whatsoever,” Adam said. “But let’s go, because You are. You’re ready for this.”
Adam’s mantra of “Don’t waste your suffering” — it’s even etched onto his Yeti tumbler — goes back decades. His high school youth minister introduced him to the music of Father Stan Fortuna, CFR, and Adam picked up a DVD of his music videos from the bookstore at a Steubenville St. Louis Mid-America conference.
The bonus content on the DVD was a 10-part series on St. John Paul II’s letter on suffering. Adam watched the series, bought a copy of the letter, and returned to read it again and again over the years. When he started hosting his radio show in 2020, he incorporated the teachings into his segments. It became a frequent theme in his talks at Catholic events.
How do you use your suffering well? First, tell Jesus: I’m suffering, and I want to grow closer to you, Adam said. “Offer it up” isn’t just a trite platitude; you really can offer your suffering for the salvation of souls in purgatory and for loved ones still here on earth.
Several years back, Adam recalls with a laugh, he and a priest friend founded the so-called “Confraternity of the Minor Annoyance.” It started as a joke, but it became a habit: When he encountered some kind of small pain or inconvenience — a stubbed toe, spilled coffee — he asked Jesus to use it for a soul in purgatory who was “a papercut away from heaven.”
“It’s fun, but it’s also a good reminder that no amount of suffering is without value,” Adam said. “And it leads into this idea of, if you don’t flex those muscles in small ways when you’re doing well, when you encounter times of trial, you’re not going to be ready to start working them. You’re going to need them, and they’re not going to be developed.”
When he had surgery to remove part of his intestine last summer, he woke up from the procedure in “the worst pain I’ve ever been in in my life,” he said. He was incredulous when the nurses told him that he had to get up and walk within four hours to help start the healing process. It would hurt, but that was necessary to get better, they told him, so up he got.
“With each successive lap, I’m like, ‘OK Lord, for whoever needs this today. This is excruciating. This is terrible. I don’t want to do this, but I have to do this, so please use it for someone who needs it, and then ask them to pray for me,’” he said. “And I think if it weren’t for that little lesson in the beginning of those paper cuts and the stubbed toes and the ‘I spilled something and it was annoying’ — those minor little annoyances — I wouldn’t have had that muscle to flex to say, ‘Alright, we’re going to do something that’s going to be the most difficult and physically torturing thing we’ve ever done. But it’s not empty.”
After his diagnosis, a friend asked him: Do you think God gave you this love for St. John Paul II’s teachings on suffering so you would share the message on your radio show? Or do you think, from the minute you fell in love with that letter, it was really to prepare you for your cancer journey?
“Talk about a spiritual 2×4 upside the back of the head,” Adam said. “It was like — maybe you thought you were doing Him some good for the Church, but really, this whole time, He was preparing you for this.”
An arrow to Jesus
Adam was used to sharing stories of God’s work in his life on his morning show, Roadmap to Heaven. This year, it’s been important for him to be open about both the good and the bad, he said.
“People need to know they’re not alone in this. They need to know that it’s OK to have bad days,” he said. “Joy is saying, ‘God, this stinks, but I know you’re working through it so I’m not losing hope.’ It doesn’t mean I’m smiling and doing cartwheels.”
During a late February show, frequent guest Corey Grizzle remarked that while not everyone is facing cancer, listeners from all walks of life experience suffering in a range of ways.
“This helps, to realize everyone is going through something that is difficult. I often sit there and go well, I’m not in the hospital. I haven’t lost very close loved ones recently. I don’t have these big issues. I shouldn’t complain,” she said. “Well, you have little issues, and those are difficult, and when the little issues pile up, that’s when it gets to be really hard.”
“We’re going to share your big things and my little things and we’re going to go back to, what is it that Jesus wants us to do? Where do we need to look to find our strength in our little and our big things?” she said to Adam.
The cross is the thing that unites us, Adam agreed.
“Whether you have a mass on your brain or not, we all have crosses to bear. The whole point in sharing all of this is not to say, ‘hey, everybody, let’s look at Adam,’ because honestly, I’d rather go crawl under a rock somewhere,” he said. “…It’s to talk about what Jesus does through all of this.”
Figuring out how much of his cancer journey to share with others was one of the most awkward parts of his illness, Adam said. He explained his concerns to his spiritual director early on.
“He has reminded me time and time again: You have been given something that people are paying attention to, and you have a really great opportunity to hold a giant arrow pointing toward Jesus,” he said.
A friend for the journey
Adam first learned of Servant of God Michelle Duppong, a former FOCUS missionary who died from cancer in 2015, from his friend and colleague Patty Schneier. Patty introduced him to Michelle’s cause for canonization back in 2023, and Adam had the chance to interview her parents at a SEEK conference.
Michelle “radically transformed the lives of everyone around her by how she carried the way to the cross,” Adam said. After he saw a documentary about her life, “I was in tears. I was like, this is just such a beautiful story of redemptive suffering and how God can work through something horrific to bring about great good.”
As he sat in a hospital bed after learning he might have cancer, Adam and his wife, Beth, cried. They called their parents and cried some more. The next person Adam called was Patty. He knew she kept a Michelle Duppong prayer card in her purse, so he asked her to take a photo of the prayer and send it to him right away.
“It was like this grace comes in: You need to call Patty. You need to get that prayer, and you need to start praying that specific prayer,” he said. “That had to be the hand of God.”
Over the past year, Adam and his family have given out more than 1,000 prayer cards with the prayer for Michelle’s canonization, requesting that others join them in praying for his healing through her intercession. Though he never met her, she feels like a dear friend, he said.
“I don’t have any expectation that I’ll be the miracle that they would say, ‘And for the cause of (Michelle’s) canonization, the healing of Adam Wright,’” he said. “I mean, I’ll take it — I will happily take it — but she’s been so much of an inspiration for me, that if nothing else, if we can get all these people praying this prayer in hopes that she’s in heaven and that she would be recognized by the Church as a saint, it’s the least we could do.”
Leaning on grace
Adam doesn’t want to die any time soon. But cancer has forced him to think about it more than he expected at age 42.
“Death is not the worst thing that could happen to any of us,” he said. “Death, outside of a state of grace, is.”
Knowing that, the sacraments have been his biggest source of hope throughout his illness. He has received the anointing of the sick several times and goes to confession regularly. His family has always faithfully attended Sunday Mass, but before, there was leeway to fit in an evening Sunday Mass around other activities if needed. Now, they take the earliest possible chance to go — usually the 4:30 p.m. vigil on Saturday — so that if Adam only has energy for one thing that weekend, they spend it there.
As a husband and father to five children ages 7-15, his limited good health and energy have led to a “radical reorientation of our priorities as a family,” he said. He has never been one to sit still, involved in his parish, St. Lucy, and his children’s school, South City Catholic Academy. He’s been a regular at his neighborhood coffee shop and deli; a frequent speaker or host at events throughout the Archdiocese of St. Louis and beyond; a grillmaster and friend to many.
The question is now: How is this activity or event advancing the kingdom of God?
“If it’s not building up my domestic church — my family — or it’s not building up our parish and the local Church, then I don’t have time for it. It’s not worth it,” he said, “which is a complete 180 from a year ago.”
The truth that he can’t do everything he used to has been hard to swallow, he admits.
“I thought that at some point, we’d treat all of this and it would pass, and it hasn’t yet. I can’t carry my weight around the house, and that’s taking its toll on Beth and the kids. It’s taking its toll on her parents and my parents. And there’s a sadness within it — I just wish it wasn’t,” he said. “But there’s also that reality of, OK, if it’s not (cancer) it would have been something else, (because) we’re not in heaven.”
With each day he’s given, Adam’s plan is to continue leaning on Christ to meet whatever comes his way. To that end, a second mantra has sprung up: “Don’t underestimate the power of grace.”
“That’s how I get through the roughest of days, is to say, ‘OK God, I can’t today, but you can. Please send me the grace I need,’” he said. “I will pour myself out, but send the wind for the sails. And I trust that He will.”
Servant of God Michelle Duppong prayer
Jesus, I praise you and thank you for the life of your servant Michelle Duppong.
In her life and suffering, she joined You in Your thirst for souls and embraced the cross offered to her.
Following her example, I ask for the special grace of [your intention] and, if it brings You greater glory, that she be honored by Your Church.
Jesus, I ask this in Your Holy Name.
Amen.
Learn more about Michelle Duppong and her cause for canonization at michelleduppongcause.org.
Read St. John Paul II’s letter “Salvifici Doloris: On the Meaning of Human Suffering”: stlreview.com/suffering
