Widowed to cancer, fatally stricken herself, Burnsville woman offered her suffering for others

Trish Pozarski couldn’t walk very far anymore.

She missed her path around a pond near her home in Burnsville. She enjoyed cooking, but she put away her pots and pans and relied on her daughters, Emily Pozarski, an oncology nurse who flew in from California to take care of her, and Alicia McShane, a member of St. Bonaventure in Bloomington, as well as friends who swung by.

She wanted to finish a scrapbook in honor of her late husband, Ron, who battled appendix cancer for more than eight years before succumbing in July 2018. But her own fight against leukemia, a battle waged since 2012, had left her too weak.

Trish Pozarski, 63, was dying. Confined to a wheelchair or her bed, she needed assistance getting in and out of both. But her spirit was alive, and it had grown in the years she and her husband struggled with their health. Members of St. John the Baptist in Savage, with two grown daughters and two grandchildren, they spent years sharing a daily rosary. Their faith-filled efforts against cancer drew them still closer to Christ as they offered their suffering up for others.

Pozarski died July 31. Her funeral Mass was Aug. 5, at the parish church she knew so well.

Missionary disciples, Trish and Ron were, according to those who knew them. But in the last 10 years, missionaries reaching out mostly in prayer, while very often confined physically to doctor appointments, church groups and home.

“You don’t want to waste your suffering,” Pozarski told The Catholic Spirit in a June interview. “If you can unite your suffering to Jesus on the cross so it’s not wasted, you can offer it up for so many different people.”

“We are the body of Christ. We need to keep that in mind,” Pozarski said of her prayers. “We’re all united. What I can offer, can help somebody else.”

She prayed fervently for a 17-year-old suffering from lymphoma, her own niece with breast cancer, people at St. John the Baptist and in her Divine Mercy Cenacle, a prayer group built up around St. Faustina’s writings and spirituality, Pozarski said. And there were times in the hospital, when simply, “you hear something next door. You hear something going on, you say a prayer for those in there alone: ‘Oh Lord, be there for them.’”

Part of her ministry, she said, was telling her story, encouraging others to learn the power of prayer and surrender to the Lord.

The day before her mother’s funeral, McShane told The Catholic Spirit that she and her mother developed a friendship over the years that included talking about their faith and resources they found helpful. Her mother shared with many people that way, McShane said.

“She had a genuine friendship with the Lord, and it came out in genuine friendships with others,” her daughter said.

Special visitor

Others noticed her prayer ministry, and that of her late husband.

“In my short and COVID-dominated time as pastor of St. John the Baptist, Trish is one of the few parishioners I’ve been able to spend time with and get to know at a deeper level,” said Father Ben Little, the parish’s pastor since 2020. “Her patient embrace of God’s will in physical suffering has been a great inspiration.”

“She was dear to many at St. John’s,” said Father Little, who celebrated Mass with Pozarski in her home just two days before she died, and presided at her funeral Mass and gave the homily. “She was a woman of deep prayer who drew others into a life of prayer.”

In addition to the Divine Mercy Cenacle, Pozarski was involved with Cursillo spiritual development and solidarity, and most recently received her certificate of completion of the Archbishop Flynn Catechetical Institute’s two-year program, “Pillars: A Journey through the Catechism of the Catholic Church.”

Begun in 2017, her anticipated two years of studies stretched to four years. It was interrupted by caring for her husband before he died, as well as COVID-19’s arrival in Minnesota in March 2020, the return of her own cancer in May 2020 and entering hospice at her home just two months later. But she persevered, and ironically, because of the pandemic and isolation experienced by the entire community to prevent its spread, was able to finish her studies online with fellow students.

Kelly Wahlquist, who directs the institute, a 13-year-old program of The Seminaries of St. Paul in St. Paul, said Pozarski and her husband had been an inspiration to everyone there.

“They really were witnesses to the faith,” Wahlquist said. “She was always happy, positive and joy-filled. And how her life changed with the institute. She really wanted to come back.”

Brenda Schroll, a close friend of Pozarski’s at St. John the Baptist and a class coordinator for the Catechetical Institute, said Pozarski was the most humble and faithful Catholic she has ever known. In addition to the institute, Schroll said, she and Pozarski were part of a four-person “mom’s” group that kept in touch for years with weekly text messages and other means of praying with each other, particularly for their children.

“I called her my saintly friend,” Schroll said. “She taught so many people around her, how we are to suffer and how we are to take on our suffering for others.”

Pozarski said her husband encouraged her to attend the Catechetical Institute, and she learned a great deal. “He really wanted me to do it,” she said. “He felt like I was always taking care of him. He wanted me to do something for me.

“There was so much to learn, and different levels of growth as you go along.”

At the end of her husband’s life, Pozarski said, she felt the need to stay with him, and not be engrossed in the classes. “He was taking a turn for the worse,” she said. “We tried it … but he needed so much attention. He felt more comfortable with me.”

Her prayers intensified. “I was praying so much for my husband when he was sick. I saw the conversion of (his) heart day by day. At the end of his life, he was ready. He was ready to be with the Lord.”

Pozarski herself was hospitalized with an infection when she missed her class graduation Mass and ceremony May 10. But a special visitor presented her with the certificate of completion at her home in early June: Archbishop Bernard Hebda, who was invited by her pastor.

“I was in the hospital when they (Catechetical Institute) handed them out,” Pozarski said. “The next thing I know, the archbishop is in my home. I was so blessed. I was very moved by him. He talked to me and prayed over me.”

Father Little was there as well, and recalled it being a very blessed day.

“Even though it took place because of Trish’s illness, it was a joyful thing to minister alongside our local shepherd, when Archbishop Hebda graciously met me at Trish’s house (on an oppressively hot afternoon) for a beautiful conversation and celebration of the sacraments,” Father Little said. “We are blessed to have a shepherd who prioritizes such moments when so many other important things could crowd out such encounters on his calendar.”

Pozarski said she knew the efficacy of praying for others in part because she felt sustained by people who prayed for her.

“I really feel like I’m being lifted,” she said. “When days are tough, and I am feeling the heavy weight, when people are praying for you, it lightens the load. You don’t feel that weight.”