Mother Angelica held the Catholic belief in Redemptive suffering, the belief human suffering can become meritorious if offered to Jesus Christ and mystically united with His suffering. Because of this belief, in her period of declining health Mother Angelica "instructed her nuns to do everything to keep her alive, no matter how much she suffered, because every day she suffered, she suffered for God." EWTN chaplain, Father Joseph Mary Wolfe, MFVA told reporters that Mother Angelica's desire to unite with Jesus in suffering was fulfilled when she "went into her death throes on Good Friday".