Connie Sows the Seeds I consider it an act of Divine Providence that I became a hospital chaplain, a job I never would have independently chosen for myself. The seeds of desire to pray with the sick and dying were unexpectedly sown years before during my experience ministering to a dying woman and her family. No one was more surprised than me that I was able to help this family in ways that were very important to them. I was initially afraid and uncertain of what I would say and do.
Knowing how easily I weep with those who weep, I wondered how I would sustain myself emotionally by placing myself in this heart-breaking situation. However, God supplied all that was necessary when I gave Him my “yes”. I happened to write about this life-changing encounter when, while on a silent Carmelite retreat, our retreat master encouraged us to record and share significant faith encounters with others:
“Lord, I’ll do anything you want, only tell me what it is,” I earnestly prayed before the Tabernacle. I had just come out of confession to make my penance when the thought of Connie and her desperate husband Jack came flooding into my mind. A few days earlier I had learned of a woman who was suffering from cancer, leaving her devastated husband at a complete loss over what to do. My women’s prayer group had offered to cook meals for Jack and his two daughters while they bore the tremendous burden of Connie’s illness. I had spoken briefly with Jack about the dinners and, while he did accept our invitation after some gentle prodding, I could tell it was difficult for him. Jack was used to taking care of his family’s needs without outside help;
now his life was spinning out of control and his present need put him in unfamiliar territory. Although I had never met this family before, God had touched my heart with their sorrows.As their plight surfaced in my prayer before the Tabernacle, tears spilled down my cheeks as I prayed, “Please let this man have the courage to call me if there is something I can do for them.” Our Lord has a way of cutting right to the chase when a soul has responded to his inner promptings. I could scarcely believe my ears when my husband greeted my return home with, “Someone named Jack just called for you.” Jack had seemed so reluctant to allow anyone to trouble themselves over his family that it seemed a miracle he actually called. As I dialed his number, I remembered my promise to God. “I’ll do anything.”
When I hung up the phone a few minutes later, I marveled at what I had just committed to do. Jack had missed a lot of work throughout his wife’s illness and he had some pressing matters at his office to tend to. The problem was that he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving his wife all alone at the hospital. He worried that the nurses were not successful getting his wife to eat and he feared her rapid decline. Jack was quite alone in his struggles as he didn’t have a family support network on which to rely. To my amazement, Jack had asked me, a complete stranger, to sit with his wife at the hospital to encourage her to eat
If it had not been for the way God answered my prayer a short time earlier, I would not have been able to agree to Jack’s request. As a home- schooling mother of four young children, their education was my first priority; prudence normally dictated my declining any activity that interfered with this duty. Nevertheless, it seemed to me that the present circumstance came from God. I trusted that the Lord would arrange things for me to tend to Connie – and that’s exactly what He did!
Sitting at the bedside of a terminally ill woman was not a typical experience for me. I was apprehensive and even a bit frightened at the prospect. What would I say? What would I do? I called the woman who had contacted me about Connie and shared my concerns. Linda consoled me greatly with these words: “Just be present to her. Allow Connie to be Christ to you as you will be Christ to her.” Taking some further advice from Linda, I grabbed my Bible and headed over to the church to pray. I needed guidance from the Lord before my visit with Connie. I prayed to the Holy Spirit for enlightenment, and then flipped randomly to a Scripture verse to see what God’s Word would reveal to me. My eyes immediately rested on St. Paul’s words in 2 Timothy 4:6-8
“For I am already on the point of being sacrificed; the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.” This passage seemed to confirm what I had been told by Linda: Connie was dying. The cancer had spread to her brain and she was in the final stages of a long and desperate battle with an insidious disease. Her beloved Jack could not accept this. Over the past two years, he had exhausted every possible treatment option and had even journeyed with his frail wife on sacred pilgrimages in the hope of obtaining a cure.
This Scripture verse gave me the impression that Connie needed permission to “let go” of this life so that she could enter eternity with the Lord. Gazing at the face of the woman sleeping fitfully in her hospital bed, it was easy to tell from the classic bone structure that Connie had been very beautiful before the cancer struck. Now her eyes were dark and sunken within the sculpted facial bones. Her porcelain skin, stretched tightly across the shadowed face, appeared fragile. The white lace cap perched on Connie’s forehead was unsuccessful at hiding the baldness beneath it. As I sat on the small chair next to the bed waiting for Connie to awaken, I glanced at the simple gift I had brought for her:
a small glass vase brimming with pretty yellow roses from a bush in my backyard. Draped over the vase was a brown scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. I had placed the sacramental there in the hope that Connie might be comforted by the reminder of Mary’s love and intercession, as I was a firm believer in the abundant graces Our Blessed Mother dispenses to those who call upon her aid. While Connie slept, I recited Scripture verses aloud. To this day I don’t remember what I read or what it meant. I just kept praying for the Holy Spirit to choose the passages that Connie’s soul needed to hear. After a time, I picked up my rosary beads and took Connie’s delicately thin hand in my own.
I will never forget what I experienced as the Gospel unfolded, one decade at a time. Lost in the meditation, my eyes were on the face of the woman before me. Suddenly, in my mind’s eye, the head on the pillow transformed into a most familiar image: the countenance of Christ crucified. The white cap was now a crown of thorns. The sensitive forehead, the classic long nose and prominent cheekbones all led me to believe that I was no longer seeing a woman on a deathbed but a Savior on a Cross. It was then I remembered the words, “Allow Connie to be Christ to you as you will be Christ to her.”
Connie passed away just a few months later. From the first day I walked into her hospital room to the period of time following her death, Connie, her husband, and their young adult daughters opened their intimate family circle to me … allowing me to enter into their suffering. We shared many reflections on the meaning of life, death, and the mystery of suffering. I became a ‘listening ear’ to Connie’s older daughter who struggled to help her sister deal with her overwhelming sorrow. In brief, I simply spent time with them. Through the grace of God alone, my presence somehow provided a measure of comfort to this grieving family.
Why this should be so was quite a mystery to me. But the experience had a profound impact on me, and through it seeds were planted that I could never have foreseen: a desire to do hospice work one day. I will always remember the Christmas that followed Connie’s death. Her family presented me with a gift that quite frankly stunned me when I opened the box and saw what lay beneath the tissue paper. Carved from Jerusalem olive wood, I recognized in the sensitive forehead, the classic long nose and prominent cheekbones the image I had seen on a hospital pillow just a few months before – the face of Christ.