By Sr. Faustina Lightfoot, M.S.
Marian Sisters, Diocese of Lincoln
“Whatever you did for the least of my brethren, you did it unto Me.” (Mt 25:40)
The first time I remember encountering Jesus in another suffering person was at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Omaha when I was in pharmacy school, prior to entering religious life. I was a pharmacy intern and one of my responsibilities was to provide discharge education for patients. I went to provide medication education to a patient, like I had with every other patient, and as he shared his story, my heart was moved with compassion for him in a different way. As I walked away from his room it was like the Holy Spirit hit me seemingly “out of nowhere” with the awareness that I had just encountered Jesus Christ in this patient. In that encounter, my heart was changed and convicted of why God called me to serve in healthcare. The gift of studying medicine was simply an avenue our Lord was using to lead me to encounter His suffering and pierced Sacred Heart.
In my current apostolate as a cardiac ICU nurse at the Nebraska Heart Hospital, I have the opportunity to encounter Jesus in the patients I serve. While not every patient encounter strikes my heart as deeply, I beg for the grace to see Jesus in my patients daily. As a part of my nursing assessment, I get to listen to patients’ heartbeats, which is like listening to the Heart of Christ. I continue to be in awe of Jesus’ humanity—he had a human heart that beat just like ours! Meeting patients in the hospital often means they are in pain or in distress and possibly having one of the worst days of their lives. Listening to patients’ stories and taking the time to pray with them helps me to see Jesus’ heart, present in the midst of suffering.
Recently I had a patient ask, “How do you do it? I am so weak and need so much help. How do you do it?” A team of us had just helped her get out of bed and bathed. By the grace of the Holy Spirit, my immediate response was “Love. I do it because I love God and God is living in you.” This opened up a beautiful conversation about God and faith.
This question pierced my heart as to what my “why” is. Why do I do what I do? Because I love Jesus. But there is something more there, more than doing things FOR Jesus; it is encountering Jesus in the souls I am able to serve. St. Camillus de Lellis put it well: “The poor and the sick are the heart of God. In serving them, we serve Jesus Christ.” While my patients may think I am there to serve them, this is the worldly view. My patients give me the opportunity to encounter God, to grow in virtue, and most of all to love.
Some people’s sufferings are visible and on the outside, while others have emotional, mental or spiritual sufferings that are difficult to see. Whether visible or not, God invites us to consider what the other person is experiencing, what crosses he or she may be bearing, and to see Christ in our brothers and sisters, pouring out compassion and love. “Weakness makes us conscious of our dependence on God and invites us to respond with the respect due to our neighbor.” (Samaritus Bonus) Not only do I encounter the weaknesses of my patients, but I encounter my own weaknesses and dependence upon God.
Medicine has made many advances, and the procedures and medications that can improve patients’ quality of life are significant. Yet our path to eternal life with our Heavenly Father is only through the reality of our mortality, that we are all “dust and unto dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19) This is where the gift of presence enters in. There often is a temptation to hopelessness in times of unrelieved suffering, but a deeper pressing in to see Christ there brings us to the foot of the cross, when Jesus is suffering in His agony and Our Lady remains there with Him. Mary seemingly did nothing, but the very fact of her presence with Jesus did everything. As Pope Francis says so beautifully in Samaritanus Bonus, “To those who care for the sick, the scene of the Cross provides a way of understanding that even when it seems that there is nothing more to do there remains much to do, because ‘remaining’ by the side of the sick is a sign of love and the hope that it contains.”
The final moments of a soul’s life on this earth are a precious gift. The veil between heaven and earth is so thin in these moments and the presence of God is often very tangible. Jesus revealed to St. Faustina the great need of God’s mercy: “I realize more and more how much every soul needs God’s mercy throughout life and particularly at the hour of death” (St. Faustina’s Diary 1036). I have had the privilege of caring for several patients, family members and my own religious sisters in their final moments on this earth.
The sacraments provide so much hope and healing in these final moments. Jesus spoke this promise to St. Faustina on praying for the dying: “At the hour of their death, I defend as My own glory every soul that will say this chaplet; or when others say it for a dying person, the pardon is the same. ‘When this chaplet is said by the bedside of a dying person, God’s anger is placated, unfathomable mercy envelops the soul, and the very depths of My tender mercy are moved for the sake of the sorrowful Passion of My Son.’” (St. Faustina’s Diary 811) I am blessed to intercede for souls in praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy and asking for Jesus’ great Divine Mercy to be poured out in all of the sick and suffering, particularly at the hour of death.
We all know someone who has been or is currently sick, suffering or in the hospital. While these moments can be difficult to find hope, may we take courage and ask for the grace to see Jesus in these souls. “Christ invites us to trust in His invisible grace that prompts us to the generosity of supernatural charity, as we identify with everyone who is ill.” (Samaritanus Bonus)
