The Sacrament of the Sick
The last two weeks have been challenging to say the least. About two weeks ago, I had to have emergency surgery to remove my appendix. Pretty common, I know, but still, surgery is scary! I'm never really sick, and I'd never been to surgery or even admitted to the hospital before.
I was scared, to say the least. But I was also in pain and sick, and so I could ignore the fear in order to just let the surgeon do his work.
Somehow the hospital didn't get a record that I was Roman Catholic, and so no chaplains visited me, until a few days later when they visited the other person in my room. Fr. Jim brought her communion, then asked me who I was and offered me the Sacrament of the Sick and Eucharist. He anointed me, said the words, and I burst into tears, my first since the surgery. I was so immediately relieved, and also suddenly aware of how frightened I had been for days. I felt God's presence with me, the warmth and love flooding over me with the prayer and the oil. Remembering that feeling still brings tears to my eyes.
Comments
In 2003, in my probation conference, Clare wrote:
"This Jesus, in taking on our humanity, has taken on our vulnerability. The word “vulnerable” means “open to being wounded”. It is the opposite of closing oneself off in protection, making oneself “invulnerable”, like a medieval walled city or a policeman’s bulletproof vest"... and later: "Once we have accepted our woundedness, our fragility, we open ourselves to the realization that it is through our fragility that God acts, our woundedness is the “place” of our redemption, the means God uses not only to act through us but to heal us, to heal our world"
With love and prayers as you continue the journey
Silvana
PS: You can read the whole text here
http://www.rscjinternational.org/en/intranet/general-council-onlymenu-68/letters-and-conferences-onlymenu-177/615-conference-to-the-probanists-by-clare-pratt-rscj.html