By Noreen McInnes
“I see Jesus in every human being. I say to myself, this is hungry Jesus; I must feed him. This is sick Jesus. This one has leprosy or gangrene; I must wash him and tend to him. I serve because I love Jesus.” – St. Teresa of Calcutta
I received the phone call that everyone dreads: “Your father is dying. You need to come quickly.”
I left San Diego on the next plane to Pennsylvania, hoping to make it to the hospital before the Lord took him home.
Surprisingly, from the moment I arrived at his bedside and peered into his deep blue eyes, he began to take a turn for the better. Was it my fervent prayer? Was it a miracle? Thank You, Lord!
Early the next morning, right after Mass, I walked into dad’s hospital room to find him sitting up in a chair, finishing his breakfast.
The nurse popped her head into the room and asked, “Frank, are you ready to go back down to rehab today?”
“Sure, I’ll give it a try.”
I was speechless. Yesterday, he was dying; today, he is all full of optimism, ready to go to rehabilitation to get back on his feet.
“Dad, do you mind if I go to rehab with you?”
“No, that would be great. You can take me down there.”
After he got cleaned up from breakfast, I pushed Dad in his wheelchair down to the large rehab room in the hospital basement. As I walked in, my knees started to buckle from under me.
I looked from face to face at all the blank stares on the patients parked around the room. Not one of them seemed to know where they were, let alone who they were. I wanted to turn my dad right around and run out of there, afraid that my squeamish nature might get the best of me.
The rehab therapist pointed to an empty spot along the wall where she wanted Dad to go.
Oh, no, not there! That was right next to the scariest one of them all. Positioned uncomfortably in a wheelchair, his opened hospital gown exposed all kinds of tubes and wires attached to him. His urine bag hung on one side of his chair and an IV pole with a drip into his arm on the other.
Though seemingly much younger than all the other patients, he appeared worse off than the rest. He sat still, staring into space.
I was nervous, scared and uncomfortable. I tried not to look. But I did as I was told and backed Frank into the spot next to the urine bag, when the young man screamed out with great energy and fervor, “Frrrraaaaannnnk!!!!!”
Frank gently turned to him, smiled and, in a sing-song voice, called out, “Well hello, Ronald.”
Ronald yelled even louder, “Frrrraaaaannnnk!!!!!”
The rehab therapist leaned in towards me and whispered, “Ronald has been here for three months now and, in that time, he has only said one word — ‘Frank!’”
What? I gasped! I tried to look around the room with new eyes, but I was still traumatized.
My gaze stopped at a woman, drooling and hunched over in her chair. Before I knew it, Frank looked right at her and said in a flirtatious voice, “Hi there, Maureen.”
The drooling face turned toward Frank, ever so slightly, and I caught a glimpse of the slow, sexy wink aimed right at Frank. The whole place erupted in laughter.
Was Frank really here for treatment for himself? Was he the patient, or was he sent here to heal those around him? Obviously, God was in control.
I could no longer look with aversion or fear, but only with love and compassion for these children of God. My father taught me so much in those five minutes. He taught me to see the face of Jesus in the sick and the suffering.
Jesus, as He hung upon the cross, in the last minutes of His life, continued to minister to those around Him. He begged for mercy upon the soldiers that crucified Him, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Jesus pardoned the criminal that hung beside Him: “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).
We are also called to minister to others, even when we are suffering and dying; to remain in Him, doing His work, until our last breath. “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever remains in Me and I in him will bear much fruit because, without Me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
Let us look upon our last days, not as though we are finished, but as if we are on a final mission to bring the love of God to others. It is not just a time when we need to receive care, but a time when we can still care for others.
Christ offered Himself in a bloody sacrifice of love for us and our salvation. In gratitude, let us offer ourselves in an unbloody sacrifice of love. As St. Teresa of Avila said, “Christ has no body now but yours.”
Noreen McInnes is director of the Diocese of San Diego’s Office for Liturgy and Spirituality and the author of “Keep at It, Riley!” Published by New City Press, the book is subtitled “Accompanying my Father through Death into Life.”
