Being Ill in Public

I had been a bit reluctant to make my prostate cancer known publicly – though the media.

I don’t want to call attention to myself when there are so many needs around me and so many people really suffering.

But sharing has been a blessed occasion. People who have had cancer have shared with me their experiences or the experiences of family members. A person who admits he rarely prays offered a prayer for me. As of today, more than 225 persons wrote a note on a Facebook post of mine asking for prayers and there were more than 420 who responded with a care, a like or a love. 

It has been humbling.

It also reminds of the net of connections and relations I have and the importance of these connections. As Pope Francis said to young people at a meeting in Skopje, North Macedonia in 2009 (Cited in Fratelli Tutti, 8):

“Here we have a splendid secret that shows us how to dream and to turn our life into a wonderful adventure. No one can face life in isolation… We need a community that supports and helps us, in which we can help one another to keep looking ahead. How important it is to dream together… By ourselves, we risk seeing mirages, things that are not there. Dreams, on the other hand, are built together.”

And I also remember the scene in Mark 2: 1-12, where Jesus heals a paralytic, assisted by four friends:

Then some came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Child, your sins are forgiven.”

Note that Jesus is touched by "their" faith, not the faith of the one who was ill. I tend to think that the man is healed because of the faith and prayers of his friends.

I don’t want to be the center of attention because I know that many others suffer in silence and without the support and resources I have. 

But …. 

If being ill in public can help some people recognize the presence of God in their lives, it is worth it. 

If my illness can open other to the illness of others – and open their hearts to accompany them, my being ill in public is not in vain. 

If my illness can help others recognize the resources they have in God and in their families and communities, then my words and example may help becoming a more caring community which respects and recognizes the gifts of everyone, even the poorest and humblest.

If my illness can move others to accompany the sick, to be at their side, to help them, my words move people to open their hearts (and their bank accounts) even more (especially for the ones who are really poor and in need.) 

If my illness can help others recognize our weakness, our fragility, then God may be using me to open others to His strength that is make complete in our weakness.

The words of Pope Francis' message for this year’s day of the sick have strengthened me:

"...it is precisely through the experience of vulnerability and illness that we can learn to walk together according to the style of God, which is closeness, compassion, and tenderness."

May God awaken in me and in all of us a deep tenderness and compassion, giving us the courage to accompany and touch the poor and suffering.

I will continue updates on what I’m experiencing in the hope that it may encourage those who are sick to live with peace and even joy in the midst of their suffering and to prod those who are well to accompany the poor – with funds, if they have them, but even more with their tender presence at the side of those who are ailing.

Be there – where God is.

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Graphic by Cerezo Barredo

Visiting the sick and being the one who is ill

Visiting the sick is one of the ministries that I’ve grown to love here in the parish of Dulce Nombre. 

I would often go to a community on a Sunday morning for a Celebration of the Word with Communion; after the celebration, I would go to visit the sick and the elderly. I tried to visit communities where there was no communion minister.

I have also accompanied the communion ministers in their monthly meetings. 

February 11 is the World Day of the Sick, promoted by the popes, on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, whose shrine is a center for healing. 

The month before the pandemic, we had a special activity for the World Day of the Sick in San Agustín. A large group of communion ministers got together and visited the sick there and in a neighboring village, Descombros.

At that time, there was only one communion minister and she visited the many sick, but it was hard for her to attend so many people. At that time, I would come several times and visit the sick.

This was a special occasion. We met for prayer in the church. Several people from San Agustín served as guides and each communion minister visited two or three people. We got together afterwards for a reflection and a lunch together. It was a good experience.

This year, the communion ministers will visit the sick, the elderly, and those confined to their homes on February 11 and 12. I won’t be able to accompany them because I have two pre-marriage interviews on Saturday morning. I’ve had five so far since January 1. These couples want to receive the sacrament of matrimony before Lent! 

Last year, we also visited the sick in San Agustín as well as in other nearby communities.

In the last months of 2022, I didn’t make many visits, partly because of a serious chest cold that took months to get over – even with visits to two doctors.

This year, the day of the sick has special relevance for me, since I have been diagnosed with prostate cancer and hope to begin treatment shortly. 

The words of Pope Francis touch my heart. Pope Francis begins noting the importance of accompanying the sick: 

 Illness is part of our human condition. Yet, if illness is experienced in isolation and abandonment, unaccompanied by care and compassion, it can become inhumane. When we go on a journey with others, it is not unusual for someone to feel sick, to have to stop because of fatigue or of some mishap along the way. It is precisely in such moments that we see how we are walking together: whether we are truly companions on the journey, or merely individuals on the same path, looking after our own interests and leaving others to “make do”. 

 How many of the sick and the elderly live in isolation, with little care by their family and friends.

But I have seen so many of the sick accompanied and cared for by family members. I recall the older woman cared for by her young grandson, the young man who fell and hurt his back who was cared for by his companion, the young man who cared for his future wife after she had a difficult birth, the family that cared for their ill grandfather, and so many more. I have felt so connected with them since I cared for my dad in the last years of his life. I have sometimes shared this with the caregivers, commending them for their care and reminding them that they are the hands of Christ caring for their sick or elderly relative.

I was reluctant to share news of my cancer. But after sharing with a few people, I have been overwhelmed with prayers, offers of support, real solidarity. Some survivors of prostate cancer have told me of their experience.

It’s overwhelming and gives me great consolation and, in some mysterious way, it has given me renewed strength to live my diaconal vocation.

But it is important to face my vulnerability. In his message, Pope Francis wrote:

…it is especially through the experience of vulnerability and illness that we can learn to walk together according to the style of God, which is closeness, compassion, and tenderness.

In the last year or so, I have become more conscious of my vulnerability and weakness; I am, after all, 75 years old.

Now with this cancer, I am experiencing illness, though I have resources that most others here don’t. 

Thanks be to God, this has opened up depths of compassion that I didn’t realize that I had. When I drove to San Pedro Sula last week to meet with the urologist and the oncologist, I had a deep sense of connection and compassion to all the people I saw – especially the poor walking, working, and living at the side of the road. I think of the experience of Thomas Merton at Fourth and Walnut in Louisville, Kentucky, on March 18, 1958, as related in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, pages 141-142.

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream....

We are part of each other. We are all brothers and sisters, as Pope Francis wrote in his last encyclical Fratelli Tutti. Our illness and vulnerability can open us to the sick and vulnerable around us – remembering that Jesus too shares our vulnerability.

Saint Charles de Foucauld, mission, friendship, and my cancer

The life of Charles de Foucauld and the communities which were inspired by his life have fascinated me since the early 1980s, especially when I met some Little Brothers on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and attended Mass there many Sundays. My diaconal stole for my ordination bears the heart and cross which he sewed on his habit.

Yet there was one aspect of the life of Saint Charles de Foucauld that I never knew until I recently read Little Sister Cathy Wright’s book, Saint Charles de Foucauld: His Life and Spirituality.

About 1907, a severe drought hit the Algerian Sahara, including Tamanrasset, where he was living. His life was in danger and his poor neighbors helped restore his life. As Sister Cathy writes:

    Charles was at his lowest point, physically and as well as spiritually. He felt himself broken and a failure. Previously no matter how poor he was, he had always been the one who had something to give to others. True to the missionary customs of the day, he felt he should never receive anything from the people, never be beholden to them. Now, for the first time in his life, except possibly in Morocco, he had nothing left to give. 

    Brother Charles was now the one in need, and the Tuareg responded by scouring the countryside looking for a little bit of milk to nurse him back to health. Their sense of the sacred duty of hospitality moved them to care for the foreigner. Charles truly owed them his life. Weakness brought about a level of relationship that would not have been possible without this reciprocity. It was a conversion for him in terms of his own inner life — of accepting his weakness and need — and one that further transformed his theories about mission into a relationship of friendship. (pp. 92, 94)

This event in the life of Saint Charles de Foucauld has struck me deeply in the last few weeks. 

I've had some prostate problems since June last year. After some medication and later a blood test (PSA), my doctor in November sent me to a urologist. A young Honduran doctor whom I knew from his work with Honduras Amigas, a medical brigade that comes regularly to our area, arranged an appointment for me with a urologist in San Pedro Sula in December. 

After that appointment, it was clear to me that I had prostate cancer, though its extent was unclear. The urologist ordered a biopsy.

Because of Christmas holidays, I was not able to schedule a biopsy until January. A Honduran friend whom I’ve known for 15 years gave me a ride to San Pedro and refused my offer to at least pay for the fuel. The young doctor arranged for a place for me to stay with a friend of his and then accompanied me to the hospital for the biopsy.

The Saturday before the biopsy we had a meeting of the parish’s communion ministers. I asked our pastor, Padre German, for the anointing of the sick, which we celebrated at the meeting of the communion ministers.

Last Friday I went to San Pedro to meet with the urologist and later with an oncologist. I have to get an MRI (a full body scan) in Santa Rosa this week and then I’ll go see the oncologist to determine what treatment will be best.

I have been reluctant to share my medical situation publicly, partly because I did not fully know my medical situation and partly because I don’t like to call attention to myself, especially living in the midst of so much suffering. I shared information with some friends and family. I put a generic request for prayers for me on my Facebook page, but no more than that.

Early on, I did share my medical situation with some close friends here and in the US, with my spiritual director, and my pastor and the bishop. But Friday, I decided to share more broadly – first with a detailed e-mail to some friends and family and then with a Facebook post restricted to friends. 

The responses have been overwhelming. Some friends have sent me e-mails or private messages, several sharing their experience with prostate cancer. But over 100 wrote comments on my Facebook post and there are, as of now, more than 160 likes – from Catholics, Episcopalians, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, and others, from all over the globe, including people here in Honduras whom I know. These signs of solidarity, love, and accompaniment give me strength and courage. 

After the biopsy, I had thought my situation might be worse and was, as Nouwen and Rolheiser have written, “befriending my death.” 

When I thought of offering to host a night of the Posadas next December, I noted to myself, “if I’m still alive.” This was not a macabre fascination with death but, in the words of Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, “an acceptance of my vulnerability and mortality,” something which I have been struggling with for the past year or so. It has been a freeing experience.

Last year I came across this quote of Ronald Rolheiser in Essential Spiritual Writings, p. 22:

Henri Nouwen suggests that at a certain point of our lives, the real question is no longer: What can I still do so that my life makes a contribution? Rather, the question becomes: How can I now live so that my death will be an optimal blessing for my family, my church, and the world? We must leave home a second time, and this time we face a much larger unknown.

About three months ago, I began considering if God might be calling me to something more.

There are a lot of changes in my life: the Dubuque Franciscans left Honduras a few weeks ago; my pastor will probably be changed in April; I turned seventy-five last June. 

I feel a need or a call to not only be closer to the poor but also to devote myself to more quiet – for contemplation and for some writing projects I’d like to finish. I have even begun looking for places to make an eight-day Ignatian directed retreat.

But now this comes along – provoking a change, though I have no idea where this will lead me. But, as if to push me into unknown waters, earlier this week I came across these words of Patrick McGrath, SJ, in An Ignatian Book of Days (p.29):

Looking back on our lives, can any of us honestly say we knew exactly the path our lives would take? Isn’t it true that God has moved about in each of our lives and surprised us with all manner of twists and turns we could not have predicted or perhaps even desired? Ignatius reminds us that we must remain ever open to the new ways God is inviting us to live our lives. If anything impedes our ability to remain open, then we must prayerfully consider what to do. When Ignatius instructs us not to fix our desires on health over sickness, for example, he prods us to consider whether our faith allows us to trust that God can be experienced even in frailty and sickness—and that good can come of it.

What are the new ways God is inviting me to live my life? 

I don’t know, but I feel surrounded by a community of love that is accompanying me into uncharted waters. I also feel that these experiences are helping me move forward, becoming more open to the people around me. 

This is a blessing. 

I want to share two other thoughts,  seemingly unconnected. 

First, in a meeting with Padre German, my pastor, a few days ago, as I brought him up to date on my situation, he told me what a Jesuit once told him. 

The Jesuit was talking of where one wants to be buried. He noted that these are the people whom we will see on the day of the resurrection of the dead and so we should ask to be buried where we will be surrounded by people we know and love.

That touched me, because I have told people that, when I die, I want to be buried in the cemetery in the nearby aldea of Candelaria where I have assisted at the burial of people from Plan Grande and Candelaria – my neighbors. 

Second, a few days ago, I was reflecting how I see my ministry as opening spaces for grace. Then, I remembered the ending of Georges Bernanos’s novel, The Diary of a Country Priest.

A friend who had left the active priesthood and was married had given the country priest a place to stay for the night. His condition worsened, and he was vomiting blood. He asked his friend for absolution which his friend did with some trepidation: “Although I realized that I had no right to accede ever hastily to this request, it was quite impossible in the name of humanity and friendship, to refuse him.” 

Afterwards, his friend sent for the parish priest and apologized for the “delay that threatened to deprive my colleague of the final consolations of the church.” Shortly after, as this friend tells it, the country priest “put his hand over mine, and his eyes entreated me to draw closer to him. He then uttered these words, almost in my ear. And I am quite sure that I have recorded them accurately, for his voice, though halting, was strongly distinct. 

    ‘Does it matter? Grace is . . . everywhere.’ 

     I think he died just then.

Yes, grace is everywhere. It’s just that sometimes it’s hard to recognize.