The Sick Person's Way of the Cross

Since this February 11 (the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes) is the 21st World Day of the Sick, I wrote a Way of the Cross about illness, after living with arthritis for more than 30 years.

FIRST STATION: The pain begins, at whatever age. Then comes the waiting in doctors’ offices. We bring our school backpack to study, or a book. Someone who loves us very much keeps us company while we wait. We go in for the consultation: medical history, examination, a prescription for painkillers, orders for tests, and we pay.

SECOND STATION: We sit down to call, patiently, to make appointments for the tests. We need them quickly and at a good price.

THIRD STATION: Test days. We get up early, but many are already in the waiting room. There we see all kinds of cases and think ours isn’t the worst. We take out our book. We wait to hand in the order, to pay the bill (which goes up every month) and to go in.

FOURTH STATION: They call our name. We jump up from our seat and put the book away. Depending on the person, we are treated with more or less humanity: “Put on the gown! Lie down! Don’t move! Don’t breathe!” Meanwhile we are freezing. The cold makes the pain worse. We endure it.

FIFTH STATION: Another appointment. We arrive at 5 a.m. and there are three people ahead of us. By 5:30 there are more than 20 on the waiting list. First-come, first-served appointments are very hard! on the sick. I don’t know how doctors don’t understand that. We go in and they give us the diagnosis and the list of medicines; we hope we can find them. We get home, collapse exhausted on the bed and think about what it will mean to live with an illness. The pain sharpens and we ask God for strength. We cry where no one can see us.

SIXTH STATION: If we need an operation, things get more complicated. Pre-operative tests, insurance paperwork (if we have insurance) and so on. We don’t sleep the night before. We leave before dawn to avoid the line at Admissions. We are given a room, put on the gown, and the stretcher arrives. On the stretcher a tear escapes, or several, but we wipe them away quickly. We begin to feel the cold of the operating room. The nurse comes to hook us up to things and says: “Relax, don’t move, cooperate…” We stare at the round lamp full of lights and beg God that everything goes well.

SEVENTH STATION: We wake up in our room with our family or friends there. What would the sick do without their family and friends! Thanks be to God, and to good doctors, everything went well. We are in a lot of pain and very thirsty. They give us more painkillers and we wait several hours before we can drink water. We depend completely on someone else for everything. A lesson in humility. Morning comes and we have to get up. The wound (or wounds!) burns, but onward: the worst is over (we think).

EIGHTH STATION: Time to leave the clinic, and we ask for the bill early so as not to wait so many hours. We wait anyway. The list of charges is staggering. We long to get home. We begin to feel like a burden. How hard it is to let ourselves be helped! But we are learning. Bedtime; we sleep little. We try not to bother anyone. We cry silently, with God.

NINTH STATION: We stay shut in, following our rest orders. Those of us who have had long recoveries know what it is to look at the calendar every morning, waiting for the great day when we can go out. It is hard to read, to write… We pray and offer up the pain.

TENTH STATION: The rest period ends. We are not the same. Our hearts have grown so much that every time we see a sick person we feel compassion and want to give them all our help. Some of us begin to ask that illnesses come to us and never to a child or a loved one, because watching them suffer is even worse.

ELEVENTH STATION: We live some very good months and thank God every second. Now we see everything as more beautiful, full of light. We try to follow the doctors’ instructions and schedule our check-ups.

TWELFTH STATION: Months go by, a year or years, and the same cycle repeats: pain, appointments, tests, surgery, recovery. We have more patience. But as the years pass we become more cowardly, and when they mention the word operation, we tremble! and think with terror of the recovery.

THIRTEENTH STATION: We feel how illness has helped us live life with greater depth and sensitivity. Patience is the key word in what we learn; there is a reason they call us patients. Humility is the essential word on that hard road of seeing ourselves limited, even while we are young.

FOURTEENTH STATION: We discover that if we carry our illness with God at our side, we can be joyful in the midst of suffering. We learn in our own flesh that caring for a sick person is the greatest love that can be given in this life. We have learned, though it is hard to understand, that the sick are the Lord’s favorites, and that in Heaven there will be no more weeping and no more pain… Only Love and Happiness forever and ever…