By Anne Wawszczyk (St. Bernadette’s Parish, Lancaster)

For many years I have suffered from chronic ill health, which has severely curtailed what I have been able to do. I have had to learn that what is most important is to ‘be’ for God and to allow Him to direct our lives, often in ways that we would not choose!

I remember once, as I walked up the aisle to receive Holy Communion, the words ‘This is My Body, broken for you’ came into my mind. As I held a fragment of the broken host, I was filled with a deep awareness that we are all part of the broken body of Christ. I was aware of the very real pain of suffering felt by some of the people gathered at that Eucharist, illness, bereavement, broken marriages, unemployment or stress at work, loneliness, problems with members of the family. I felt sure that every person in the congregation could tell ‘their particular story’. And I knew that it is only in Christ and through His self-giving love that we can hope for healing and peace. If we are honest, we are probably more united by our weaknesses and powerlessness than we are by our strengths and achievements. In our poverty, we know our need for God, and each other! Is it any wonder that Christ’s way of Redemption was that of embracing apparent powerlessness, “He became humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross”?

Three years ago, our daughter, Ruth, was diagnosed with a rare and very aggressive form of lymphoma. As a mother, one’s whole life is geared towards nurturing and protecting one’s children. To be faced with a life threatening illness such as cancer, is to be confronted with one’s ultimate powerlessness and vulnerability. I had given birth to Ruth but I could not give her life! I remember one night, as I sat by her bedside, watching the highly toxic chemotherapy drugs being infused into her emaciated body, I cried out to God that I just wanted to ‘make her better’. It was as if He came and stood by the bedside and with great compassion simply said: ‘You can’t. All you can do is love her!’ And on Borchardt Ward, the children’s cancer ward at Pendlebury, we witnessed love in a way that we had never done before. The totally unconditional love of parents for their children as they stayed by their sides twenty four hours a day, unable to take their children’s suffering from them but literally carrying them in their arms. The love shown in the compassion of the doctors and nurses, but perhaps above all, in the uncomplaining way the children ‘carried their crosses.’

To be confronted with suffering at any level – but perhaps especially when it is the young and innocent, is to be plunged into mystery. There are no nice pat answers. Perhaps that is why the world shies away from it. We want to be ‘in control.’ We want certainty. Yet that is not the way of Christ. His is the “way of the cross” and He asks us all ‘Can you drink this cup?’ – are we willing to open our eyes and our hearts to the suffering around us? “All you can do is love her”, the doctor said. Do we really believe in the power of love? In our dining room, we have a photograph of the sanctuary at St. Bernadette’s Church filled with lighted candles. Just as Ruth completed her first course of chemotherapy, we returned home to hear that there was to be prayer vigil for her, organised by some of our fellow parishioners. Paul, my husband, was able attend and was overwhelmed to find the church packed with parishioners and friends who had responded in love to Ruth’s suffering. The candles are symbols of the love, the faith and the hope of the people gathered in prayer that day. And throughout Ruth’s illness, we continued to be overwhelmed with the messages of support and the promise of prayer that came in literally from all around the world. A community in praying in Peru, and an old lady in Ireland who had a candle burning for her for over a year! When we were told that the cancer was in remission, Ruth’s first consultant here in Lancaster, who knew just how advanced the original cancer was, commented that it was a result not only of all the chemotherapy but also of all the prayer. We are sure of that but it still leaves the question why so many children, just as much loved and prayed for as Ruth, do not survive.

But we were not just supported by prayer. Home made soup and bread was left on our doorstep. Money to help with the cost of the many journeys to Manchester kept appearing. Staff at Our Lady’s Catholic High School here in Lancaster helped us to have a much-needed holiday at the end of Ruth’s treatment. A core of people helped to keep our spirits up by just ‘being there for us’ – true ‘companions on the journey’! Cards came in hundreds. At times it was very hard for us to keep strong but we were literally held on the wings of prayer. And then we had the joy of being joined in celebration by over two hundred people to hear Ruth playing with the Lancashire Youth Concert Band. And to think that one young doctor told us that even if Ruth survived, she would never play the flute again!

Our lives have been changed irrevocably by what we have been through and we are strangely richer for it. We know that we are very vulnerable. We know that none of us can guarantee the future. We know the depth of our poverty and our need. We live daily with the reality of the mystery of suffering both in our own lives and in the world around us and we are no longer afraid to acknowledge our apparent helplessness in the face of it. But above all, we know the ‘power of love’ – as the psalm reminds us: “The Lord is compassion and love.” Where there is love, He IS there.

If the past few years have taught me anything, it is that the greatest gift we can give each other is the gift of knowing that we are loved, loved unconditionally. With all our strengths and weaknesses each one of us is a ‘beloved child of God’. May we not be afraid to admit our poverty and weakness and may we continue to offer each other that greatest of all gifts – the gift of love. “Three things remain, faith, hope and love, and the Greatest of these is Love.”