Fr. Mario Attard, OFM Cap., on seeking to achieve peace

From Dying Religiously to Dying Spiritually

Amy was a middle-aged woman. She was married and had two sons. Her youngest son was going to graduate as a notary in ten days time. Amy had been suffering from cancer for nine months. Unfortunately there was nothing that could be done for her.

Amy was a very religious woman. She believed in a God who does what he promises. In visiting her I sensed that Amy was feeling betrayed and angry with this God who let her down.

As her cancer spread she continued attending the healing services and intensified her prayer for her healing. As her medical condition deteriorated, Amy also lost her peace of mind and heart. If Jesus healed many sick people, how is it that he cannot heal her disease?

Amy was angry because God was so unfair to her. She could not understand why God was so insensitive to her plea when she had been such a good wife and mother. She was very upset and angry with God because she was impeded from attending her son’s graduation. By being with Amy, I felt that this patient was a prisoner of her fossilized faith.

Amy was also angry by the upsetting behaviour of her spiritual director. He told her that it was God’s will that she had cancer. When she told me to pray for her to be healed, I asked her if she would want me to pray with her for her healing. Amy agreed and I used her very words.

When I went back to the chaplain’s quarters I asked myself how I would best accompany Amy in her journey. My pastoral reflection led me to the following pastoral plan: (1) visiting Amy frequently; (2) listening to her and allowing her to express her feelings and explore her faith if she so wished; and (3) inviting her for prayer.

The next time I visited her, Amy was conscious. When I asked her how things were going, she told me that she was not feeling well. In her faint voice I could hear that gradually she had started accepting her own situation. Although she asked me to pray for her healing I sensed in her request that Amy was seeking to achieve peace. Picking up her desire for peace, in my prayer I asked Jesus to be a healing presence for her.

Before Amy died I could sense that healing had already begun to take place in her. It was after venting her frustration and anger with the God of justice and reciprocal fairness in the company of a caring listener that she could move on to meet a God of compassion, love and acceptance.

Amy found the real God on her death bed. She could make this leap in faith because she was allowed to be herself. She met the real God whose very name is “I AM WHO I AM" (Exod. 3, 14).

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