The Spirit of Nursing

Nursing is a high calling, one that brings us to the very threshold of heaven. It's a work that is as much a benefit and blessing to nurses as it is to the recipients of their care.

How so? What is it that drives us to be nurses? 

Crazy hours; tiring, sometimes even exhausting work (and that not only physically, but mentally and emotionally exhausting as well); a huge amount of responsibility; innumerable multi-faceted and multi-layered demands that stretch the concept of multi-tasking to the extremes of human endurance.

So why do we do it?

Well, starting with the obvious, there’s the paycheck, and it's true that compensation for nurses has significantly improved over the last generation. No one’s going to get rich being a nurse, but certainly you can make a comfortable enough living, and job security is virtually guaranteed for the foreseeable future.

O.K., there’s the paycheck, but is that enough? Well, there’s also a prestige attached to nursing and a real opportunity for professional advancement. Survey after survey shows that the American people trust nurses more than any other profession, and for good reason: The kind of people who make it in nursing are the kind of people you want in your corner no matter what the crisis or problem. 

And as a career, the sky’s the limit for nurses. We all start off at the bedside, but after that, we can go in countless directions: Research, management, entrepreneurship, a host of specialty areas, advance practice nursing – even education! With all that opportunity, there really shouldn’t be such a thing as a bored nurse!

So, a paycheck and professional excellence – that’s a pretty good combination for most career paths.  But for the Christian nurse, that’s only the start, for the heart of Christian nursing – the soul of Christian nursing, as it were – is an encounter with Christ Himself.

Jesus Himself refers to this encounter in His parable of the sheep and the goats: 

The King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink?  And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee?  And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’  And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’

And so, the young girl dying from cancer; the elderly man in the nursing home with no family; the parents of the child in the ICU; the frightened woman facing a major surgery – are not all of these Christ? When we care for them, aren’t we ministering to the Lord Himself?  Aren’t we on Holy Ground?

I want to share with you my nursing hero. Most of us who choose nursing as a profession are inspired by at least one nurse-hero in our lives – maybe a mom or an aunt who was a nurse; maybe a friend, or maybe the example of a compassionate nurse who cared for us or our loved ones. Although the example of many nurses influenced my decision to go into nursing, the one that stands out is a woman I never met – a woman who died almost 80 years ago: Rose Hawthorne.

Rose was the daughter of writer Nathaniel Hawthorne and grew up in a privileged home. Following a very profound conversion later in life, she determined to demonstrate her love for Christ through some form of service – but not just any service would do. For Rose, it had to be the hardest work, the least desirable; a work that was commensurate with the depth of her new Christian commitment.

At the time, cancer was a disease not very well understood, and those afflicted with it were shunned – much as lepers in biblical times and throughout history. People whose cancer didn’t respond to available treatments were considered hopeless, and they were often relegated to die lonely, miserable deaths.

So, Rose took a nursing course, went to the poorest section of New York City, and began taking in and caring for the indigent who were dying from cancer. In effect, she started a kind of hospice in her own apartment.

And what was this courageous woman’s philosophy? Why did she do this thing? Here are her own words:

I have set out to love everyone. I do very little, and am as stupid as I can be about it. But even this imperfect effort is so beneficent in being according to God’s plan, and, in so far as it goes, free from selfishness and sloth, that each person coming into contact with it is refreshed. I myself tremble to see the power, even in me, of a little of the right spirit. It is as if God brushed me aside each moment saying, ‘I am here.’

This, for me, was electric. Here was something I could dedicate myself to! Here was a work – an employment – that could be more than just a job; it was a work that could make me a direct instrument of the Lord’s love and mercy every day!

So, my friends, congratulations! You have reached a significant milestone on your road to a nursing career – a career that is both financially and professionally rewarding. 

But allow me to remind you – and those of your family and friends that are here gathered with you to celebrate your accomplishment – that your chosen career path is also one that will afford you many, many encounters with Our Lord Jesus in the face of the sick and the suffering. Watch for those encounters; do not neglect them; humbly embrace them and take full advantage of them. I assure you, they will be your greatest, your richest rewards.
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This essay was adapted from an address to first-year nursing students at their Nursing Dedication ceremony, Bethel College, Indiana (15 January 2005). A version also appeared on Catholic Exchange.

To Moses Emmanuel, As You Are Baptized

I'm writing you this note on your baptismal day, Moses. Someday, your mom and dad can read it to you; in time, you'll be able to read it to yourself. And I hope you will read it once in a while, especially when this day rolls around every year. It's a very special day, for you and for me.

Moses Saved from the Water, Raphael (1518-19)

For you, of course, it's your second birthday—the day you're born again and marked with the sign of a new spiritual life, the life of Jesus. You belonged to Him before, but now you belong
to Him in a very particular way. In fact, you now have His own life inside you, and He will always be with you. I hope you get to know Jesus very well.

It’s a special day for me, too, because I have the honor of being your godfather. This is no small thing, to be a godfather. It's hard enough to be a human father, and I'm still learning to do that. Your own dad will tell you it's difficult, and you never quite know if you're getting it right—but that's OK, and we love getting up and trying to get it right every day.

But being a godfather is a bit different because I'm an outsider. Your mom and dad and God loved you into existence, and they've been loving you ever since. That love will sustain you as you grow—day in, day out, every day, every hour, every second. And, like God, your mom and dad will be with you everywhere, and their thoughts will never drift far away from you. That's the way moms and dads are.

Godparents are like that, but not so much. I have my own family, and they keep me pretty busy, so I won't be part of your everyday life. Certainly I’ll be praying for you daily, and I hope I will see you a lot, but most of your growing up will happen when I’m not around.

Still, I have a part to play, and your mom and dad have entrusted me with a tremendous responsibility: To help you as you make your way on the road of faith. In a sense, I’ll be walking alongside you on that road, offering guidance and assistance when necessary, and always encouragement and spiritual support.

The Baptism of Christ, del Verrocchio and da Vinci (ca. 1475)

To do all that requires, first of all, that I be making some progress on that road myself—something I should be doing anyway, and something your mom and dad apparently assume I'm doing, or else they wouldn't have given me this job!  In any case, becoming your godfather makes me want to do it more and better. With God’s help, I will.

And with God’s help, we’ll both grow closer to Jesus—a funny idea, if you think about it, because now that you’re baptized, He lives in you just like He lives in me. How much closer can we get to Him?

I’m still figuring it out, dear godson, but I’m finding it’s a lot like a tree, or an ocean, or the sky. Next time it's a clear night, go out with your dad and look at the stars. No matter how often you do it, you see something new, don't you? And the sky is around us all the time, pretty much unchanging. We're the ones who change as we grow, and we see more.

Jesus won't change as He settles in our souls, but we will. We'll see more, hopefully every day. That's my prayer for you. Please pray the same for me.
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A version of this story appeared on MyYearofFaith.com, Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend. 

Bird Poop and Providence

It’s Tobit week at daily Mass, and you know what that means: bird poop! A biennial favorite for those in the know, it's the week when you can expect to watch your lector struggle to keep a straight face while reading aloud about warm bird droppings (“warm” no less!) falling into Tobit’s eyes. In case you missed it, it was yesterday—mark it on your calendar for 2015!

Anna and the Blind Tobit, Rembrandt (ca. 1630)

The book of Tobit is one of the Old Testament deuterocanonical books—otherwise known as “the Apocrypha” among Protestants—so it wasn’t a Scriptural text I grew up hearing in the Presbyterian Church. Consequently, sitting at Mass as a new convert some years back, and hearing the bird poop reading for the first time, I just about bust up laughing—can you blame me? It’s truly a comical scene: Having risked his life burying a fellow Jew in defiance of the law, Tobit lays down for a nap next to a courtyard wall, and sparrows perched above poop in his eyes. I can’t be the only one that looks forward to hearing that ancient anecdote proclaimed in church every couple years.

To be sure, the rest of the story isn’t quite so comical. Tobit contracts an eye disease and goes blind, his wife has to go to work weaving cloth to support him, and his whole life seems to fall apart. “Lord, command that I be released from such anguish; let me go to my everlasting abode,” he prays. “For it is better for me to die than to endure so much misery in life” (3.6). 

What follows is pretty complicated—there’s an archangel and a demon, a marriage and several murders, a journey, a debt repaid, and recovered vision. Along the way, Tobit also recovers his fundamental trust in God—despite the disappointments and adversity—and his faithfulness is rewarded abundantly. In a Job-like way, Tobit’s story calls us to live lives abandoned to the Lord, come what may. God is God; we’re not. We can’t possibly see things the way He sees them, so no matter the difficulty or setback, we’re reminded to keep banking on Him and hoping in His love. “Blessed be God who lives forever,” Tobit prays after his reversal of fortune. “For he afflicts and shows mercy, casts down to the depths of Hades, brings up from the great abyss” (13.2).


The Healing of Tobit, Bernardo Strozzi (ca. 1625)

But there’s one additional element in Tobit’s story that makes me prefer it to Job’s better known tale. It’s the role of Raphael, the archangel mentioned earlier. His name means “God heals,” and Raphael is truly the Lord’s instrument in restoring relationships, health, and even property to the story’s chief characters. 

What’s particularly striking about Raphael’s actions, however, and what sets them apart from God’s restorative actions in the Book of Job, is the way Tobit’s author weaved them together in the narrative with the very travails that beset all the key players in the first place. Bird droppings and blindness for instance? All part of God’s plan to match up Tobit’s son, Tobias, with Sarah of Media. And when a fish attacks Tobias on his way to Media? It’s a propitious opportunity for Tobias to acquire the very balm that will heal his father’s sight.


Raphael Taking Leave of the Tobit Family, Rembrandt (1637)

This mixing and connecting of conflict and resolution throughout Tobit is highlighted by Raphael in his parting words to Tobit: “I was sent to put you to the test,” he says. “At the same time, however, God sent me to heal you and your daughter-in-law Sarah” (12.14). Junk happens; we don’t understand it; we cry out to God for understanding and relief. But, more often than not, it’s the very junk we wail about that ends up being the source of our growth and transformation and even salvation.

Providence seems to work that way often. We see obstacles; God sees opportunities. And often our stubbornness is such that He is forced to resort to those maddening obstacles to divert us from our ruts of pettiness and sloth and greed and pride.

Forced? No, I suppose not. We are speaking of God, after all. Yet it does seem to be the way He prefers to do things though—working through circumstances, orchestrating events, prompting and upsetting, prodding and tripping. We're so blind to the obvious ways we're called to live that sometimes He has to, well, make us blind in order to make us see.

All the same, let's be clear: Sometimes bird poop in the eye is just bird poop in the eye. Still, next time it happens, wipe it off, and glance around. It just might be a sign that an angel is nearby and God is up to something.
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St. Nicholas Pieck and Companions (d. 1572)

Reformation Europe was a boiling sea of social upheaval, and good Christians of every stripe found the shifting political scene a daunting arena in which to live out their faith. Zeal for creed was often mixed up with lust for power, and excesses of the most brutal kind were routinely rationalized on both sacred and secular grounds.

In sixteenth-century Holland, where the entanglement of faith and statecraft was particularly complex, a group of Franciscans under the leadership of St. Nicholas Pieck bravely met the challenge of sectarianism gone mad and paid the ultimate price for their fidelity to the Faith.

 Dutch Ships Ramming Spanish Galleys, by Hendrik Cornelisz Vroom (c. 1562–1640)

The affable and selfless Father Pieck was the guardian of a small friary in the coastal fishing village of Gorkum. He was from a prominent Dutch family and had received the finest education available, including studies at the famed Louvain University. At this time, the Netherlands was a possession of the Spanish King Philip II, and the Protestant revolt against all established authority was sweeping the continent. Fr. Pieck was a passionate Catholic in every respect, and when he got wind of the approaching storm of revolution, he spared no effort in exhorting both his confreres and the townspeople to adhere closely to their Catholic faith, no matter what the cost. 

In 1572, a Dutch rebellion materialized with a distinctly Calvinist flavor – in part to further distance the homeland from Catholic Spain. With the support of Holland’s Prince William of Orange, mercenary seamen called the Watergeuzen, or “Sea Beggars,” went about ravaging the coast and establishing beachheads for the new rebellion. The Protestant pirates arrived in Gorkum on June 26, 1572, and quickly took over the town. The brigands decided to underscore the newly imposed Calvinist ascendancy by rounding up the local Catholic clergy and subjecting them to intimidation and abuse.

Nineteen priests and religious comprised the band of captives – Fr. Pieck, eight other Franciscan priests, and two Franciscan brothers were joined by an Augustinian, a Dominican, two Norbertines, and four secular priests. The Sea Beggars roughly treated their captives and threw them in a filthy dungeon. The marauders singled out Fr. Nicholas for the cruelest treatment, choking him with his own cincture and then, after he survived the attack, applying a burning torch to the priest’s face, ears, and tongue. Eventually, the rebel Admiral Lumaye ordered the group moved to Brielle, a nearby Calvinist stronghold, where he compelled the priests and brothers to parade through the town reciting litanies for the amusement of the populace.

Once sated with the infliction of these indignities, the Sea Beggars invited local Calvinist ministers to come and debate the Catholic clergy on the hot issues of the day – namely, the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist and the unique authority vested in the Pope as successor of St. Peter. The Calvinist rebels no doubt expected the ministers to easily defeat the priests on every count, but to a man – including the less educated lay brothers – each of the prisoners ably defended the Church’s ancient teaching with deft argument and sound theological reasoning.

By this time, word of the kidnapping had spread abroad. The influential family of Fr. Pieck attempted to secure the guardian’s release, but the holy priest refused to leave his confinement unless all were released with him. At the same time, the local magistrates, the people of Gorkum, and even the Calvinist Prince William himself, weighed in on the side of the hostages.

Martyrs de Gorkum, by Cesare Fracassini (1838-1868)

Nevertheless, Admiral Lumaye stubbornly insisted the prisoners make some public gesture denying the Catholic Faith in exchange for their freedom. All 19 were swift to reject the offer, and were resolute in confirming their belief in the Real Presence and the authority of the Pope. Summing up his own position and that of the entire group, Fr. Pieck declaimed boldly, “I would rather endure death for the honor of God than swerve even a hair’s breadth from the Catholic Faith.”

The clerics’ refusal to yield inflamed Lumaye and his followers, and under cover of night on July 9, 1572, the Calvinist rebels led their hostages to an abandoned monastery outside of Brielle. There, in a turf shed, and assisted by an apostate priest, the Sea Beggars strung up the 19 confessors one by one and left them to hang until dead. The murderers disposed of the bodies in a makeshift common grave, and it was not until 1616 that the remains were recovered and properly enshrined in a Belgian Franciscan church.

Pope Pius XI canonized the Martyrs of Gorkum in 1867, and their glorious sacrifice is memorialized every year on July 9. 

A version of this story appeared in Franciscan Way, Franciscan University of Steubenville.

The Martyrs of Shanxi

In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI visited a shrine in Rome dedicated to the martyrs of the twentieth century. “So many fell while they were carrying out the evangelizing mission of the Church,” he commented. “Their blood mingled with that of the indigenous Christians to which they had transmitted the faith.” The Holy Father’s words are an apt description of the Franciscan martyrs of Shanxi—a small band of religious whose own sacrifice ushered in an epoch of sacrifice. 

The Catholic Church in China traces its beginnings to missionary efforts in the thirteenth century. The Christian practice of those early pioneers naturally had a strong European flavor that was hard to reconcile with ancient Oriental customs. With each new encounter between the West and the Far East, however, missioners grew ever more skilled at inculturating the Faith and accommodating it as much as possible to the Chinese way of life.

This approach was enthusiastically adopted by the seven Franciscan Missionaries of Mary who traveled to the Chinese province of Shanxi in 1899. Hailing from four different European countries, the sisters settled in Taiyuan, the provincial capital, and threw themselves into their work—serving the poor through hospitals, orphanages, vocational training, and numerous other apostolates.

The needs were great in Shanxi; the demands on the sisters unrelenting. Still, the seven knew great joy as they manifested their love for Christ through their service, and the people of their adopted homeland reciprocated with affection. Sr. Mary Amandina was particularly singled out for her cheerfulness despite challenging conditions and often grueling work. She was known to the Chinese as “The European sister who is always laughing.”

St. M. Amandina (1872-1900)

Some in Shanxi disapproved of the sisters’ work, especially the provincial governer, Yu Xian. This was the period of the Boxer Rebellion—a violent reaction to Western influence in China—and Yu Xian took advantage of the tumult to press an assault on the fledgling Christian community and the missionaries who cultivated it. This attack was not wholly unexpected, as Sr. Amandina had previously expressed in a letter home. “The news is not good, danger is approaching, but we are peaceful,” she wrote. “I confide myself to God’s care and I pray Him to console and fortify the martyrs and those who have to suffer for His name.”

On July 5, 1900, Yu Xian imprisoned the seven sisters along with almost two dozen friars, seminarians, and lay faithful. Four days later, after a mock trial, the execution order was given, and the sisters were forced to witness the demise of their brethren. This cruel act of intimidation had little effect, and throughout the ordeal the sisters could be heard praying and chanting the Te Deum until they themselves were slaughtered. 

Sr. Amandina and her sisters, along with 113 other martyrs of China, were canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 1, 2000. The next day in Rome, a group of 36 Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Mary pledged themselves to continue in the footsteps of the Shanxi martyrs and bring the Gospel to foreign lands—including two to be sent to China.

The feast of the Shanxi martyrs is July 9. 

A version of this story appeared in Franciscan Way, Franciscan University of Steubenville.