Dr. Ruth E. Davidhizar (1946-2008)

I knew Ruth Davidhizar from afar my first years at Bethel College. She was the dean, a nationally known scholar, and an accomplished author; I was a second-career pre-licensure nursing student with a bunch of kids and very little self-confidence. She was the big cheese; I was a condiment at best.

In time, however, Ruth took me under her wing, and I came to see her as a mentor and even friend. After receiving my ADN and RN in 2000, Ruth had me come back to Bethel and tutor undergraduates in chemistry — not that I was a chemistry wiz, mind you, but only because I seemed to have a knack for helping people at least pass the class.

After two years of working in oncology nursing and hospice home care, I returned to Bethel to work on my BSN. Ruth made appearances in all undergraduate classes back then, presenting her rich insights regarding transcultural nursing and cross-cultural competence. At a school dedicated to missions and missionary training, Ruth’s expertise in this area was especially valuable, and it was particularly valuable to Bethel's nursing students regardless of their destination post-graduation. For, as you know, every family system — every individual — is a culture unto itself, and Ruth prepared us all to view nursing service as a cross-cultural encounter, whether it happened in the jungles of Asia, the steppes of Russia, or a med-surg floor at the local hospital.

And she was kind. Ruth was tireless in seeking out resources — i.e., money — for her nursing school and especially her beloved nursing students. Ruth, who had no children of her own, really did see us all as her family. She loved the art and science of nursing, and she was truly dedicated to instilling in her students — her heirs — a love for it as well.

When I was preparing to graduate a second time from Bethel with my BSN, I had some time to chat with Ruth during my exit interview, and she asked me what my intentions were in the future. I told her then that I hoped to begin a master’s program in nursing education and then someday come back to Bethel to teach. Pretty much at that moment, the exit interview concluded, and I saw Ruth’s eyes go glassy as the wheels in her head start to churn.

Within a day or two, she called me to ask if I’d consider taking a teaching post right away — with the proviso that I’d make steady progress on my master’s and graduate within a reasonable amount of time. I was floored and flattered, and I said I’d certainly think about it. Ruth then told me that she’d already set up an appointment for me with Bethel's President Bridges so that I could get additional information. This appointment turned out to be a pre-employment interview — something I only discovered at its conclusion when the president mentioned the starting salary for new associate faculty.

Ruth shepherded me through the application process and additional interviews, and she hired me to teach that next fall — and I’ve been at Bethel ever since. What a privilege it was to serve under and with Ruth in this tremendous profession — to have her feedback as I learned how to teach, to receive her encouragement and support, to know she had my back as a rookie nursing instructor.

I continued work on my M.A. throughout my first years as an instructor at Bethel, and I managed to complete it the same summer Ruth fell gravely ill. The last time I saw her, she was at home, and a number of us on the faculty were visiting to express our love and affection. Given how important Ruth was to me, both professionally and personally, it was hard to think of an appropriate token to present her, but in the end I decided on a copy of my final master’s research project. Anyone else would’ve (understandably) politely received such a “gift,” and set it aside to be disposed of at a convenient time. Ruth, though, recognized it for what it was: a milestone in an individual’s career in which she was hugely influential. Her expression of gratitude at that moment, I believe, was heartfelt and genuine.

I miss my colleague and friend. Rest in peace, Ruth.
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Ruth Davidhizar served the nursing students at Bethel College for over twenty years until her death on September 11, 2008. A version of this tribute appears on the Transcultural Nursing Society website.

An Aragon Ballroom Tutorial

 In Paradisum deducant te angeli (CCC 335).

Several years back, I took my two oldest girls to their first rock concert. At the time, Joan was a big fan of Janelle Monáe, and Meg liked Bruno Mars, so when we found out the two would be performing together in Chicago, I decided to spring for tickets. Besides, the venue was the Aragon Ballroom in Uptown, my former home – it was a cinch.

We made it to Chicago alright, and then parked at St. Thomas of Canterbury, my old parish. After a visit inside the church to show off where I’d become a Catholic a quarter century before, we walked the two blocks to the Aragon. Inside the tattered ballroom, it was festive and noisy – standing only, no seats. As the opening act, a local band, was warming up, Joan and Meg moved through the eclectic crowd closer to the stage. “We want to be up front,” they indicated – fine by me.

Then the band started playing – loud. “I think I’ll move a little further back,” I shouted to the girls. They nodded in time with the throbbing music, and I withdrew. When Monáe took the stage, I made signs to the girls that I was moving further back still, to the very edge of the crowd. And Bruno Mars? As he started his set, I removed myself as far back as I could go – to the back wall of the ballroom, behind the Miller Lite cart, next to a security guard. She must’ve seen the pain that lay behind my shrinking demeanor, for she pointed to her ears and mouthed, “Pretty loud.”

I slowly nodded, wide-eyed. “Where can I get some ear plugs?” I begged her. She smiled and pulled out a small packet from her pocket. “Here you go,” she said simply. God bless her – an angel of mercy.

As the clock inched toward midnight, my daughters and I made like Cinderella and hightailed it out of Uptown. They preferred to stay longer, but I wanted to be plenty alert for the long drive home to South Bend.

Wheeling along I-80 gave me time to reflect as the girls chatted about the evening's events. Clearly they had a good time, and that was the outing's main goal. My experience was considerably different, however, and it came down to two unanticipated object lessons:

1. My rocking days are over. It's not like that's a surprise, least of all to my kids. Nonetheless, my Aragon-induced bafflement – the standing, the din, the unexpected foreignness of it all – overwhelmed me and made it crystal clear that I had no business attending traditional pop blast-fests any more. If I'm going to tag along with my kids to events in the future, I'll have to be more selective – i.e., stacks of amps and screaming guitars will have to give way to indie performers and much lower decibel levels, which is consistent (hopefully) with my advancing years and accumulating gravitas.
2. Angels don't always announce. Usually, like St. Gabriel and St. Raphael, not to mention  Christmas's Heavenly Host, angels are commissioned to proclaim and "spread abroad." Apparently, like the security guard that night, they can sometimes mercifully muffle and obscure. It's not a form of deception nor avoidance, but rather a divinely appointed selectivity based on our ability to handle the fullness of whatever's going on. Revelation, that is, on a need-to-know basis.

With regards to Lesson #2: I'm recording this story here on the off-chance my security guard-savior will read it and recognize herself. If so, thanks again! If not, I sincerely hope to have the chance to reiterate my gratitude in Paradise someday...quietly.
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To a Discouraged Nursing Student

Nursing school has you overwhelmed, I know. You're questioning your choice to be here, and you're afraid that you "won't be good enough."

Hold on a minute.

It's clear that you have a compassionate heart, so I wasn't surprised to learn that you've wanted to serve others since you were little. I'm confident God will help you realize that desire – in His name, shun the doubt and discouragement when it comes up.

But the part about not being good enough? The truth is that we never will be good enough – not any one of us, nobody. That's why, for me, nursing is so intimately connected with faith, with Jesus. I can't do this job on my own power – I'm too selfish, too broken. If I nurse well – if I teach well – it's only because of grace and God's power. The only credit I can take is that I manage to stay out of his way from time to time, and let him get on with his working through me.

Hang in there. Take heart. Have courage.
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Trivia Night: A Note of Gratitude

A few years ago, our parish designated a previously scheduled Trivia Night as a fundraiser for our family. Here's the thank-you note I asked to be read that evening.
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It’s Trivia Night, so here’s a trivia question for you: Category, Movies. What 1985 movie is memorable for featuring an Amish barn raising?

I’m sure this elite gathering will have no trouble in naming the movie “Witness” – what a great flick! It starred Harrison Ford as a detective who hides out from the bad guys in an Amish community and attempts to adopt the Amish way of life.

If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll especially remember the barn raising – the way the community comes together to aid one of its members; how the men and women and children all instinctively gravitate to tasks for which they are best suited; the manner in which the workers seem to challenge each other, even compete with one another, in accomplishing the tasks at hand as rapidly and efficiently as possible.

Of course, it’s a Hollywood version of a barn-raising, complete with swelling musical score, and I’m guessing a real barn raising would be a bit bumpier, a bit sweatier, and maybe even a bit grumpier. Even so, it’s a beautiful image of what the Body of Christ is all about – the corporate unity of believers that witnesses to its faith through how it serves and suffers with and loves.

Here, now, we are the recipients of that service and love, and we are keenly aware of how the Body of Christ is suffering with us. As many of you know, our child is battling a complicated and deadly disease. It’s also very insidious, and we didn’t catch it until it was pretty far advanced. Consequently, she had to be hospitalized out of state, and she's still not home.

We’re happy to report that her medical condition is very stable now, praise God, and she has been discharged from the in-patient unit to an out-patient program.

As much as we’d like to have her home and have our family fully reunited again, we have elected to continue with the program for it offers great promise in helping her beat this rotten disease. The staff is estimating that she will be in this program for 6 to 8 weeks. We’re hoping, of course, that she will be home sooner, but we have to be prepared for a longer stay if necessary. As you can all appreciate, we will do anything and everything to get her the help she needs to beat this disease and regain the joy and freedom which she lived so fully before it showed up.

And here’s where the barn-raising imagery returns to the fore, because you have joined us in that “anything and everything” – by making us meals, by watching our other children for us and giving them rides, by your encouragement and advice and emotional support, and, most especially, by your prayers.

We have said this many times to many people throughout this ordeal: We would be lost without our parish, our community, our friends. Thank you. Thank you. A hundred, a thousand times, thank you. We love you, and we know we are loved. That is the church. That is Christ.

Deo gratias.
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Saint Amato Ronconi (1225-1292)

We don’t usually associate rock star status with sanctity, but there are exceptions – like Pope St. John Paul II, for instance, and Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. Both routinely attracted hordes of fans, and many of those groupies turned their lives around after their derivative brush with saintly fame.

Even hype is redeemable.

St. Amato Ronconi also generated a lot of publicity in his day, some of it good, some of it not so good – including money, fame, sex, and power, just like a real rock star! A son of privilege in the northern Italian region of Saludecio, Amato had a cushy start, but he lost his parents at an early age. The orphaned Amato moved in with his older brother, Giacomo, and took on the duties of a farmhand.

Giacomo’s wife, Lansberga, wanted Amato to marry her younger sister – mainly to keep the family estate intact – but Amato had other plans. Undoubtedly influenced by St. Francis of Assisi’s example (a saintly rock star himself and only recently deceased) and contacts with a neighboring Franciscan monastery, Amato ardently desired a celibate life given over to prayer and charity. He joined the Franciscan Third Order and adopted a penitential lifestyle augmented by extravagant generosity to the poor.

Lansberga complained that her young brother-in-law must be crazy, and she insisted Giacomo do something before Amato literally gave away the farm. To keep the peace, Giacomo divided the family estate and gave Amato his own piece of property – which the saint converted into a hospice for the indigent, the sick, and the many pilgrims on their way to Rome. Amato turned no one away, and when supplies ran out, he’d produce food seemingly out of thin air.

The pilgrim visitors spread stories about Amato’s wonder-working far afield, and it’s no surprise that the curious began flocking to Saludecio to gawk. The saint sought relief by becoming a pilgrim himself, making the Camino de Santiago to Spain on four separate occasions. Those trips capture the humility of St. Amato so well that depictions of him invariably include a pilgrim’s staff and the distinctive Camino scallop badge.

Amato’s sister-in-law, however, was not so impressed by her other-worldly relation, and she sought revenge for her thwarted schemes. She knew that Amato was particularly close to his sister, Chiara, who had herself adopted a Franciscan way of life in imitation of him. Lansberga started a slanderous rumor throughout the community that Amato and Chiara were having incestuous relations. When a city official investigated, a miraculous sign not only convinced him that the siblings were innocent, but that Amato himself was a saint.

On a fifth Camino attempt, an angel appeared to Amato and urged him to head back. Understanding this as a mortal premonition, he set his affairs in order and deeded his property to the Benedictines so that they could continue his apostolate to the poor. This they did for hundreds of years, and today a home for the elderly continues to operate on the same site.

Amato died on May 8, 1292, and Pope Francis declared him a saint on November 23, 2014 – the Feast of Christ the King. “Jesus has opened to us his kingdom,” the Holy Father declared at the canonization, but “his kingdom begins now – by being close in concrete ways to our brothers and sisters who ask for bread, clothing, acceptance, solidarity.”

In this, Amato excelled. May we follow in his footsteps.
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A version of this story appeared in Franciscan Way, Franciscan University of Steubenville.

Blessed John Forest (1471-1538)

King Henry VIII's presumptuous rebellion against the pope brought out the worst – and the best – in the Catholic Church in England. Some Catholics turned traitor to the Church of their birth, while in others, the flame of faith shone more brightly. John Forest, who lived his whole life on fire for God, stood as a beacon of truth in that dark time.

A teenager when he entered the Greenwich Franciscans, Forest went to Oxford for advanced theological studies and earned honors as a doctor of theology. With his intelligence matched by natural leadership and rooted in a profoundly Franciscan vision of humble service to Christ, John was an easy pick for the post of provincial.

Despite his peace-loving Franciscan temperament, John's fiery side flared up when it came to defending the Church. As provincial, he once cursed 19 fellow friars for resisting a visit from papal legate Cardinal Thomas Wolsey – a reprimand based less on religious hospitality than on respect for the pope in his representatives, no matter how disagreeable their persons.

The good friar's reputation for wisdom and sanctity eventually spread beyond his religious community, and the queen herself, Catherine of Aragon, asked Father Forest to become her confessor and spiritual advisor. Catherine greatly benefited from the Franciscan's plainspoken direction, and she later referred to herself as Father Forest's "obedient daughter."

The king, too, took a great interest in religion. Henry VIII vigorously opposed the Protestant revolt spreading everywhere on the continent and even acquired the title "Defender of the Faith" in recognition of his efforts. Nevertheless, when Henry made up his mind to divorce Catherine to marry Anne Boleyn, he disregarded papal objections and declared his own rebellion against Rome in 1533.

Immediately, Henry set about consolidating power and obliterating dissent. Father Forest's entire order, publicly unified in their rejection of the king's aberrant assertions, was suppressed in 1534, and the learned priest thrown in jail. An accomplished theologian, virtuous priest, and royal confessor, Forest was just the type of popular figure Henry sought to win over – or, short of that, eliminate.

Prison did nothing to weaken Forest's opposition to Henry's new church. The priest actually yearned for martyrdom. Commenting on his advancing years, Forest wrote, "At such a period of life as this, a man easily perceives that people can do without him; consequently I am most earnest in my prayer that I may be dissolved to be with Christ."

Four years into his confinement, Forest still managed to stir up fresh sparks of controversy. The theologian composed a polemic that boldly refuted the king's claims and upheld the pope's universal authority. When the work became known, Henry ordered John Forest to be burned at the stake.

Trumped up charges and mock trials followed, along with pressures to recant in exchange for freedom. Forest remained steadfast. "Gentlemen," he told his accusers, "with this body of mine deal as you wish!"

The government took Forest at his word and consigned him to the executioners on May 22, 1538. Blessed John made it clear in his final statement that no manner of torture or threat or sophistry or calumny could turn him from his "old sect of this Bishop of Rome."

The king's men chained the priest to a stake. On top of the usual logs and kindling they added a large wooden statue of St. Derfel Gadarn. St. Derfel was an obscure sixth-century Welsh soldier turned monk who had acquired an impassioned following over the centuries. The statue, an object of no little Catholic devotion, had been sent to London for disposal.

An old Welsh saying predicted that this statue would one day "set a forest ablaze." The prophecy proved true enough as the famed carving of the Welsh warrior-monk fueled the pyre of John Forest, the friar who had become a warrior.

In 1886, Pope Leo XIII approved the veneration of Blessed John Forest along with 54 other English martyrs.
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A version of this essay was originally published in Franciscan Way, Franciscan University of Steubenville.

A Bad Plan

The headline above Heather Cope’s Oct. 15 Voice letter – “Youths need accurate info about sex” – is true enough, but it’s an open question whether her employer, Planned Parenthood, is the best one to provide it.

Planned Parenthood is not, as Cope would have us believe, in the helping business; it's in the contraception and abortion business. Although it operates as a charitable organization, Planned Parenthood Federation of America managed a $35.2 million “excess of revenue over expenses” last year, and it has realized similar “excesses” every year since 1987.

Even if one overlooks this enormous revenue stream, it is hard to ignore Planned Parenthood’s passionate commitment to their mission to undermining traditional, family-oriented sexual mores and to ensuring unfettered access to abortion for any reason and at any time. When Planned Parenthood representatives suggest resources about sexuality and contraception, we should be on our guard and question the impartiality of the proffered advice.

Case in point: Cope presents statistics regarding the sexual practices of teens, and her only remedy is to push condoms and urge better access to the Planned Parenthood version of sex education. Conspicuous by its absence is any hint of a recommendation that chastity and self-control be promoted among our teens. Parents who are truly interested in the long-term welfare of their children would do well to avoid Planned Parenthood’s advice, and turn to places like Sex Respect or Rock for Life for support.

In a sex-obsessed world, our youth need reinforcement in their struggles to choose purity and abstinence, not encouragement to choose immediate gratification and excess.
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This letter appeared in the "Voice of the People" section of the South Bend Tribune on November 6, 2005.