Liturgies

Sunday, April 21st 2013

Where is God in Suffering?

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Chris 02_2012

For just a moment, can you imagine Philip saying to Jesus: ‘hey listen mate, show us the Father, and we’re all gonna be satisfied’.  You see, Jesus has been talking about his Father so much that a little bit of impatience is setting in.  But what a response he gets ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father……….I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these”.  What did this mean for Philip?  What does it mean for me, and all of us?

It’s powerful for me in realising that God is within each of us.  I’m not God;  you’re not God; but together we all show to each other the reality of god’s love.  My relationship with others is possibly the most tangible dimension of who God is to me, of what God means in my life – God becomes real to me through a person or groups of people, but boy, I have to work so hard at it – I tend to be a bit of a loner – I could easily become a hermit – I’m good by myself.

As a fairly timid child from a large family, a shy and unconfident teenager, a struggling student, I found peace and quiet in my mid-teens from something I was able to excel in – distance running.  Over time, this became a very spiritual experience for me – all that time spent running on beaches, roads, golf courses and the Caulfield racetrack became prayer-time, a form of meditation, developing repetitive mantras in time with my footsteps.  I spent so much time alone, and loved every moment of it – but I wondered what life had in store for me – what was I really meant to be doing?   I knew a few Franciscan Friars and was thinking about maybe joining the Order or going to Papua New Guinea as a Lay Missionary.  And then I hurt my back at work and required surgery – I was laid up for a fair amount of time.

A few days after my 21st birthday I joined the Franciscan Order – the life I sought at that time was a contemplative one.   However, my time as a Friar was short-lived – recurring spinal problems meant two very long stints in the spinal unit at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne and even longer periods of recuperation at my parents home.  I remained determined to get back on top.

If I can now fast-forward to a bit more than four years ago when I gave up work to care and assist my wife, Christine as she battled, then died two years ago from cancer – it was during this time that I began to wonder if maybe I could assist patients in some way.  So, last year I enrolled and completed the first stage of the pastoral care course which is run by the Queensland Institute of Clinical Pastoral Education.

I am now the Ward Chaplain for the Oncology Ward at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, and it is this that I want to talk to you about today.  I have chosen to be a non-denominational Chaplain.  I am so conscious speaking with you this morning as  in our community we have a number of people who are cancer patients – I am also aware that we have a number of nurses, doctors and pastoral carers and other health professionals among us – so, what I have to say is coming from the perspective of a relatively new kid on the block.

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So often our human response to the suffering of someone we love or to overwhelming tragedy is to ask why? How can this have happened to such a good person?  What did she/he do wrong?  Why, God?  Sometimes we question God - where is God in suffering? - why does God let it happen?

But if God was to blame for the suffering of some people and not others, wouldn't it be the case that God plays favourites with some and not others?

For those who may have seen the Compass series 12 months ago on Hospital Chaplaincy, Di Roach, a chaplain at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney said:  ‘I don’t have the answers, but the cry of these people needs to be heard, to have someone witness their cry – to stand and hear their outrage and not wither away, to stand there and not leave them – to stay the course with them’.

How often do we hear that suffering and illness is God’s will?  What about some sayings of ‘offer it up – remember that Jesus died on the Cross for us’ -  and that popular one ‘God only sends the biggest crosses to those who can bear them’.

Well,  I believe that these statements are crook theology!

Yes, sure, it does all seem so unfair – I suppose I am now becoming more aware of the unpredictability of life, of how catastrophe can happen to anyone at any time.  I think that God’s role is not to save us from catastrophes, but that God suffers alongside us.  The Australian Jesuit Richard Leonard in his book ‘Where the Hell is God’ told his mother on the day after his sister Tracey became a quadriplegic:  ‘If anyone can prove to me that God sat in heaven last night and thought ‘I need another quadriplegic – Tracey will do’ – that if this is God’s active will – then I’m leaving the priesthood, the Jesuits and the Church’.  And he went on ‘I think that God is as devastated as we are right now that a generous selfless girl, who went all over the world looking after the poor is now the poorest person we know – God is not standing outside our pain, but is our companion within it, holding us in God’s arms, and sharing in our grief and pain’.  I think that it is important not to glorify suffering – it is true that it can lead us to deeper maturity and wisdom, but it can crush the human spirit.

So, where do I see myself in this role as chaplain?  Again, the passage from John’s gospel – ‘you will also do the works that I do’.   Out of that I am thinking that to a patient who is so ill and vulnerable, and to their loved ones, that the Chaplain becomes somewhat the God-person to them in their absolute vulnerability – and isn’t that the challenge, the invitation, in John’s gospel?  To do the things that Jesus does’- at this stage, I’m only trying!

And in mentioning catastrophe - There is a young woman in her early 30s who I have visited each week in another part of the hospital – she has had both legs removed just below the knees, one arm removed just below the elbow, and with her ‘good’ arm, her fingers and thumb have been removed – and she has other internal damage  – all through septicaemia.  How fair is her lot in life?

When I first came across her in November, only a few days after her operations, she was full of hope – I struggled - she is still full of hope – and I’m recovering.

My role is to sit with, to sit beside, to listen – occasionally, people are so angry that they lash out at nurses and doctors and pastoral carers - and sometimes patients will see a pastoral carer as just a religious nutter and just tell you to f--- off or piss off - it has happened to me a couple of times, but not in the Oncology Ward – others are just so depressed with their illnesses that they are not able to communicate – sometimes I sit with a patient or family and say nothing.  The presence of a pastoral person seems to comfort them, and remind them that they are neither alone nor forgotten during this difficult time.

On Holy Thursday I spent about four hours with a patient and her grieving family, particularly her husband.  And then, after Mass and coffee on Easter Sunday morning,  I called in to the Hospital to visit her as she had been so much on my mind – unfortunately, I missed her by a few hours – she had passed away -  but I was in the position of being able to just hang around with a couple of the nursing staff – I didn’t say anything but just listened – these extraordinary people, these nurses – they are the ones who minister through physical touch.  Patients dying in Oncology is common, but it does affect the nursing staff, so to be with them at this time after a patient has passed was significant.

In the Oncology Ward,  some of the more advanced or more serious cancer patients know they are going to die soon – a young mother with terminal cancer who can’t talk to her husband about her illness – I know they have a deep, loving relationship- I’ve been at the bedside with both of them – their love shines, but the husband is a quiet and gentle man and just cannot face talking about it – his feelings are a brick wall - both their families live overseas – they have some friends but not deep friendships – and then she tells me ‘and my daughter is only 6 years old’ – she is crying out for someone close who she can talk to.  Sometimes, patients are more open with someone outside the family.

Thankfully, my past has stood me in good stead – time alone,  meditation and prayer, long periods of hospitalisation and recuperation myself, and three years caring for Christine.  Over the last few months I am beginning to recognise that my grief over her death is changing and that there is a kind of stillness coming about.

When I pray, it’s an instinct – a searching for somewhere for the prayers to go – it’s an instinct of sending off an emotion, a plea to the Creator, a lament – I don’t ask for a miraculous healing for the patient,  – I am asking for strength for the patient and their loved ones, and myself, to deal with this crisis – I can recall being like this in the three years leading up to Christine’s death – a resigned willingness to co-operate with nature and a terminal illness.commitment.jpg

In this morning’s gospel Philip is impatient to see the Father – what does God look like?  I think we have all wondered this.   At times we hear the phrase ‘seeing the face of God’ when we die.  What does that mean?

Maybe we might consider that the face of God might be the face of the person we are sitting beside right now, in this community, on the bus, at the football, the marginalised, people with mental illness, and, for me, the terminally ill who I visit each day in the Oncology Ward at the PA –  I think that this is what I am trying to discover.  Why wait until we die to see the face of God, when God is all around us in the present.

The very questions that Peter Kennedy posed in his homily on Good Friday, and Brian O’Hanlon’s homily last week are looming larger in my mind – Who am I?  What am I here for, and what will happen to me when I die?

I cannot answer who am I - I know something about my identity, my thoughts, my likes, my dislikes  -  but that's not who I am. Maybe I'm commencing to get a glimpse of what I'm here for, now that I'm dipping my toe in the difficult world of illness and despair. But as for what is going to happen to me when I die.  I'd like to know the date on which I die and what it will be that causes my death - I want to know how much time I've got  -  you see, for most of my working career I've been a strategic financial planner - I've worked and planned in the future  -  my working in pastoral care is the antithesis of my past - the past has gone, the future hasn't arrived - there is just the present moment.

As Brian O’Hanlon said last week, the Kingdom of God is an experience rather than a place - I think we are already living that experience of the Kingdom of God – we are already living our eternal life which began billions of years ago, during which time the human person evolved.

My role as a chaplain is about providing spiritual care  -  care of the inner self, the life force, the inner feelings of a person.  First and foremost it is care for the patient, and will often mean providing comfort for the  patient’s loved ones particularly at times of severe illness or when death approaches, or immediately after death  - being a crucial support at a time of intense vulnerability – it is not a time for proselytizing – patients and their families are already vulnerable, so they don’t need a God-botherer hovering about them.

It is amazing how patients and their families get through these tragic times – Di Roach says ‘it is because of loving relationships around them – they find meaning in love – it is love, care and affection that is the most important thing for them’.

Finally, I can tell you that I feel so privileged to be with these people as they walk through their dark valley – when I sit with these people I am truly slap bang in the middle of holy ground.   Suffering makes us all introspective, and we start to ask the meaning of life questions – what is the purpose of life?  Where is God in this deep place of life and death?  Who is their God at this time?