Religious and priest reflect on the blessing in the fragility of Pope Francis

“I feel in the heart the ‘blessing’ that hides in fragility,” wrote Pope Francis in the Angelus text last Sunday from the Gemelli Hospital, where he has been admitted for 21 days.

With 17 years behind him as chaplain of the Polyclinic Hospital of Madrid, Fr. Ignacio Gallego can decipher, or at least intuit, the “blessing” referred to by the Holy Father.

“When one is very fragile and weak, he feels more God’s presence by his side. A father, the more he loves his son, the more he takes care of him, and especially when he is sick, which is when he needs it the most. The same does the Lord with us, ”says the Spanish priest.

Among the accompaniment to the patients of the hospital and their work in the parish of Santa María del Silencio, dedicated to blind and deafblind people, Fr. Iñaki – as they all know him – finds a hole to narrate Aci Press the countless occasions in which he has witnessed how spiritual strength helps patients to overcome the disease.

“They know that, although they suffer, heaven awaits them. God himself is the one who takes care of them and accompanies them. And they notice that, they feel it and live the sick. In a hospital nothing is a coincidence, God is present and also guides the chaplains, taking us to the rooms where they need us most, ”he emphasizes.

Fr. Iñaki also says that, during the last days, the patients who visit usually ask for Pope Francis. “Even if they are very sick, they care about the health of the Holy Father,” he says.

The importance of loved ones

Teresa Olivares, sister of María de Schoenstatt for 25 years, is a doctor and attends the patients in palliative care of the Public Hospital Sótero del Río, in Chile. Being religious and medical does not imply for her any type of contradiction, but a vocational call: “We look at patients with the eyes of Mary and we discover Christ.”

He states that palliative care are “one more stage of life” and ensures that, although life is coming to an end, “it is still valuable, it is still worthy and there is still much to do.”

From his experience, he explains to ACI Prensa that the blessing referred to by Pope Francis “can occur in many planes,” highlighting human relations first. “When one is sick, his hierarchy of values ​​rearrange and the things that at first seemed very important happen to the background. It is then that you realize that the most important thing is the people you want and who love you. ”

The religious emphasizes that it is usual to see reconciliations in relatives who perhaps without the disease would not have occurred. Fr. Gallego also emphasizes that it is impressive to see “how a father says goodbye to his children or how a brother visits the patient who has not seen for a long time.”

“God becomes a partner on the way”

As a second aspect of this blessing, the Chilean religious highlights spirituality and transcendence. “In 14 years of exercise, very few people have touched me at a time when they don’t believe in anything.”

“Sometimes I ask patients if they talk with God, and most tell me that it does. Clearly there is an intimate, very personal dialogue, with that God who is facing us in a situation like that. I believe that those are perhaps the two great blessings that can occur in this in fragility, in knowing in need of others and the great other with capital letter, ”he adds.

He affirms in this sense that “God really becomes a partner along the way, He is sitting next to the bed of the sick all the time, he has no visiting schedule, but is always there.”

“I have seen the attitude of saints in the last days of their lives”

The Spanish priest and the Chilean religious agree that faith plays an essential role during the disease. Sister Olivares emphasize that, when a person says she is ready to meet God, “a certain desire to return home, to someone who loves and awaits them on the other side, and that is thanks to the faith at the end of life is seen.”

“They give God on the cross despite what is happening to them. I have seen the attitude of the saints often in the last days of her life, “says Sister Teresa, who says that” holiness is much more common than we believe, “especially in hospitals.

Both have also met people without faith, for whom death was “as if television went out.” Sister Teresa remembers in particular a 23 -year -old girl

with a very advanced metastatic cancer. “He told me that I didn’t believe anything, but it struck me a lot like, after a month, I thanked me to pray for her. I don’t know if it was a conversion process, but something happened, and ended his life looking at God. ”

The spiritual and transcendence dimension

Fr. Iñaki highlights that all patients, even if they are not Christians, have a spiritual and transcendence dimension. “In these cases it is essential to listen to them in silence and accompany them, reminding them that they have a dignity.”

The priest also affirms the importance of the sacraments, especially the anointing of the sick, that “always forgives sins and gives spiritual peace.” However, it emphasizes that there is a third grace, the healing of the body: “With this sacrament the soul is always heal, but if God sees it convenient, that person also heals his body and, from time to time, you also see it in an extraordinary way. I have seen how people with a safe death have recovered. ”

The healing force of prayer

Both sister Teresa and Fr. Gallego insist on the importance of prayer by the sick and their healing force. The priest highlights the peace that emanates from the sick when they know that someone is praying for them. When referring in particular to the rosaries who pray every day by the Pope from the Plaza de San Pedro, he assures that this union “is heaven on earth.”

For her part, the religious emphasizes that the prayer “goes directly towards the heart of God and of God to us. All that force cannot remain in a vacuum, it is a power to which we are not so accustomed and in the background we should take advantage of more. ”

Life is worthy from beginning to end

The chaplain of the Polyclinic Hospital of Madrid highlights that many patients live their illness even with hope and insists on the importance of accompanying the patient and taking care of each person, giving what is necessary to avoid euthanasia.

Perhaps one of the toughest moments that Fr. Iñaki has lived in the hospital was during the Covid era. Sadly remembers those endless day and the loneliness with which many patients died. “What we could not do, the angels did. In the toughest moments, God sent his assistants. The Lord’s joy could be perceived even in that hard situation, ”he emphasizes.

Sister Teresa emphasizes that life is “worthy from the beginning to the end, and palliative care remind you of that, that we are going to take care of you until the end. Whatever your situation, you are not a burden for us, but we want to take care of you and do it in the best possible way. ”

“The patient is not a weight or load, and I think that is the central message. When one looks at statistics and sees the causes of euthanasia, I might think they are terrible diseases. But pain is the third cause of euthanasia request and the former are loneliness and feeling a burden, ”he explains.

Father Iñaki concludes that, having as an example in our life the risen Christ, “everything can be suffered and everything can be expected, because we know that he triumphed.”

Sister Teresa points out that “our soul is precious and that is why God takes care of her, although sometimes it costs us to see it.” “I think that many times in our life we ​​do castles in the air, and we are always looking at the future, to a life that is not ours. It is God who is taking care of me, here and now, in this circumstance, and I think that can enlighten the pain. ”