Doctors work on Covid-19 patients in the intensive care unit of San Matteo Hospital, in Pavia, northern Italy.
Photo: Claudio Furlan/LaPresse via AP Fr Seán Maher
I walk into the wounded Christ in our world today. This walk begins with a phone call. ‘Naas Hospital’ flashes up on the screen of the phone. And you know that this means some more Covid-19 patients need to be anointed. You answer the phone and hear that there’s three patients on a covid ward.
You change your clothes quickly because you know that everything has to be washed when you come back. Bicycle tops are always good; you can bring the zip all the way up to the top when it comes to it – and jogging pants because you can change them quickly, and old shoes that you can douse with Dettol when you get back, they’re good too.
Into the car, check in at the desk, put the oils into a small cup because nothing can come back. Three small cotton buds will be used for the anointings. Leave everything else at the desk: keys and jacket go there. Then you stand for a moment at the bottom of the stairs and it becomes frighteningly real as you realise where you are going. A strange fear takes over at the pit of your stomach. And you say a quick prayer to Our Lady and St Thérèse – please, please, please don’t let me get infected today.
The door opens onto the covid ward and you walk in. And what do you find there – there, where Christ’s side is wounded in the world today?
Pride
A young doctor comes up – a gentle young man. Once he sported the dark locks that would have been the pride of a young man. But his hair is now shaved back to avoid infection. He puts on PPE.
The catering staff, with a steely courage in their eyes, are leaving out food that looks like a Christmas feast. They are not skimping on what they are offering.
The Indian nurses help you with great kindness to put on the PPE. The mask is difficult to breathe in and the nurse just says: “You’ll be ok Father, you’ll get used to it after a while.”
The Filipina nurses smile and, strangely, the smile seems to come out through the mask.
Names are very important you’ve gotten to know so many by name. There’s Ron, who’s not bad for an Aussie; there’s Triona, who keeps promising to bake a cake as soon as the flour is back on the shelves. And there’s one unnamed friend, the kind nurse helping me to put on the PPE, who says to me “thanks for coming, because where we cannot bring healing, you can bring peace and hope”.
One of the patients is silent, there’s nobody else there, his eyes are already swelling over and he can’t respond.
Another breathes heavily, makes the sign of the cross, and at the very end musters up the courage and the strength to say: “Thank you.”
We say them today so that you might believe, as Thomas said long ago, in the one who is ‘my Lord, and my God’”
The third is a little bit more lively. As soon as you go in and say, “I’m Fr Seán, I’m here to say a few prayers” – “Oh, am I in trouble?” A little bit of banter that takes away something of the sadness of the moment. “No, you’re not in trouble, I’m here to bring you peace. Where are you from?”, “Kilkenny”, “Oh, I’m from Cork”, “Well, we all have our crosses to bear.”
And then comes that moment when you walk back out again.
Was there Resurrection here? Yes, there was. Did you put your hands into the wounded side of Christ here? Yes, I did. Did these words mean anything? Yes, they did. The pulse of the Resurrection must be felt there. These words have never meant more because to walk with the Risen Christ now is to walk with him into those places that St Thomas knows well, into the doubts of woundedness and there bring peace.
Beyond the limits of healing, and there to bring hope. Into the dark stairwell of fear and there to find the courage that changes things. These things are said, these things are true.
We say them today so that you might believe, as Thomas said long ago, in the one who is “my Lord, and my God”. That you might believe in the life that lasts, that you might believe in the life that brings new hope even into the darkest of days, and you might have the Faith that says, with Christ our humanity will rise again.
Fr Seán Maher is a priest of the Diocese of Kildare and Lieghlin. This is an extract from a homily he preached at the weekend about his experience of pastoral care of those with coronavirus.