Читать книгу The Little Book of Lent: Daily Reflections from the World’s Greatest Spiritual Writers - Arthur Howells - Страница 17
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Dr Sheila Cassidy is a palliative care physician who lectures widely on terminal care. She is the author of Audacity to Believe (an account of her arrest and torture in Chile in 1975), Good Friday People and Light in the Dark Valley. The following extract is from Sharing the Darkness which has the subtitle The Spirituality of Caring.
Precious Spikenard
Mary’s extravagant gesture (anointing the feet of Jesus with the expensive ointment, spikenard) must have been her way of saying to him, ‘I love you. I know what is going on inside you. I can’t stop it happening, but I want you to know that I care and to take the memory of my love with you, to comfort you in the dark days ahead.’ Perhaps this episode gave Jesus the strength he needed, at that moment, to carry on with his mission.
In the same way the love that we pour out on the dying or the handicapped says many things. It is an expression of our need to serve, to love, however flawed our motives. To the person cared for it is the gesture that makes the pain bearable, life somehow worth living:
No revolution will come in time
to alter this man’s life
except the one surprise
of being loved.
SIDNEY CARTER
But the most important message is the unspoken one to the world at large: that this ‘dead loss to society’, this dying woman or handicapped man, is infinitely precious. If I as a doctor spend an hour of my clinic time talking to a woman who has only a few weeks to live, I am making a clear statement of her worth. I am giving her time that could have been spent with people who will get better, who will be able to contribute once again to the common good. I am affirming the worth of the individual person in a world in which the individual is at risk of being submerged or valued only for his strength, intellect or beauty. It is a prophetic statement about the unique value of the human person, irrespective of age, social class or productivity. It is an affirmation that people matter just because they are people, because God made them and loves them, just as they are, not because they are good or witty or physically beautiful.
We isolate the handicapped on the pretext that they will disturb the peace – when the reality is that their presence disturbs our desire for the beautiful. We isolate our dying on the pretext that they want peace – when the reality is that their presence disturbs our sense of omnipotence and immortality.
Meanwhile there will always be those who find themselves called like Mary of Bethany to disturb the peace by pouring out over some dead loss to society that which could have been sold for three hundred denarii.
SHARING THE DARKNESS SHEILA CASSIDY
Scripture Reading
ST JOHN 12:1–8
‘“You do not always have me.”’
Prayer
Generous God –
as you pour your anointing Spirit on us
so may we pour out your love
on those we will meet today;
may we demonstrate by what we say and what we are,
that all are valued and precious in your sight
because they are your people.
