Theme
Witnesses on illness
Witnesses who prayed through illness — their own or someone else's — without ever making it a lesson.
A few words
I consider a day in which I have not suffered as a day lost to me.
I am charged to tell you, not to make you believe it.
I have no one to speak to, no time to read, and my letters are company at meal-times.
The great spiritual question is not "How can I find God?" but "How can I let God find me?"
I came to love suffering, which so amazingly purifies the soul.
More than ever I find myself now in the hands of God. That is what I have wanted all my life, from my youth.
All 50 witnesses on illness
- Alphonsa Muttathupadathu Suffering offered in silence, without bitterness or display.
- Amy Carmichael Peace found in acceptance, when the body gives out and love carries on.
- André Bessette The self-effacement of one who refers every grace beyond himself.
- Annalena Tonelli Following Christ in the poor, without title or safety net, when prayer becomes a life entirely given away.
- Anne Brontë Ordinary courage, asked for quietly and with no one watching.
- Anne Steele Asking, being refused, and going on praying without bitterness.
- Antonietta Meo The trust of a child who speaks to God as to a friend, and offers even pain without drama.
- Benedetta Bianchi Porro Joy that remains as the body comes undone, and the certainty of being awaited.
- Bernadette Soubirous Littleness embraced without shame: saying what one has received, then disappearing into the ordinary.
- Catharine Brown To know oneself small, and to want to carry one's own people anyway.
- Charlotte Elliott Coming without having arranged anything about oneself, with the conflict and the fear still intact.
- Chiara Corbella Petrillo Trust that welcomes life as it comes, and looks at everything in the light of eternity.
- Chiara Gambacorta Prayer that is not ashamed to count what is missing.
- Chiara Luce Badano The trusting yes to God in suffering, and the heart that still loves when all is taken away.
- Christiana Tsai Ceasing to ask why, in order to ask what there is to do.
- Damien de Molokai Staying when everyone else leaves, presence become prayer among wounded bodies.
- Dorothy Pattison Prayer held inside a working day that leaves no time for it.
- Élisabeth de Schönau Speaking when you would rather have kept silent.
- Élisabeth Leseur Silent radiance: loving without preaching, and letting an offered life speak in one's stead.
- Flannery O'Connor Praying with what one is (ambition, dryness, doubt) and letting faith deepen there.
- Florence Nightingale Prayer that becomes work: to serve the sick as one would serve God, without display.
- Gemma Galgani The bare desire for God when he alone remains, the love that is enough for everything.
- Guigues Ier le Chartreux The prayer of someone who looks his body's needs in the face without shame.
- Hanna Chrzanowska Serving Christ in the body of the sick, making care a prayer.
- Henri Nouwen A spirituality of returning to the foundational identity of beloved child.
- Isaac Watts Turning frailty into song, patient creativity under long confinement, a gift for putting complex faith into words ordinary people could sing.
- Jean de Dieu Doing good without keeping count, because the mercy one has received is not counted either.
- Jeanne Mance Going to nurse where nothing yet exists; the stubbornness of foundations no one signs.
- John Donne Shared frailty that binds the living together, and the longing to be wholly seized by God.
- Julienne de Norwich Trust against all evidence: believing, from the depth of night, that love will have the last word.
- Krupabai Satthianadhan Pioneering paths in education and medicine cut short by illness, honesty about the loneliness of belonging fully to no world, a short life converted into words that gave others a language for the same in-between.
- Louis Martin A fatherhood that gives its children away without holding them back; the faith of a man stripped even of his dignity.
- Luc de Simferopol Care of bodies and souls held in a single hand, and trial passed through until it becomes purification.
- Lutgarde d'Aywières The exchange of hearts: giving one's own, receiving another's.
- Marguerite de Navarre Prayer turned into song, when fear or illness has taken up all the room.
- Marguerite Ebner Silence as a place where prayer can live.
- Maria Gabriella Sagheddu Giving one's life so that the divided may be one, praying where one does not understand.
- Marianne Cope The joy of choosing what everyone else refuses, and bringing beauty into it.
- Païssios du Mont-Athos Prayer woven into the work of the hands, and the compassion that prays by carrying another's pain.
- Paulina du Cœur agonisant de Jésus Staying beside the people no one else will look after.
- Pedro Arrupe A man of action handed over to dependence; availability that outlives the loss of one's powers.
- Rafqa Suffering received and offered, without bitterness, joined to Christ's.
- Richard Baxter Meditation kept as a regular appointment, and the humility that comes of the frequenting itself.
- Ruth Pfau A life decided by an unplanned stop, and held to the end.
- Sarah Flower Adams The longing to draw near, using what hurts as a step.
- Satoko Kitahara Not helping from above but joining: drawing so near as to share the other's condition.
- Takashi Nagai Praying and hoping from a sickbed, when everything lies in ruins.
- Teresa de Cartagena The prayer of one who hears nothing from outside any more, and finds that silence is not a wall.
- Thea Bowman To bring to God all that one is, holding back nothing of one's history.
- Wanda Błeńska Love that touches what the world dares not touch, and a profession practiced as a gift of self.