I had a memorable experience working
as a volunteer in a certain government hospital in Cagayan de Oro City. People
in the hospital were thinking that I was as parts of the personnel in the
dietary department helping the regular staff delivers food for the patients.
But my real purpose of being expose there was just to be there- in the midst of
ailing and suffering people giving them the opportunity to talk and to unload
their burdens. While most of us are evading hurts, suffering, pain here I am, allowing myself to be in touch with the miseries of the world. It’s quite weird, but this is where I found fulfillment, this is where I found my happiness.
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| with a nurse at the OPD |
If I were to describe my hospital
exposure, it was a month of goose bumps. I was assigned in a government
hospital which was quite distant from the seminary. Fear takes over the first
time I trudge the unfamiliar road going to that hospital, fearful, having a
thought that I do not want to look people who were in the state of suffering
and at the same time, conscious that I was incapacitated with the ability to
really enter into the pains of others. Yet there is also an element of
excitement with the hopeful expectation that it would be helpful for me as a
person in formation.
Spending
the rest of the day talking and listening to patients and watchers unique
stories and on how they struggled for survival, I was gradually learning to go
into their real life story. They furnished me with degree of knowledge on how
they have been living as ordinary individuals whining in pain because of
poverty. They have been deprived of many things yet they could still find
meaning to live and to laugh. Such an experience made me realized that those
people confined in the hospital were real people, they really show genuine
emotions. They laugh with a very simple punch lines yet assertive in demanding
for privacy and silence and, at times, cried with a painful acceptance of their
state of helplessness. There were no pretentions. No masks to cover their real
identity. They engage into conversation openly and never afraid to be judged by
others. I got goose bumps knowing their feelings of depression, fear, sadness,
loneliness and on how they become immune with the unthinkable pains and
struggles in life. These were the dominant feelings of patients as they march
the battlefield of life and death inside the hospital yet continues to hunger
for God’s mercy. I got goose bumps of how I have been moved by their faith
stories of how God as been present amidst human frailty. Being in the face of
such crisis, it made me realized that indeed there is strength in
vulnerability, that is, we become more real before others and before God in
times of helplessness and that the glory of God continues to shine even in
human weakness.
Goose
bump has become my means to have an emotional memory of what transpired me
during the day that gradually imprinted in my heart.
Here are some of those…
I got goose bumps hearing a patient’s
request for pray-over, with the hope that he may experience relief from his
present state of weakness. The feeling of unworthiness sometimes flourish that
hinders me to act appropriately, having in mind that I am not capable of doing
such, and at the same time, doubtful of its effect . Yet I was reminded with
the phrase “we are not called to be
fruitful but to be faithful”, carried with that consolation was a challenge
to deepen more my relationship to the God who heals. It’s quite awkward to
pray-over a person when you do not spend quality time for prayer.
I got goose bumps looking a pale and a weak body of a nine-month-old
baby surrounded by her parents, with the audible sound of moaning from a
depressed mother while administering an emergency baptism. I was holding the
head of the child as I gently pour the water to her head. I felt how painful it
was for the parents but on the other side, I regard it as a moment of grace
being able to administer a sacrament, though not complete, and take part in the
salvation of an innocent child.
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| OPD |
I got goose bumps on one of the
ordinary days in the hospital while doing our routine in distributing foods for
the patients; I immediately noticed commotion inside the ward. I paused for a
while and started to be aware of what had happened. There was adrenaline rush
from the medical team. I saw two doctors attending a dying patient. Some nurses
surrounding the patient’s bed, one pressing continuously the ambo bag while the
other one was trying to administer cardio pulmonary resuscitation (CPR), the
rest of them were just standing holding some medical paraphernalia. I was just
there standing while looking intently towards the patient, few minutes had
passed, I noticed the doctors started to remove their plastic gloves and one of
them gently approached the lonely family standing at the corner of the ward.
They were conversing but I was not able to grasp it. The atmosphere of the ward
shifted just for a second, tears started to fall as they stared towards the
lifeless body of their loved one. Being one of the eyewitnesses I also felt the
sadness and the pain of losing someone so dear. I left the room silently as if
someone has left me. I was depressed.
These are one of the many incidents
that people are facing everyday and it give me the opportunity to have a
glimpse of the various faces and stories of people whom I would be serving in
the future. People who have been suffering from various physical pains, some of
which seems to be healthy and good yet carries a ‘pathology’ deep within caused by psychological issues. The former is
really obvious than the latter yet it would not suggest that one must be given
more emphasis than the other. Both calls for mature attention for healing and
therefore both must be taken seriously.
One thing that transpired me in the
hospital exposure was the remarkable dedication of some doctors and nurses and
even medical staff in giving themselves to perform their responsibilities as
caregivers. They somehow wanted to create fleshly reality of what Hippocratic
Oath is all about and I think this is where I was called for, that is, to allow
myself to be in a situation where care as abstract becomes a reality.
Priesthood, therefore, is a vocation to care. And it goes beyond physical care
for it calls for the care of souls.
Before I started the hospital
exposure, I wrote three important things that I need to learn, namely, the
ability to wait, attentive listening skills and empathy. To some extent, I
think I was doing extra effort to attain this goal. The ability to wait and
just standing before the patient doing nothing, waiting for right moment to
speak and intervene with the conversation of others. To patiently lend my ears on things that do
not matter to me at all yet I chose to hear their cries of suffering, their
stories of failures to give them assurance that I am with them to what state they
are in. I want them to feel that somebody cared for them not because of blood
relationship but because God cares for them. I may not be too expressive with
what I feel but I sense that sometimes, I would be overwhelmed with the
emotions showed by the patients and even watchers. Gradually, I learn to feel
how it was like to be in a situation where I cannot do anything. It truly
hurts. But that painful situation leads to the realization of a God who also
suffers yet brings a hopeful assurance through His resurrection.
Goose bumps are just nothing but a
physiological reaction to a given stimulus but this time it is more than just a
reaction but a sign inviting me to realize that priesthood is not just
administering sacraments but it is more on wading to the very experience of
people under the care of a priest and accompanying them with empathy in moment
that they are most vulnerable so that they could still feel and see God’s
presence even at the lowest point of their lives. These ordinary goose bumps
that I felt in the midst of various situations in life were concrete reminder
that when a priest starts to face squarely the mélange of life’s complexity, of
which, the subject of his service, then priesthood may be view uniquely and
essentially. Priesthood will neither become an opportunity to be grabbed; nor a
privilege to be enjoyed but a responsibility to be lived for a lifetime. 
