There is a special hospital in London for those whom other hospitals consider a lost cause.
It is a hospital for those who are diagnosed as “terminal.” Most people would consider such a hospital to be a very sad place, but it is not.
Actually, it is a hospital filled with hope and a lot of life. The emphasis in this London hospital is on life and not on death. The truth is that several of the patients have seen remissions in the disease process instead of death.
A great deal of the credit is given to the way the facility is run. The basic philosophy is different from most other hospitals. In this program the patients are expected to give themselves away in service to the other patients. Each patient is given another patient for whom to care.
So, for example, a person who is unable to walk might be given the task of reading to another who is blind. The blind person would then push the wheelchair of the one who could not walk but who gives directions on where to push the chair.
When my father Frank was paralyzed and dying for 15 months, people from the parish would sit at his bedside day and night while I did my work for them every day at Holy Family Parish.
The Haitian nurse who cared for me at Holy Cross Hospital last year when I broke my left femur came from a little town in Haiti where I had just helped to raise money so Food for the Poor could build a new school there for the students.
Is this not the new commandment to which Jesus referred? He calls us to be disciples who love one another. We are the ones who are healed and strengthened when we learn how to give and how to love one another.
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13: 34-35)
How have YOU cared for another person as they have cared for YOU?
WE ARE NOT SELF-SUFFICIENT, WE ARE GOD-DEPENDENT!
