Benedictus – A Book of Blessings by John O’Donohue.

FOR A NURSE. 

Your mind knows the world of illness

The fright that invades a person

Arriving in out of the world,

Claimed and grieved by illness.

How it can strip a life of its joy,

Dim the light of the heart

Put shock in the eyes.

You see the world breaking

At the onset of illness:

Families at bedsides distraught

That their mother’s name has come up

In the secret lottery of misfortune

That had always chosen someone else,

You watch their helpless love

That would exchange places with her.

The veil of skin opened,

The search through the body’s night

To remove tissue, war torn with cancer.

Young lives that should be out in the sun

Enjoying life with wild hearts,

Come in here lamed by accident

And the lucky ones who leave,

Already old and in captive posture.

The elderly, who should be prepared,

But are frightened and unsure,

You understand no one

Can learn beforehand

An elegant or easy way to die.

In this fragile frontier-place, your kindness

Becomes the light that consoles the broken-hearted

Awakens within desperate storms

That oasis of serenity that calls

The spirit to rise from beneath the weight of pain,

To create a new space in the person’s mind

Where they gain distance from their suffering

And begin to see the invitation

To integrate and transform it.

May you embrace the duty in what you do

And how you stand like a secret angel

Between the bleak despair of illness

And the unquenchable light of spirit

That can turn the darkest destiny towards the dawn.

May you never doubt the gifts you bring;

Rather, learn from these frontiers

Wisdom for your own heart.

May you come to inherit

The blessings of you kindness

And never be without care and love

When winter enters your own life.

John O’Donohue.

Benedictus – A Book of Blessings.

[The two verses in bold print were the two verses that I read last Sunday as a Communion Reflection on the 4th Sunday of Easter].