I spotted Phyllis in the grocery store and stopped to chat. She has survived numerous health problems and is now battling liver cancer, but she’s upbeat whenever I see her.
I told her how much I admire her determination and positive attitude.
“It’s all because of God,” she said. “He has always taken such good care of me.”
She added, “I was talking with him the other day and told him I wish there were more ways I could show him how much I love him, but there isn’t much I can do now.”
Some people are extremely active at church, organizing social events, making sandwiches for hungry people, teaching children, helping refugees get settled.
These volunteers prepare food for funeral receptions and take meals to the bereaved family. They stand before the congregation and read from the Bible and lead prayers during services. They sing in the choir, arrange flowers for the altar and pitch in at vacation Bible school.
And then there are the people who are physically unable to accomplish these things, but still long to make a difference for the church. They yearn, as Phyllis does, to show God how much they love him. Fortunately, they can do the most important work of all, which is praying.
Mother Teresa welcomed cadres of lay volunteers, called co-workers, who serve alongside the nuns and brothers in the religious order she founded, the Missionaries of Charity. These lay people help bathe the sick and the dying in the homes she established throughout the world. They cook, they clean and they hold the hands of desperate people and comfort them.
Mother Teresa knew some people couldn’t do the physical work, because of illness, age or disabilities, but she didn’t overlook them. Instead, she formed a group called Sick and Suffering Co-Workers.
She said, ”I want especially the paralyzed, the crippled, the incurable to join, for I know they will bring many souls to the feet of Jesus.”
She linked these co-workers with one of the Missionaries of Charity — a priest, nun or brother — and asked them to offer up their physical suffering as a prayerful sacrifice of love.
This is something every church can do, which is invite the elderly, the ailing and the home bound to a prayer ministry. These folks can pray for people in the congregation and for survivors of storms and wars.
They can become a “prayer buddy” with a church volunteer who ministers to prisoners, women in crisis pregnancies, troubled teens and many others.
Prayers work mysteriously and quietly to change the world, which means someone weakened from chemotherapy can still be a spiritual powerhouse. Someone paralyzed because of an accident can work wonders through prayer.
The great poet John Milton became blind in 1652 at age 44 and lamented this loss in his poem “On His Blindness.” He wanted to serve God through his writing, but feared the talent was “lodged with me, useless.”
By the poem’s ending, however, Milton accepts God’s will and realizes everyone can serve God in some way. “They also serve, who only stand and wait.”
How true this is, especially for people whose physical abilities may be diminished, but whose prayer life is thriving.
Lorraine’s email address is lorrainevmurray@yahoo.com.
