Thankful for the healing power of faith

The end of November has once again rolled around and Thanksgiving is looming upon us.  I try and take stock of what I am thankful for each time this holiday rolls around.   Of course there are the standards:

my faith...

my community, family and friends...

my health...

This year I am especially thankful for the young adult Catholics I have met the past year.  I had the opportunity to spend time at Mizzou (slang for the University of Missouri) for a busy student retreat the first week of this month.  The students who participate in this retreat are in love with their Catholic faith and wanting to go ever deeper into prayer and living with God's presence in their lives.   It gives me hope that 'all is not doom and gloom' for the future of our church or our world.  

Some of these splendid young adults also happen to be related to me!  I have already mentioned my niece Sarah in an earlier post this year who spent 2 months volunteering at our monastery this past summer.  My niece Kelly, a senior pharmacy student at Creighton University, loves adventure and loves to trot the globe.  She is currently in Uganda doing a 6 week pharmacy internship.  

She writes a great blog http://kraestarman.blogspot.com/ about her adventures and I want to share this post in particular she wrote about being thankful for the healing power of faith:

I've been in college for eight years now studying to become a pharmacist, but throughout all of those years and endless hours of study, I've honestly never felt like anything more than a student. The concept of graduating and being a doctor seemed absurd to me.

But for the past month in Uganda, people assume I’m a doctor. They bring their sick children to me, and plead with me to help their beloved grandparents, husbands, wives, friends, and children. And I've done the best I can.

It’s truly humbling to have people place such hope in you, especially when you know your own limitations and frailties and doubts and humanness. But it’s a powerful thing as well. It’s made me fight to be a better doctor, wanting to answer their faith with medicines that I know can offer them real hope in life and in health.

I've seen patients recover. I've had patients return to the pharmacy to see me and to shake my hand with tear-filled eyes because they were healed. I've seen patients in the hospitals rebound from terrible infections, waiting with a smile the next morning when I see them on rounds.

But I can honestly say that I don’t know if their recovery has much to do with me. Here in Uganda medicines, facilities, diagnostic tests, bandages, means for operations and even physicians are all lacking. I’ve seen patient wards where three tiny children share a hospital bed because there is no space to hold them all. The disparity between the healthcare I have seen in the US and here in Uganda is tragic, and to be honest, numbing.

Such disparity should quite honestly be a death-sentence – and result in a hopeless situation for many of the people here. But the miraculous thing is that it’s not. Despite what they're lacking, I believe that these patients largely recover because of what they have in abundance, faith. The doctors and nurses pray together before starting rounds. Many of the patients have rosaries clasped in their hands. People walk miles in the rain to attend church services where they sit shoulder-to-shoulder on hard wooden benches for twice the length of time as the same prayer service in the United States, lengthened by a genuine joy and desire in their praise and in singing.

The people I’ve met here have faith that extends far beyond the fleeting realms of mortality. When the limited accessibility to healthcare means that hope for healing in a traditional sense is lost, they cling to hope in an eternity greater than this life, free from the burdens of their heavy labors and travails.

As I was rounding with a doctor on a pediatric ward today, I realized that in my time here I've not only become a student of pharmacy, but a student of faith and hope. The ward I was in was pierced with the desperate, heart-wrenching cries of sick and sometimes even dying little children. Their mothers held them, fed them if they would eat, and waited. They didn’t demand answers from the doctors. They didn’t pace nervously around the room. They just sat with their babies in their arms and faith in their hearts. I tried to hide my own heart full of panic and desperation, and replace it with a calm and persevering faith to match theirs.

This week I’ve learned that the resiliency of the human spirit carried by faith is absolutely miraculous. And today, I’m thankful for that lesson. I’m thankful for the healing power of faith. 

All Saints

November always brings with it the solemnity of All Saints on the very first day.  We Catholics are privileged to recognize the ''Communion of Saints."    We have a wonderful custom at First Vespers of All Saints of gathering in our relic chapel and then singing the Litany of the Saints before we process into our main chapel for Vespers.   Our relic chapel contains over 550 relics and is one of the largest collections in the U.S.   It is an ideal place to begin our celebration; in the actual presence of the saints!

interior of relic chapel

Our chapels are also a stopping off point for the local "tourist industry."  With a local population numbering at 82 in the nearest town of Clyde, there aren't a lot of 'tourist' type activities except for ourselves and nearby Conception Abbey.   There isn't even a good coffee shop within 20 miles!

I gave a tour to a class of 8th graders just last week.  As you enter our relic chapel your eyes are drawn to a glass covered altar at the far end of the chapel in which you can see a clothed body reposing.   Now inevitably, the first question these kids always ask in a bit of a whisper is -"Is that a real body back there?"

St. Beatrice the Martyr

It certainly isn't something one sees every day!  "If you aren't afraid to look," I tell them, "you can actually see the bones of the hands through her gloves and the bones of the feet through her slippers."  This either brings a look of fear or excitement.   St. Beatrice is a martyr from the catacombs near Rome and is thought to have been about 13 years old when she was martyred in the early centuries of the church.


Being in a room full of relics of so many holy men and women really gives one pause.   Some of these saints were willing to spill their blood for the faith such as St. Beatrice.   None of us know for sure what we would do if faced with the situation of giving our life for our faith.

St. Therese relics

One of the more popular saints for our visitors is St. Therese of Lisieux.   She is also my confirmation saint so I have a great respect for this cloistered Carmelite.

I have no doubt the saints would have just described themselves as ordinary people like you and me...not doing anything extraordinary...just living their lives as best they could with the help of the grace of God.

...that is really our call, too...no heroic circumstances required...just continued faithfulness day after day in good times and bad...