by Sr. Noeleen Mooney                     Ireland                         23.02.2024

The Healing Charism is a gift I have been given. It comes with responsibility.
It involves:
Coaxing – that those who feel they can’t, because of age or infirmity, may discover that they can, with just a little help. Can I give it?
Compassion – when ears don’t hear, and news and views become distorted and entangled.
Can I untangle, gently?
Patience – with slowing minds, hesitant steps and much repetition of phrases, stories, experiences.
Can I listen with the ear of the heart?
Accompanying – long hours in Emergency Departments or waiting for hospital appointments. Here reassurance is of paramount importance, especially in the face of the unknown or the painful.
Can I sit quietly, yet be fully alert?
Being watchful – for the glasses that go astray; for the book that keeps moving; for the puzzled look that might indicate a wrong floor or room. For a forgetting of where I was heading or even who you are. Can I smile, redirect, reassure and just be there?

Will all this help me in my declining years?

Thankfully that is shrouded in mystery, and the unfolding is a day-by-day gift of life at its most vulnerable yet most precious.

“You want to be Christ’s disciples: then do not count the cost…. Nothing, even death, can separate you from Him in whom you are rooted and founded.” MMM Constitutions