The Fragrance of Christ

This past week, I had the opportunity to visit the house of one of our patients here in Santa Clotilde for home visits. The visits were inspired by the local sisters of St. Camilus and another vibrant missionary physician, Dr. Andrew Vincent, who wanted to see how we could best care for this one patient. The patient developed wounds and sores on her back after being bedridden. The patient, a teenage child, has been bedridden for many years after a fatal accident. Although she can talk, she needs complete assistance with everything else.

For the past week, the patient has been having home visits to change the wound dressings that have developed due to being bedridden. The first time I visited the house was in the afternoon. Usually, in Santa Clotilde, there is no electricity in the afternoons. So, as I walked into the dark house, along with Dr. Andrew, we were greeted by the mother. The house has just two rooms with a kitchen. A very humble home, to say the least. As we were led to the patient's room, I could barely see anything as the patient lay in a dark room on the bed. There was a window, but scarcely any light was coming through it. As we began to do the dressing changes with a couple of flashlights and trying to keep the environment sterile, all the smells started to hit me. The smell of the wounds, urine, feces, the smell of our sweat, all of it began to hit me. I could barely keep myself together to get through this. I said a prayer and kept going.

I remember the next day, Sunday, I was able to assist during Mass at the Parish as an altar server. The parish is pretty bare-bones in terms of what it has. One of the tasks of the altar server is to hold the microphone for the priest during the Eucharistic Prayer (as there is no mic stand). I love the sacraments and always love being close to the altar, so I was happy to help with this. As the priest elevated the host and said “Tomen y coman todos de él, porque esto es mi cuerpo, que será entregado por ustedes.”. I looked at the Eucharist and heard, “My body was in the house you visited yesterday.” These words, which I could hear as a whisper in my ear, moved my heart.

In Baptism, Confirmation, and Ordination, we receive the Chrism oils. The oils are intentional with their fragrance. The fragrance of the perfumed oil signifies the sweetness and the newness of the person that comes with encountering Christ in the Sacraments. The oil stays on your skin, unlike water. It doesn’t flow off; it sticks to your skin. The fragrance marks the person and signifies a distinctness or uniqueness. In the sacraments, the more we use our senses, the more we dwell on the fragrances, the more we draw closer to what is unseen through the fragrance. It is through the smell of the Chrism oil in the Sacraments that we see what the fragrance means, whether that be a new person in Christ, the gifts and sealing of the Holy Spirit, or the fragrance of the person being set apart for Christ undividedly. This is essentially the sacramental principle of St. John Henry Newman. The more we engage in the material world of what is seen, the more we can encounter the immaterial of things unseen.

As I walked into the house again on Sunday with Dr. Andrew (who is overjoyed to see this child daily), I walked, remembering what Christ spoke to me during Mass – This is my body. As a Catholic physician, you know this; it’s part of your calling. You know that Christ is present in every patient you see. But to believe this and encounter this every day in every patient is a grace. We walked into the room and began dressing changes. As the smells of urine and feces hit me, I remembered Christ again telling me – This is my body. To embrace the body of Christ in front of me is to embrace everything that comes with the body: the smells, the touch, the wounds, the dressings, and the sight of everything in front of me. As I embraced everything in front of me with the help of incredible grace and prayer, I could see how it was Christ in me who allowed me to take care of the patient in front of me. The fragrance I experience of the person in front of me is the fragrance of Christ himself, who himself aches to be cared for and loved. This was another beautiful revelation for me; it was not just that Christ himself was in front of me, but he longed to be loved by me. He desired that I love him and that I love him with my hands, my touch, and my senses. In doing so, Christ is overjoyed, and I experience the joy of encountering Christ. It is this longing for Christ to be loved that draws me to Christ in the sick and the suffering and the poor and the forgotten.

As I continue to be with this child, there are so many thoughts that come to mind, whether it be empathy for the child or the things I take for granted, like being able to move around by myself and not depend on others or even the place and house I live in. I don’t have an answer to why this patient and not me? Or why did God allow this to happen? But all I know is that as a Church, as a missionary disciple, we are called to love the life of the child in front of us. To love the child is to embrace the sight, smell, and touch of encountering the child in front of me.