Transforming fear into responsibility through grace.

One of the privileges of being here at the hospital in Santa Clotilde in the Apostolic Vicariate of San Jose de Amazonas is to be the on-call physician for the hospital. Typically, this involves a 24-hour shift where you are responsible for hospitalized patients and those coming to the emergency room. Due to the unique location and the physicians available, the on-call physician deals with whatever comes his/her way. Whether that’s responding to children who are ill, pregnancies and labor, or trauma- the on-call physician is the one responsible. (Obviously, other physicians are here to ask around and are always willing to help.) Some of these things are beyond my specialty or capability as an internal medicine physician. As such, being on call can also be a terrifying experience – of not knowing what will come your way. But is fear the appropriate response in these situations? How are we, as missionary disciples, called to respond in situations that feel as if they are beyond our ability? How are we to respond when it seems like the only response we have is anxiety and fear? I recall the story of Br. Ghislain of Taizé, a physician himself, who began creating art out of anxiety while working the night shift as a junior doctor. I can relate to this anxiety. Br. Ghislain had a beautiful way of transforming that place of anxiety into creativity. But it’s also easy for us to let anxiety turn into fear. It can happen quickly and really cripple you.

I have had numerous experiences this past month of being called out of my “comfort zone. “Internal medicine is not a procedure-heavy specialty. It can be, but it's not why I love this specialty. At the same time, here in Santa Clotilde, you must respond to what you are called to. During this past week, I had the privilege to attend to a significant wound on a person's hand due to an accidental machete-related injury. (Machetes are common here in the Amazon as they are used to cut trees and do daily work in their fields.) As another physician and myself, along with a few nurses and a religious sister, started attending to the wounds, I could see blood pouring out everywhere. The man was crying in pain. I could see the anatomy of the bones and muscles of his hand. I started thinking to myself, I don’t want to be here in this situation. I don’t even like to be here in this situation. Anxiety began to hit me. I even started making excuses like well, there are enough people around, this situation doesn’t really need me, or what difference can I make in this situation? As more blood started squirting out from his hand, I remember (for some reason) looking straight into the man’s hand and hearing just be here; I am with you. I probably didn’t like this whole situation, and it was not something I enjoyed, but slowly, I could see things improving as we all worked together and did our part. We washed his wounds, cleaned them, stopped the bleeding, and sutured the wounds on his fingers. It took at least 2-3 hours.

In the story of Holy Family, we hear about how St. Joseph was concerned about Mary and was thinking of not traveling with her the following day. He was thinking about leaving her. Maybe it was fear that led him to that decision, or maybe it was questions like what am I going to do in this situation? Or Am I the one who needs to accompany this woman and child? But what transforms St. Joseph’s fear into the responsibility of caring and journeying with Mary the next day? It's definitely not St. Joseph who says to himself, “Well, I can do this, “but instead, it is God’s messenger who comes to him in this most dire situation to give him the guidance, strength, and courage to continue the journey and take responsibility of the situation. Maybe St. Joseph, before he slept, went to bed thinking about how he should face this dilemma. I don’t think he would have slept peacefully that night. Maybe his ability to confront the problem at night allowed God to speak to him in a dream. Yes, the fear of St. Joseph, the fear of a missionary disciple, was transformed into responsibility through a dream, through grace – a free gift given to St Joesph. Still, maybe it was St. Joseph’s ability to face what scared him most during that night, instead of running away, that allowed God to speak to him in a dream.

For myself, I often think about how I should take responsibility in a situation I am called into. I know God works through the virtue of fortitude we exercise. But there can also be times when we probably don’t even know how to respond, or we don’t know what the virtue of fortitude looks like in a situation. I don’t know why Christ asked me to stay in the situation (The situation I was in with the patient) or why He gave me the grace to be there, but what I do know is that it was His grace in that situation that transformed the fear I encountered into responsibility of doing my part and taking care of the person in front of me, even if I didn’t enjoy it or felt comfortable about it.

Often, grace comes in a gentle, tender voice, sometimes in a quiet dream. But what can allow us to encounter grace is our ability to stare directly at the problem or what we fear most. For me, it came by looking straight at blood squirting out (not because I wanted to; it just happened). It was at this moment that I could experience the grace that transformed the fear of being in that situation into taking responsibility for the situation, knowing that God was with me.

Later that week, I was able to care for this man’s wounds multiple times in the hospital. On Sunday, we invited the parish priest who brought Communion and administered the anointing of the sick. We gave him a rosary (made by a kind-hearted and generous friend of mine) to remind him of Mary’s accompaniment in his healing. Although he may have some debilitation regarding the movement of his fingers, I was overjoyed to see him being discharged from the hospital and going back home with his children. This is the mystery and the joy of missionary discipleship. This is the mystery of grace. I don’t know why I received grace in such a situation, but at the same time, grace transformed my fear into responsibility. Our response to the situation we are called in is not one in which we always have all the answers. At the same time, we are not called to be crippled by fear of the situation. The life of a missionary disciple is one in which he/she recognizes the need to be transformed by grace. And sometimes, we can allow ourselves to be conduits of grace by facing the very thing we are most afraid of, knowing that Christ is with us, and his grace overcomes all!