Fully Alive: A Reflection by a Nun of the Abbey of St. Walburga
By a nun of the Abbey of St. Walburga
I was finishing up a day’s work at the hospital when the word was passed around the nurses’ station: “Rebecca* is going to go home to hospice this week.”
The news wasn’t surprising; Rebecca, one of our dear patients in her late teens, had spent a lot of time on our unit over the last couple of years, and her medical condition had gotten much worse recently.
After I completed my shift, I walked down the hall and knocked on Rebecca’s door. I wasn’t in such a peppy mood myself that autumn. I had been grieving a loss for several months, and I found myself unable to leave behind the deep sadness I was still feeling. But that evening, I knew I had to say goodbye to Rebecca and thank her for the gift she had been to me. As I sat on her bed, she told me how sad she was to be dying. I was sad with her.
As I drove home from work that night, I suddenly realized I was ALIVE, and I was filled with awe and gratitude at this awareness. By the time I stepped into my house, I was so overwhelmed with joy at being alive that I began to write down everything that made me grateful for my life. Memories and desires and awareness of all the tremendous gifts I’ve received in my life poured out almost faster than I could write them down. I was so overcome with joy at the gift of my own life that the sadness that had been oppressing me for the last few months suddenly felt insignificant. I was alive!!!
My vocational call didn’t come until several years later, but the grace I received from Rebecca that night foreshadowed the grace I now receive in my vocation as a Benedictine nun. The immense gratitude for the gift of my life demands a response, and my response is the complete gift of my life back to my Creator in a sacrifice of praise! In fact, for me personally, this is not only one way, but the fullest way possible I can express my gratitude to God for creating me.
St. Benedict’s only goal is to seek God, “preferring nothing to the love of Christ” (Rule of St. Benedict, 4:21), so that we might begin now what will be brought to completion in Heaven. Using the words of St. John, St. Benedict urges his monks to “run while you have the light of life, that the darkness of death may not overtake you” (RB, Prologue, 13). No wonder St. Benedict directs even the most ordinary aspects of daily life so carefully. All those short moments together make up this great gift we have called LIFE, and there is no time to waste in complacency. All must be done through, with, and in the love of Christ. As St. Paul proclaims, “For to me, life is Christ” (Philippians 1:21), I believe that the profound reverence and intentionality with which St. Benedict treats of those smallest choices, “cherishing Christ above all” (RB, 5:2), reveals his deep gratitude and heart completely surrendered to God.
The final verse of Psalm 150, which we sing at Lauds every Saturday and feast day, concludes, “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord,” and I often note with gratitude that I am indeed still breathing, and I remember Rebecca as we sing it. Thank you, Rebecca, for bringing me into such a full life with your death! I pray that when I follow you into eternity someday, together in the heavenly kingdom, we will praise the Lord forever.
