And here I am, dedicating my life to a fully secular work, in which I could likely be fired--or at least heavily chastised--for openly speaking the Gospel. However, as I have learned, the workplace doesn’t have to have the word “Catholic” in it for the job to be ministerial.
My favorite time of day is roughly 0637. No, I'm not a morning person; the jaws of life pry me out of bed on a daily basis. But by 0610 I'm on the train (God willing), and by 0636 it pulls into my downtown Chicago stop where I hustle out of the carriage and into a crowd of commuters. The group glides up two escalators like highly intelligent salmon (I said it), and by 0637, it spills out onto the street.
And then I see it: a veritable army in scrubs, moving swiftly east on Chicago Street towards the two-block long cluster of hospitals on Chicago’s lake shore. We never talk or even make eye contact, but there’s always a sense of solidarity: even though we march amid the suits and business-casuals, our mission is different. And so at 0637, we shuffle off to battle.
And, let me tell you, it is hard on the front lines. As a Patient Care Technician at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, I am at the beck and call of my patients, my nurses, and my bosses. My allotted half hour for lunch frequently goes unused, and I never file for the extra pay that’s otherwise automatically docked. I am expected to transfer patients twice my body weight, to clean every dirty diaper (even if I had changed it a mere minutes previously), to keep track of how much each patient drank and how much they peed, and to make sure that they are comfortable and safe at all times. I go home at the end of each shift aching and exhausted--but also strangely energized. Because, despite the fact that I make a living wiping someone else’s ass, I love my job. And here’s why: the grunt work grants me the opportunity to simultaneously serve and witness.
This army of scrubs, this branch of the Church Militant, allows me to channel my natural instinct for anonymity into something productive. I am never offended when my patients ask for my name multiple times; a hospital room is a rotating door of personnel. Instead, I sink into the anonymity. In losing myself in these acts of mercy--caring for the sick, counseling the doubtful, comforting the sorrowful--I lose myself in Christ. Although I may leave the hospital questioning the technical adequacy of my care, I never question the spirit in which it was done.
The skills will come with time; the ministry prevails. By carrying God in everything that I do, I hope to wordlessly communicate His love to those who need it most, reassuring them that human worth has nothing to do with health status.
Love Actually begins in an airport terminal with images of loved ones embracing after periods of time apart, Hugh Grant’s dreamy voice narrating: “If you look carefully, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that love actually is all around.” Our love, God’s love, is always with us; but in the hospital, that love is piercingly, achingly present. It reveals itself in the wife who daily visits her husband, the victim of a terrible brain injury that has left him vacant-eyed and unable to focus; still, she gazes at him like a newlywed, with unbridled affection that makes you marvel at the strength of her love. I have come to find that the greatest hope and love often abide alongside the deepest despair.
Most recently, I was one on one with a newly admitted patient who had suffered a brain injury. He showed glimmers of recognition and cognizance, but had not yet spoken and was unable to sit still. In my time with him, I talked with and observed this patient’s father.
The father worked a solid blue-collar job. He waxed on about his “man cave” garage, watching the Bears play with all of his friends, and drinking lots (and lots) of cheap beer. If I had met him in any other situation, I likely would have turned my nose in distaste and rolled my eyes. But he was there, in the hospital with his son when no one else was. I watched him watch his boy; I watched him marvel at the improvements he’d made in such a short span of time; I watched him tear up when he recounted the accident; and I teared up when I watched him tenderly kiss his son’s forehead to say goodnight. He trusted me with these private moments, and no matter how he chooses to live the rest of his life, this hurting father showed me the best of himself.
Hospitals are battlefields. We battle for life and death, for family and dignity and love, for humans, for souls. We serve and we love, and in turn we are witness to humanity at its best. Every day, we don our armor and march off to battle, every action saying: you are human, and you are loved. Working in a hospital has taught me how to love with each moment, with each breath, with each movement.
My ministry doesn’t take place within a church. It takes place where God is ever-present but rarely acknowledged. I am challenged every day to present my best self, to witness humanity, to speak the Gospel with my actions and not my words. And during those long hours, I am fulfilled. I am my best self. I am closest to God.
The challenge, of course, is bringing this lesson home. Loving in the midst of despair is easy, but how do I love with comparable temerity in the grocery store? Or, even worse, how do I love with such wild abandon those I take most for granted, without expecting some sort of tragedy? I will be struggling to find this balance, I expect, for the rest of my life whilst I soldier on through the ages of war yet to come. In the meantime, I will continue to march swiftly and tenderly, allowing my ministry to shape me into an ever-clearer image of God.
Katherine Jones graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2013 with a BA in English and also studied pre-medicine. Through the Center for Social Concerns at Notre Dame, Katherine did Appalachia service immersion and a Summer Service-Learning Program in Syracuse, NY. She was also a Mentor-in-Faith for Notre Dame Vision and a member of the Notre Dame Folk Choir. After graduating, Katherine went on to the Masters Entry to Nursing Practice program at DePaul University. Raised in Highland Village, TX, she now lives in Chicago, IL, where she will soon complete her graduate program, take her nursing licensure exam, and begin her nursing career. Katherine can be reached at kajones0@gmail.com. (Editor's Note: And I'm marrying her in July 2015.)
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