Illness and faith, part 1

This week my wife and I are attending the 42nd annual convention of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians (NPM).  I'll be blogging from the convention hall and from my room at night for the next few days.

Tuesday's opening plenum address was given by Fr. Jan Michael Joncas.  Fr. Joncas is best known as the composer of "On Eagle's Wings", and has written dozens (probably hundreds) of other liturgical songs, hymns, scriptural settings, settings of mass texts, etc.  In addition to his work as a composer, Fr. Joncas is a priest of the St. Paul-Minneapolis Archdiocese and also is a professor of liturgy at St. Thomas University in Minneapolis.  In appearance, he's a bear of a man.  Person-to-person he is personable, gentle and patient.  As a public speaker he is excellent: he is a frequent featured presenter at NPM conventions and similar liturgical, ministry and theological gatherings.  He personifies a combination of scholarship and creativity that is not common - and which the church could use more of.

This year's plenum address was a good deal more personal than previous talks I've heard from him.  The theme of this year's convention is "That You May Be Healed", and in keeping with that theme, Fr. Joncas recounted the following experience:

In 2003, he was celebrating mass at St. Mary's College in South Bend, when he discovered, during the consecration, that he was not able to raise the chalice and ciborium from the altar.  This had never happened to him before, and it puzzled him, but he attributed it to exhaustion, as he had been working very hard.  Still, to be safe, he went to a local urgent-care facility, where he was advised not to worry about it and to get some rest.  However, the next day, the symptoms worsened - all his limbs were becoming weak and even slight sensations were painful.  He returned to the urgent care facility.  The receptionist recognized him from the day before, and upon learning that he had returned with more acute symptoms, beckoned him closer, lowered her voice, and offered her personal advice that that facility had neither the personnel nor the diagnostic equipment to properly diagnose him.  She recommended he go to a full-fledged emergency room, which he did (later learning that driving with those symptoms is never recommended).

At the hospital he was admitted and put in a semi-private room with an Alzheimer's patient.  The latter was given to random incoherent shouts.  To mitigate this annoyance, the hospital staff closed the door to the room which this patient shared with Fr. Joncas.  During the night, Fr. Joncas's symptoms continued to worsen, such that he was not even able to push the button to summon a nurse; and nobody from the hospital thought to check on either patient that entire night.  The first to find him the next day were some friends who visited him in the hospital; they found Fr. Joncas unable to move and lying in a bed soaked with his own urine.

He was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome.  It seems that recovery can take years, so it has become a chronic condition for Fr. Joncas (although he certainly is more functional now than during the first acute attack).

He was anointed soon after that first awful experience.  He stated that, as a priest, he had anointed hundreds of patients over the years, all with a certain amount of ministerial detachment; but receiving the sacrament was an intensely emotional experience.  The words of anointing in particular affected him:

God of all consolation,
you chose and sent your Son to heal the world.
Graciously listen to our prayer of faith:
send the power of the Holy Spirit, the Consoler,
into this precious oil, this soothing ointment,
this rich gift, this fruit of the earth.
Bless this oil + and sanctify it for our use.
Make this oil a remedy for all who are anointed with it;
heal them in body, in soul, and in spirit,
and deliver them from every affliction.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

He also stated that living with illness has shaped his spirituality profoundly.  Notions that previously had been rather abstract to him now became personal - he said that, for the first time, being a fragile, weak and needy person, surrounded by others who also are fragile, weak and needy, became a lived experience.  He also stated that he better understood Pope Francis's prayer that the church become "a poor church for the poor".

Finally, he stated that the church needs considerably less thunderous denunciation, and considerably more words of encouragement.