In the latest in this series, titled Hospital Corners, he notes that Ignatius recommended that Jesuit training include some work in a hospital setting. Mark has, as a result, been steered into some experiences he admits he was afraid to face. After working in a regular hospital, and then a hospice, he moved on to...
Well, let him tell you:
My official “hospital experiment” would come two months later. I deliberately chose the one that scared me the most, perhaps because I’d learned so much from overcoming my fear of accompanying the terminally ill in their final days. This would be a new kind of challenge—The Father Purcell Memorial Center for Exceptional Children in Montgomery, AL. For two months I would work with severely handicapped children, only two of whom could speak, and only a few of whom could walk. I worked mainly in physical therapy. Each day groups of children would come down, we would lift them out of their wheelchairs and exercises their limbs, something that they could not do for themselves. They ranged in age from babies to teenagers. It didn’t take long to see what a gift these children were, as surprising as that might seem. Despite their limitations, they had a capacity to love and to be loved that brought out the best in people, even if at times they could be inexplicably difficult. Still, it was hard work, sometimes made harder by the harsh reality of the fact that some of these children were born handicapped because of a parents’ drug abuse or rendered handicapped because of physical abuse. And several had been left at the hospital by family members who never returned. There I learned the importance of allowing your heart to be broken by another’s suffering, and also the importance of loving, even if the person loved cannot acknowledge or return that love in a familiar way...
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