I don’t know if I’m going to be able to write or even finish this blog without crying. I’m here at the Home of the Dying, a house where 240 patients live their last moments. How can I describe this place? If you look at it with human eyes, it is sad, terrible, disgusting, unreal, unjust, unfair. But if you look at it with faith, you definitely have a completely different panorama.
Walking along the long corridor or in between the beds of the patients, you “feel” like you’re walking toward the gates of heaven. So much peace, serenity, joy, contentment, holy resignation and abandonment to the Father’s arms.
This morning, I was walking to the chapel to pray and while passing by the men’s ward, one very old man shook my hand and suddenly gave me the most beautiful hug. It was as if he was saying his goodbyes. I had to contain my tears. The look in his eyes: so much peace. As I kept on walking he continued waving goodbye.
Suffering and death are scary realities. I only pray and beg that God grant me the grace to “put on Faith” as the Holy Father invited all of us in Brazil to do during World Youth Day 2014: “Put on Faith and life will take a whole new flavor”. Here at the home of the dying, the flavor is: peace, joy, comfort, serenity, trust, and security.
I finish with yesterday’s tweeter of Pope Francis: “To live by faith means to put our lives in the hands of God, especially in our most difficult moments”.
Where is this Home of the Dying and is that Ana in the picture wearing the headband?