This article summarizes Mary Fierro's spiritual journey with breast cancer and discusses how illness can spark spiritual growth in people. When diagnosed with cancer, Fierro relied on her faith in God and belief that she would be okay, either through healing or through being with God, rather than questioning why it was happening to her. The article then discusses research showing links between religious faith, prayer, and better health outcomes. It also explores how serious illness often prompts people to deepen their spiritual connection and find meaning in their suffering.

1. The unexpected spiritual journey of illness
BY LESLIE SCANLON
hen the doctor told Mary Fierro two years ago that she had breast
cancer, she was waiting for it. Three of her nine sisters had the
disease. She was scared, but she’d been expecting it. Her body
wasn’t ready, but her heart was prepared. She cried only once.
But Fierro, who’s 54 and lives in Arizona, also was ready because
this wasn’t the first time she’d looked trouble straight in the eye. In 1991 she got
divorced, and after three years of crying and therapy and 12-Step programs, she
turned for real to God.
Instead of asking, “Why me?” Fierro began to ask, “Why not?”
“God loves us all the same,” she says. “Whatever happens to us is just the way
life happens, I think. If I won a million dollars, would I say, ‘Why me?’ Heck no.
There are good things and bad things in our lives, and we have to accept both. If we
don’t, we are not truly loving Jesus.”
She began to promise Jesus every day: “I’m not leaving you.”
Right before she was diagnosed with cancer, Fierro had had a hysterectomy.
People asked her, “‘How do you do this?’ I said if it wasn’t for the Lord, I wouldn’t
make it. I wouldn’t. You just have to trust that you’re going to be OK. And if you’re
not, you have to trust you’re going to be with him, one way or the other.”
LESLIE SCANLON is a longtime newspaper reporter and journalist from Louisville, Kentucky.
12 U.S. CATHOLIC—SEPTEMBER 2004

2. Fierro is not alone. When people find Study of Religion/Spirituality and Health are more willing to forgive, Koenig says.
out they are sick, they worry about what’s at Duke University. Some of the research is controversial
happening to their bodies, how much it According to Koenig, there have been and certain studies have been criticized;
will hurt, what they can do to get better. hundreds of scientific studies conducted not all scientists buy in. Even more elusive
They’re afraid they will die. over the last 25 years showing that people are clear results from the relatively few
But getting sick, especially with a of religious faith who pray and go to wor- studies of intercessory prayer, where peo-
chronic or life-threatening illness, also be- ship regularly are less likely to get sick and ple pray for the healing of another person.
gins for many people an intensely spiritual that when they do become ill they do better. But Koenig contends that the explosion
journey. Many of them—from Catholics Those who are active in a faith com- of interest among medical researchers
who go to Mass every day to those who munity, “especially those going to church about spirituality and health—more than
doubt there is a God—do sense connec- regularly, at least once a week, seem to 1,100 studies were published between 2000
tions between the mind and the body and have better immune systems,” Koenig and 2002—already is starting to change
the spirit. In the quest for healing, the says. They are more likely to recover from medical treatment. “Even though there is
boundaries between science and faith get surgery and are less likely to die during still a tremendous amount of resistance
blurred. surgery. “They live longer, are able to fight against addressing religious or spiritual
One of those studying the link is Dr. off illness, lead healthier lives, and are less factors in patient care, that resistance is
Harold G. Koenig, a psychiatrist likely to abuse substances.” slowly beginning to weaken,” he says.
and director of the Center for the Religiously active people also cope bet-
ter with stress, experience
less depression, have Body, mind, spirit
a greater sense of Ripples from this research also extend
well-being, more opti- into everyday life. People are paying more
mism, more hope, and attention to the spiritual components of
illness. Congregations have started parish
nursing programs, often working with the
elderly, whose loneliness and isolation can
contribute directly to a decline in health.
Some Catholic priests specialize in healing
ministries, and some parishes hold special
services for the Anointing of the Sick. In
hospitals, chaplains listen as patients talk
of what matters most to them, standing
witness to what one called the “sacred
stories” of people who are seriously ill or
dying.
“The more serious an illness, the more
people struggle both to assign meaning
and to find meaning,” says Dr. Linda L.
Barnes, an assistant professor of pediatrics
at the Boston University School of Medi-
cine and director of the Boston Healing
Landscape Project, which studies cultural
and religious pluralism in medicine and
healing. “People ask, ‘Why is this happen-
ing to me? Am I somehow being punished?
Am I being tested? Am I supposed to learn
something?’ ”
Those questions can shake their faith
profoundly, or send them running straight
to God, Barnes says. Cultural factors
can have a huge impact on how people
13

3. respond—some Catholics pray to St. Per- regardless of what their beliefs are,” Vesel- Some find a spiritual meaning in suffer-
egrine to cure their cancer or St. John of ovksy says. “So if someone’s Baptist and ing—connecting their suffering with that
God for heart disease, she says, and “some they want to talk to someone who’s Baptist, of Jesus on the cross.
think of themselves as Catholic, but we we want to be able to give that to them. “Excruciating pain is really the experi-
meet them through Santeria or Voodoo.” When they’re in a crisis, that’s the last time ence people have in grief,” says Father
That’s what Barnes tells the doctors you want to convince them of a different Thomas Curley, pastor of St. Thomas
she helps to train: that people who are sick religious belief.” Aquinas parish in Nahant, Massachusetts,
bring their beliefs with them when they Often in these conversations, God does who has written extensively about grief
walk through the hospital or clinic door. come up, and “it helps people to know ministry. “Jesus undertook suffering, and
Many of them are convinced that healing is they’re not alone,” we unite our suffer-
not solely the result of conventional medi- Veselovsky says. “People ask, ‘Why ing to his. And then
cine. They care about the body, but also the “When they know redemption makes
mind and soul. that someone is pray- is this happening sense . . . Ultimately
ing for them, it helps to me? Am I being we believe in the total
them to feel sup- reconciliation of all of
Be not afraid ported . . . . The jury is punished? Am I us in the kingdom of
Melissa Veselovsky is a 31-year-old stay-
at-home mom who last year initiated an
still out on whether it being tested? Am I God. We believe we’ll
changes the outcome. see [our loved ones]
outreach ministry to people with cancer, But what we do know supposed to learn again.”
based at Christ the King Catholic Church
in Mesa, Arizona—a ministry where Mary
is it changes the jour-
ney.”
something?’” But there is also
a natural instinct to
Fierro is now a volunteer and that has For many people, serious illness is fight for life, to hope and pray for healing.
plans to expand through the Diocese of exactly that—a long, surprising journey, Some Catholic priests have made healing
Phoenix. both physical and spiritual. their vocation, the focus of their minis-
Veselovsky says the program, Healing “If it’s a very serious illness, perhaps try—even if they’re not sure exactly how
Through the Body of Christ, a collabora- even a terminal illness, a lot of times it it works.
tion with the American Cancer Society, seems to be a turning point in a person’s
was “something that God spoke to me life,” says Robert Short, director of parish-
about on Ash Wednesday” of 2003. She had based health for the Caritas Christi Health God’s mysterious healing
gone to Mass with her daughter, and as Care System, which, for the past eight Father Richard Bain, now a chaplain at the
the service ended she learned that a friend years, has helped establish parish nursing Veteran’s Hospital in San Francisco, has
she’d gone on a retreat with had been diag- programs in 225 congregations in the Bos- been involved in healing work for decades
nosed with breast cancer and, because of ton area, many of them Catholic. now and until about three years ago had
chemotherapy, was having a particularly “That just seems to be a natural part what he described as an “enormous heal-
difficult day. Veselovksy went home, sat of what suffering does to us,” Short says. ing ministry,” traveling to parishes around
down at the computer, and said she imme- “You can go the other way, and be even the country and doing three-day healing
diately knew how that ministry needed to more angry or isolated or disconnected missions.
be structured. from God.” But for many, “it opens a door But then he developed a problem with
Unlike a traditional support group, or a portal to reconnecting with God and ringing in his ears so intense he had to
people diagnosed with cancer, as well as with the parish and maybe a church. In wear earmuffs to brush his teeth and en-
family members and close friends, are some dramatic instances, people who left tered a psychiatric hospital, although he
matched up with a volunteer who’s been the church 25 years ago are reunited,” and hopes to resume his healing work later this
through the same thing. The program their broken relationships with God, fam- year. “I prayed for my own healing, and I
includes education, resources, and sup- ily, or friends are healed. wasn’t healed,” Bain says, offering proof of
port. And the patients have someone to “Suffering and pain generally make us the mystery involved.
talk with—someone who’s outside the stop and realize not just our mortality, but Another priest with a healing ministry,
immediate crisis but who has experienced that there must be something,” Short says. Father Richard McAlear, an Oblates of
the same kind of cancer. In the first three “When we can’t just be busy or buy another Mary Immaculate priest from Massachu-
months they received 32 calls from inter- thing to fi ll up the spaces, but let the spaces setts, says people naturally wonder why
ested people. be there—it’s in the gaps that life can start some get healed and others do not. His
“Our ministry reaches out to everybody to take place.” response: “It’s an absolute mystery. I’m
14 U.S. CATHOLIC—SEPTEMBER 2004

4. going to ask God when I see him.” Some- more often, “what many people have told come to a charismatic service.
times there are people you really love who me is that they’ve left the Mass being able Now “a traditional Catholic would be
you want to see healed, and you pray and to accept their condition, and that’s a huge very comfortable at one of my Masses,”
pray, and they die anyway, he says. “Other healing, that’s tremendous,” Bain says. Bain says. “I explain to them that we have
times, you just sort of look at them and it “And the other one is they’ll tell me, ‘Fa- just received the Eucharist [and] it all cen-
happens.” ther, you prayed over me and I really felt ters on the sacrament, not a charismatic
Both Bain and McAlear talk about the presence of God. I felt his love coming individual.”
the idea of receptivity—of opening up to into me, and that was the beginning of my When people come forward after the
God—and of healing not necessarily being healing.’ ” Mass, Bain puts his hands on them, two by
physical, but spiritual. As one health care Both priests make it clear that whatever two, but doesn’t say a word. “What I’m tell-
worker put it: “People can be cured but not healing comes through their ministry is ing the congregation is, ‘It’s your prayers
healed, and healed but not cured.” God’s work, not theirs. Bain made the con- that are effective, not mine. When you see
Bain says he has known people who’ve scious decision some years ago to pull away my hands on people, you pray for them.’ ”
said they were physically healed: They from the charismatic movement, sensing McAlear says his healing Masses are
could walk again, or their tumor disap- that healing really is a gift for the entire “very basic, fundamental Christianity”—a
peared without a clear reason. But even church, and that some Catholics wouldn’t recognition in part that some people who
DIAGNOSIS : SPIRITUAL GROWTH
W
hen people find out that something is wrong, re- they’ll find something that will help. I pray that this is mak-
ally wrong, with their health, a natural question is, ing a difference in my son’s life, that there’s meaning in my
“Where is God? ” says Sharon Bertrand, a 48-year- illness that is bigger than I am.”
old mother from Minnesota who was diagnosed about a She says she’s told her 14-year-old son, Thomas, that
dozen years ago with multiple sclerosis. when she dies he should “tell everyone it’s time to cele-
“I didn’t really ever say that. I just thought, `Well, how brate that your mother is no longer a prisoner of her body.”
am I supposed to know what God wants me to do? ’ Obvi- She’s told God, “It’s OK if my time is up. I can be done
ously God wants me to do something. I got plucked out with this.”
of my life. I was a hospital administrator and had a million This day, she sits on the porch, watching the wind in the
things going on . . . All of a sudden, boom, I couldn’t do trees. “It’s just beautiful,” Bertrand says. “It feels like it’s a
anything.” bigger universe, and I’m just a tiny part of it.”
Bertrand says she told God: “Now you’ve really got my Bertrand has concluded that part of her work for God is
attention. Where can I make a difference? ” to represent invisibly disabled people. “I have a cane, it’s in
She got involved with the ministry for prayer, wellness, the closet. I have a wheelchair that’s in the garage in case I
and spiritual care at her parish, Pax Christi, a 4,500-family need it. I have this hot little scooter,” which she uses to go
congregation in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, outside of Minne- from her car to the field at her son’s baseball games.
apolis. She works with Renewing Life, a course for people “When I park in the disabled spot and people give me
who are terminally or chronically ill that includes both edu- the evil eye, some days I want to say, `You climb inside this
cation and a chance for people to talk honestly. In Renew- body and see what it feels like.’ Other times I say, `Well, let
ing Life, Bertrand shares some of what she has figured out. me tell you about this.’”
She knows if yet another person gives her a copy of the In Renewing Life people write down things their illness
book Tuesdays with Morrie she can get rid of it. Making has forced them to give up, and then they list the good
space for what she really needs is not selfish. that’s come of it, too.
She knows that bringing a casserole is easy. “What’s not Bertrand gave up being a hospital administrator, a
easy is making a call to say, `I could really use dinner to- job she loved and was good at. Now, she has time with
night.’” In order to have givers, there need to be receivers, her husband, who’s a lawyer, and time to drive carpool
Bertrand says. Sometimes “your job is to ask.” for Thomas and his friends. She takes piano lessons and
She knows “You can pray for anything you want. Be reads. She gardens and trains dogs. She’s made her own
as specific as you want, what the heck. We believe in list, but no one else could presume to do that for her.
miracles; you can pray for miracles.” But “we make a mis- She knows this, too: “It’s OK to be pissed off about this.
take if we measure if there’s good up there by whether It’s OK to look to God. It’s OK to really want there to be
our prayers get answered. How do we know if we’re pray- answers, but probably there aren’t any. It’s OK to grieve
ing for what will work in God’s great big New York Times about it, but then we’ve got to do something,” to make
crossword puzzle? ” today better.
Bertrand says she prays for less pain. “I’m hopeful that —Leslie Scanlon
U.S. CATHOLIC—SEPTEMBER 2004 15

5. will come to a healing service wouldn’t go Croak says of her voluntary position, in around. He started to drink, and that’s
to Mass otherwise. “Some come skepti- which she does everything from encourag- really why he fell down the stairs.” Visits
cal. We get cynics. We’ve got the desperate ing exercise and stress reduction to passing from a parish nurse, a reflection of the
hoping for a miracle, looking for some out toothbrushes at the Halloween spa- church’s caring, could have slowed or even
touch of God,” he says. ghetti supper: “I feel it’s a calling, a voca- prevented that chain of events, Short said.
As people come forward, “sometimes tion. It’s not just a job.”
they tell you what’s wrong, sometimes Croak was nervous at first about asking
they just look with this pleading look in people, “Would you pray with me?” But Open ears
their eye,” McAlear says. “You see in some she has found that simple request “just What’s often needed for a person who’s
people a fright, a fear, a terror, a panic. opens the door” to people’s lives and their suffered a loss, who’s seriously ill, or who’s
Like, ‘Oh my God, what am I doing here?’ hearts. Some Catholics are more comfort- possibly facing death is having someone to
Or, ‘Help me, I’m going under for the third able asking her to pray for them or saying listen. At the hospital, that’s often a chap-
time, I don’t have any more resources.’ a familiar prayer together—the Hail Mary lain—a professional with both theological
Then you pray, and there’s a certain peace- or the Our Father—rather than praying training and the good sense to know that if
fulness, a certain serenity . . . Something spontaneously out loud. they listen carefully enough and don’t try to
happens. Nobody goes home without being Most parish nurses don’t do invasive impose their own beliefs, patients often will
blessed. You might not get what you want- procedures—they won’t give shots, for ex- begin to reveal what matters most to them.
ed, but you’re going to get a blessing.” ample. But when Croak goes to someone’s Michele Le Doux Sakurai, who formerly
For McAlear, the mystery comes down home to take their blood pressure, “You’re worked with the National Association of
to this: “I really believe that Christ is here. touching the person. That’s very intimate,” Catholic Chaplains in Milwaukee, now is a
If you come for him and he comes for you she says. “It’s a thing that makes people chaplain for Providence Health System in
and you’re open, something will happen.” aware that you really care.” Portland, Oregon—“one of the most un-
A while back, McAlear ran into a man Her town is a fairly affluent community, churched areas of the nation,” she says.
in an airport named Jerry who introduced and a lot of people would rather write a When she goes to a patient’s hospital
himself and reminded the priest he had check than sit and listen, Croak says. But room she never knows what to expect—
come to a healing Mass asking that the “a lot of people, especially the elderly, need she’s met wiccans, druids, atheists, devout
painful bursitis in his shoulder be healed. to tell their stories.” Many people feel iso- Catholics, believers in religions other than
“He just wanted me to lated, and even lifelong Christianity, people who wouldn’t call
know that since that “People can be Catholics don’t know themselves anything at all. She might ask
day, he’s come back to
church, he’s active in
cured but not how to ask the parish
for help.
them where they find hope, what are their
sources of strength.
the parish, he’s on the healed, and healed Croak noticed one “Most of the time we give them an op-
parish council, he prays
every day, he has faith.
but not cured.” elderly woman outside
of church squirming
portunity to tell their story, whatever their
story looks like,” Sakurai says. “If you let
It’s helped his marriage,” McAlear says. her way across the front seat of the car them talk long enough, the things that are
So then McAlear asked, “How’s your to get out the passenger door. Turns out of most concern for them will come to the
bursitis?” And Jerry answered, “Who the driver’s side door was broken and she surface.”
cares?” couldn’t afford to get it fi xed. The woman That can be anything—fear of an up-
said: “I’m OK, I can drive, as long as I can coming operation, fear of death, missing
get to church.” Croak intends to find some- loved ones. They might be worried about
Rx for parishes one in the parish to help. concerns on the outside, something un-
Increasingly parishes are embracing that Short, of the Caritas parish program, related to the hospital visit at all, Sakurai
holistic view of healing—working to iden- recalled one 72-year-old man, with two says.
tify who needs help and to offer support for grown sons living in other states, who’d “I had one patient who was in despair
both the body and the spirit. fallen down the stairs at home and broken because nothing was normal,” she adds.
Ginny Croak, for example, is the par- a hip. In conversations at the hospital, the It was snowing, and the woman couldn’t
ish nurse at Holy Cross Church in South man finally revealed that “it was so hard even go outside to feel the sting of cold
Easton, Massachusetts, a small town about for him when his wife died, he was so air on her skin. So Sakurai made a small
30 miles south of Boston. She got involved isolated and lonely, and the neighborhood snowman and brought it in, and “that was
in parish nursing after becoming disabled had changed,” Short says. “His two kids a turning point for her, that was a burst of
from her hospital job by a back injury. were OK, they would call, but they weren’t incredible hope. It’s like putting a puzzle
16 U.S. CATHOLIC—SEPTEMBER 2004

6. together. What piece “That is the mar- rai doesn’t really know what to say to the
is missing?”
Much of the journey velous adventure person who’s still alive a year or two after
For some patients, is personal and that I get to live as the doctors said death would come. She
spiritual questions a chaplain, being can’t begin to answer the “why” or even the
are very much part private—when an able to be witness to “what comes now?”
of the puzzle. Some illness is serious people in their jour- But many Catholics and some doctors
feel they’ve sinned, neys,” she says. “The do believe there is a place in all of this for a
that they can’t talk to or life-threatening, process of dying can belief in something bigger than ourselves,
God. Some want to
talk about what God
people travel alone. have an incredible
integrity to it . . . I
and a role for the community of believ-
ers to play. Whatever the outcome, it can
is like. see people moving through this incred- matter to a person who is sick that the
“For some people the mystery of God, ible sense of panic—I’m dying—to all the congregation is praying for them—and
the marvelous compassion of God, opens grief issues, the bargaining, the anger, the driving them to medical appointments and
them up to this really broad, gentle spirit,” whole nine yards, and there comes a place bringing meals.
Sakurai says. “For others, they go back where they settle. There’s a sense of peace. Much of the journey is personal and
to the God of their childhood, who might There’s almost translucence among my private—when an illness is serious or
have been a very judgmental God. patients. They are incredible teachers to all life-threatening, to some extent, people do
Some people do want prayer, and Saku- who serve them.” travel alone. But Thomas Curley, the priest
rai says, “I really believe that prayer is in- In the end, there is for many on the from Massachusetts, speaks of the “minis-
credibly powerful.” She has known people front lines of all of this—the places where try of consolation” when death does occur,
who have lived far beyond the time the medicine and faith come together—a and Sakurai of “the ministry of presence.”
doctors said they would. She often prays, sense of mystery. The scientific stud- It’s not having all the answers, fi xing
“Give us the strength to accept this process ies have not yet shown how prayer helps everything, eliminating the pain, unravel-
and to trust in you.” people heal, if it does. The miracles people ing the mystery.
pray so hard for sometimes come as a It’s believing, too, and listening. Being
blessing and sometimes they don’t. Saku- there.
The final journey
If people are open to it, the final stages of
life can bring a spiritual transformation, a Live the Dream...
time of reconciliation with God, with fam- ...Make the Difference©
ily, with themselves, Sakurai says.
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