“God is good, all the time.”
Brigida is a nurse in New Jersey. I don’t know if she will ever be a canonized saint, but she is a living one.
She came into work on her day off to care for a patient. She came back when she heard of the cruelty that was inflicted on the same patient once she left.
When nursing is vocational, it is amazing. When it is a mere job, it can be evil. I might not have said the latter until I witnessed it recently.
I won’t focus on the evil. We know enough about that in the world. But a woman who goes above and beyond and beyond even that: That’s what we need in headlines. She does wound care and will make you a sandwich. She’ll go to a pharmacy to pick up the supplies that should be on hand. She will cry tears of shame for what she found out was going on behind her back.
Beauty is healing, and everything about Brigida is exactly that. She sees her patients and receives her patients. She suffers with them.
She’s a Christian who truly shows Christ. I watched as she did what no one else would do. She spent hours caring for one patient because she saw that patient as Christ.
This is our call, whatever our work. And yet, I don’t live it every day. Do you? We must. We can. Brigida encourages us to be real Christians — and in the daily circumstances that are unexpected and inconvenient.
Goodness spreads
“Goodness always tends to spread,” Pope Francis wrote in 2013. He continued: “Every authentic experience of truth and goodness seeks by its very nature to grow within us, and any person who has experienced a profound liberation becomes more sensitive to the needs of others. As it expands, goodness takes root and develops. If we wish to lead a dignified and fulfilling life, we have to reach out to others and seek their good.”
He cited St. Paul: “‘The love of Christ urges us on’ (2 Cor 5:14); ‘Woe to me if I do not proclaim the Gospel’ (1 Cor 9:16).”
I watched as Brigida lived this, bringing out the best in others who were open to goodness. She was able to bring joy out of sorrow and anger. She was living the Gospel with a firm confidence in hope for both here and eternity.
Living the Last Supper
The Olympics mocked the Last Supper, but Brigida lives on it. I don’t think she was at the Eucharistic Congress, but she didn’t have to be. She’s a monstrance radiating light in darkness.
It was deep into the night, and Brigida was still doing multiple jobs with patient love. She resembled the Divine Physician.
I was angry at the Olympics, and I was angry at the nurses who couldn’t be bothered and worse. But life is too short for all the anger. Isn’t anger just about everything in our politics right now? And how does it help?
Brigida has the right idea. Just keep moving in love. Never mind the naysayers. They might even eventually catch on when inundated with the witness of love. Stranger things have happened in salvation history.
I shouldn’t be, but was shocked by some of what I saw at that rehab facility. But Brigida showing radical love in the midst of it is even more shocking. She could just phone it in. She could ignore difficulty. Instead, she remembers Jesus on the cross and accompanying patients in their suffering.
Where there is abuse and neglect, may her sowing love be contagious.
God is indeed good all the time. He gives us gifts like Brigida at moments when we could despair. He gives us a woman who is a living tabernacle of hope.
With his grace, we could all be, too.
