Last weekend I visited the Salesian Sisters home at Cowley which houses nearly 15 of their elderly Sisters. This was my second visit to their place since I came to the UK. Of the 15, three are quite badly off. Fr John wanted to visit and pray for one of them specially and hence we made the visit. We first met the three Sisters and then sat for long with the rest of the community happily remembering past events and recalling history!!
Meeting those three Sisters who were quite ill and aged, it struck me how feeble they were. I'm sure, once they would have been full of life, running around doing a hundred and one things all at once. They'd have been bulldozers and jet planes for all one knew, driving people and things around them. Yet here they were so drained of all energy and strength. They hardly spoke and had no memory of people. Wonder what was going on in their minds. They seemed exactly like babies - only the light in their eyes missing and the bodies too weak to show their dynamism.
All those of us who claim to be active and working, full of energy and in 'power' need to visit people in their final stages of life - to merely remind ourselves that whatever we do or say now, we will one day come to be like these helpless and dependent individuals. No matter how great a person I am today, no matter how many people I am 'head of', I too was once weak and feeble and so will once again be!
Meeting those three Sisters who were quite ill and aged, it struck me how feeble they were. I'm sure, once they would have been full of life, running around doing a hundred and one things all at once. They'd have been bulldozers and jet planes for all one knew, driving people and things around them. Yet here they were so drained of all energy and strength. They hardly spoke and had no memory of people. Wonder what was going on in their minds. They seemed exactly like babies - only the light in their eyes missing and the bodies too weak to show their dynamism.
All those of us who claim to be active and working, full of energy and in 'power' need to visit people in their final stages of life - to merely remind ourselves that whatever we do or say now, we will one day come to be like these helpless and dependent individuals. No matter how great a person I am today, no matter how many people I am 'head of', I too was once weak and feeble and so will once again be!
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