Sister Olinda has lousy kidneys. As such she goes to the hospital twice a week for a four-hour dialysis session. When Sister Olinda went to the hospital last Friday for her regular dialysis session, there were complications. I had no idea how she was doing or when she'd be back . . . and the hospital was very strict about visitors (read: I was not allowed to visit). I was getting increasingly agitated and concerned about my dear friend. Each day I came into Kalighat, I asked Sister Georgina if Olinda was back: each day the answer was no. Not knowing is always is the worst part. One morning Sister Georgina found me and said, "the one you love, Sister Olinda, is upstairs . . . you can go see her." I was elated, so I ran up the stairs and gently opened the doors to the chapel. In the chapel there was a simple altar, a crucifix, a statue of Mary, and Sister Olinda, sitting on a little kiddie-looking stool all by herself, looking up at Jesus. I took off my sandals and walked in quietly. She turned her head to look at me, and I found myself kneeling beside her. Tears streamed down my face. She had been gone six days. I told her I was so worried, and that I was so happy to see her . . . I could barely choke the words out. And she just smiled and looked at me. "You've been gone and I missed you!" I said. She put her hand on my shoulder and told me that she was fine now. "Were you scared?" I asked. She smiled again and said, "Oh no, no . . . if it is time, I am ready." Ugh . . . there is one rock solid person.
I had been so eager to see Sister Olinda. In her I found gentleness, a sweet spirit, a warm smile and equanimity. And yet the whole was exponentially greater than the sum of those parts. All of the above are nice things, and you and I have all seen them in someone from time to time, but in Sister Olinda it was different. These gifts weren't delivered in a response to our being taught to be nice to each other and to share our toys in the sandbox. They weren't presented as a result of reading books and trying to be a better person. Her gifts are just there, emanating from a source of pure love from The Great Love of her life.
It was as if she had been dead and was now alive. And then it hit me: she was Jesus to me. When Sister Olinda spoke it was Jesus speaking, when she smiled it was Jesus smiling, when she laughed it was Jesus laughing. She was living the Catholic prayer, "Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace." In her company was a safe place to rest, an embrace of trust and peace. I felt at home, at home with Jesus. And that's what I was longing for, why I came to India, and why I had such an unexpected, inarticulate reaction to her being back. Of course I was happy to see HER and missed HER, but in truth I was happy to see JESUS and missed HIM.
Henri Nouwen's book Return of the Prodigal Son discusses the biblical parable of the Prodigal Son: Nouwen identifies with the son when he asks his father for his inheritance early and leaves home, for a life that he later finds is utterly unfulfilling and devoid of love. Clearly not coincidentally, I read an excerpt from Nouwen's book later that same afternoon: "Yet over and over again I have left home. I have fled the hands of blessing and run off to faraway places searching for love. This is the great tragedy of my life. Somehow I have become deaf to the voice that calls me 'you are my Beloved, on you my favor rests.' I have left the only place where I can hear that voice, and have gone off desperately hoping that I would find somewhere else what I could no longer find at home. At first this sounds unbelievable. Why should I leave the place where all I need to hear can be heard? The more I think about this question, the more I realize that the true voice of love is a very soft and gentle voice speaking to me in the most hidden places of my being. It is not a boisterous voice, forcing itself on me and demanding attention. It is the voice of a nearly blind father (from the Prodigal Son story) who has cried much and died many deaths. It is a voice that can only be heard by those who allow themselves to be touched."
I have allowed my heart to be touched for the first time in a long time. Jesus's voice was a very soft and gentle voice, expressed through Sister Olinda. It was not boisterous and forceful, demanding my attention, like the voice of my job, the voice of my television or the voice of my insecurities. Or especially the voice of my own ego telling me how intelligent or how capable I am, and that I don't need God or His help. I thought Jesus's voice should have been boisterous and forceful, because I thought that's what I needed, indeed what I deserved, for my thick skull, for my lack of faith. I had naively and foolishly left for ultimately unfulfilling destinations in my life, thinking I'd surely find my worth and fulfillment in my jobs, in my relationships or in my abilities. As the end of the parable goes, "He (the son) was lost and now he is found." So instead of a scolding, demand of penance or an "I told you so," God simply welcomed me home into his restful, loving embrace . . . at this moment given to me through a tiny Indian woman in a white and blue sari, with lousy kidneys.
