Before leaving each night for our ministry, we have time for prayer in our convent chapel. We ask the Lord's blessing before we go out to encounter Him in the sick, praying for the grace needed to carry out our mission faithfully at the bedside of those entrusted to our care. We go from one encounter with Christ to the next, for our faith tells us that it is the same Jesus we kneel before in the Blessed Sacrament, whom we also encounter in our sick brothers and sisters.

I recently had the blessing of witnessing the powerful and yet gentle way our Lord works through this reality of His presence. As I arrived at my patient’s home, the family walked me to the room of their loved one. As they opened the bedroom door, my patient opened his eyes, and it was at that moment that our Lord came to take him home. As I gathered the family around to pray for the soul of their loved one, I realized that evening that I had ushered Jesus into my patient’s home. As Mother Soledad told us, “Have courage, my Daughters in the Lord…there is nothing to fear, not even death itself, because this is what opens the way for us to eternal life.”

- Sister Teresa