How to serve life

Every life is sacred and while it is good to ensure we do not harm another, we must not forget that each of us is called to actively protect those around us, from conception to death.

“Protecting life and serving the human race can come in various forms. What is important is not necessarily how we serve each other, but that we do in fact serve.” (CNS photo/Nancy Wiechec)

“God created life, so I believe that God’s essence flows though everything seen and felt, even the wind or the warmth of the sun,” says Guinevere Jacobs of St Ninian’s parish in Kuils River, Cape Town. As a registered nurse, Ms Jacobs believes human life is most sacred as we “have had the honour of being made in the image of God himself”.

Accordingly, that life needs to be revered and upheld she says. “Needs are more than financial or physical, and though I do admit that the latter and the former are present needs in our country, I also see a dire lack in fulfilling non-physical needs as well.”

Ms Jacobs believes that we can all contribute to the well-being of others in even the simplest of acts. “Whenever people talk to others about helping those in need, others usually clam up saying that they don’t have the time or the money to help, but there are so many other ways to help, and people are not informed of this.” Ms Jacobs believes that we can all use our knowledge and compassion to help others — there are plenty in need out there. We are all called to help.

“I often see patients lying in the ICU in which I work who simply need someone to hold their hand and tell them that everything’s going to be alright, and that confidence in one’s eye is the spark that gives them the strength to keep fighting in the battle towards health.” Ms Jacobs believes that we have the ability to help, we are called to help and even the smallest contribution to another in need, makes a huge difference in their lives.

Carol Smith of St Mary’s parish in De Aar is both parish secretary and a volunteer at the Nightingale Hospice. Hospice evolves from the vision that every person with a terminal illness deserves to live a meaningful life during the time that is left to him or her. Nightingale hospice delivers a community-based home care service to the terminally ill who suffer from diseases such as cancer and HIV/Aids.

Ms Smith says the hospice started from humble beginnings in 1994, but today the De Aar community benefits from 246 active care givers “who do wonderful work in their communities”. She says the hospice has grown according to the community’s need. Some 10800 home visits are done monthly.

Ms Smith says the holistic home-based care they offer means that the patients’ physical, mental, social and emotional needs are met. “The nursing staff as well as the care givers are available 24 hours to help and assist when and where necessary. Services include nursing care, pain and symptom control, counselling and education.”

Hospice care means being there for the patient in their hour of need — usually their last hours. “As death is inevitable in terminal disease, we prepare our patients, as well as their family and friends, to die in peace and with dignity,” Ms Smith says.

Sometimes the helpers themselves need to be served. Ms Smith says the Nightingale Hospice caregivers meet once a week to discuss their own issues. “In this way they are also able to learn from each other and to morally support one another by sharing their experiences and moments of grief and joy.”

Benedictine Father Gérard Lagleder is the founder-president of the Brotherhood of Blessed Gérard in Mandeni, Eshowe diocese. It is South Africa’s only relief organisation of the Order of Malta in South Africa. The main aim of the Brotherhood of Blessed Gérard is to enable and empower people to help themselves, so that they will finally become independent of charity and possibly even become helpers themselves. The brotherhood is also active in providing direct aid in cases of emergency and immediate need, the German-born priest says.

Working predominantly in KwaZulu-Natal, Fr Lagleder says the brotherhood serves because there is a great need for every helping hand in his community. “We are convinced that everybody should not just demand help, but [also] offer it,” Fr Lagleder says, adding that acts of kindness are extensions of God’s love.

The brotherhood, whose mission it is to work towards the alleviation of sufferings and making misery more bearable, believes that everyone who is able should be willing to help those in need. Fr Lagleder believes we should help “decisively, immediately, with all our strength and resources, sustainably and happily!”

And Catholics should be most active, he says. The three essential tasks of the Church—liturgy, evangelism and charity—are like the three legs of a tripod. “If one of them is neglected, then the whole Church becomes lopsided and will fall,” says the Benedictine priest. Being Christian, he says, means helping others.

In fact, when it comes to life issues of euthanasia and abortion, Fr Lagleder says that anybody not fighting for life on these issues is guilty of severely neglecting their Christian duty to protect life from its very beginning. Protecting life and serving the human race can come in various forms, the priest said. What is important is not necessarily how we serve each other, but that we do in fact serve.

Similarly Ms Jacobs says God has given each of us tools to help others. “He gave us eyes so that we can see for others when they cannot. He gave us lips to kiss the head of an abandoned baby, to let him or her know that they are loved. He gave us ears to listen to those who simply need to talk to someone about their problems. He gave us shoulders to help those with a yoke just too heavy to bear, and he gave us a tongue to impart words of encouragement to those who have no emotional strength, to compliment one who has a lack of confidence, or to be an advocate to those who cannot speak for themselves.” Ms Jacobs says there are issues affecting people in every community in every country in every hour of the day, and we should serve where we can and when we can.

The 3585 patients suffering with HIV/Aids and 947 orphans served by the De Aar’s Nightingale Hospice need dedicated and caring helpers which is hard work. But Ms Smith says the good acts do not go unnoticed. “Hospice prides itself that it cares for the carer because of the unselfish work these carers are doing.”

Indifference and apathy are dangerous but are easy to avoid. Ms Jacobs says in her years of nursing she has encountered people who have tried to take their own lives. “All my patients who have tried to harm themselves have the same thing in common: fear,” she says.

Ms Jacobs believes that those who see no other option other than suicide need to be loved. “Fear of being seen as failures, of abandonment, of rejection, of upcoming burdens, fear of abuse from their partners or parents and fear of ridicule, among others” are just some of the stories Ms Jacobs has heard from her patients. She says love and support could be the solution to the unnecessary loss of life and acts of love include talking and listening to these people.

Reverence for life takes expression not just in acts of non-violence and protest against that which threatens it. It also means to actively serve those around us.

Helping another can come in the form of relief aid, emotional support, financial contributions or offering prayers — but whatever the form, every life is sacred, and every Christian is called to act in order to preserve that sanctity.