A Visit Newsletter 2020
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A Year of Waiting2020 has been a time of waiting. As we come to the end of 2020, we join Joseph and Mary WAITING for the birth of Jesus.
Some of us began the year on pilgrimage to the Holy Land having waited for years to experience this once in a lifetime spiritual journey inward and with 23 fellow pilgrims. We saw the ancient sites of biblical encounters but also took the pilgrimage interior reflection that calls us all to deeper walk with the Divine, to renew as Christians our commitment to Jesus, to listen and accompany the struggles of the people of the land today between Palestinians and Jewish cries for peace. I found all very profound, but the clear image of the Wailing Wall and the Palestinian Wall of separation caused me my deepest reflection and renewal to justice. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was amazing in power and beauty along with Garden of Gethsemane and staying a few nights on the Sermon on the Mount.
It was shortly after this experience that the world was pulled into the vortex of COVID-19. Within days, all shutdown and our hospital and patients became a local epicenter for critical ill and dying persons. Since those beginning days it is the WAITING for DEATH and the WAITING with patients and/or families who cannot visit their loved ones that has become such a burden.
Christmas table will be different for us all. For many in the world and locally, someone will be missing from the table due to COVID deaths. All will meet in small family “pods” for health reasons and many will be connecting by ZOOM or some internet format. As people of faith, we are used to “ZOOMING” into the moment of time past when Mary and Joseph needed to travel in difficult time for a census that was to identity the “outsider” in the Roman Empire. May all who feel like an outsider be welcomed to our table or Zoom. May all who are grieving know they are not alone. May all who are part of the front lines and healing teams know the touch of the Divine. May all who find the Bethlehem story pray for the people of Bethlehem seeking justice and peace in our time. May each of you and your families and communities be touched by healing, truth, faith, hope and love.
Blessings from the St Camillus Team!
Fr Chris Ponnet
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At the End of the Year
As this year draws to its end,
We give thanks for the gifts it brought
And how they became inlaid within
Where neither time nor tide can touch them.
The days when the veil lifted
And the soul could see delight;
When a quiver caressed the heart
In the sheer exuberance of being here.
Surprises that came awake
In forgotten corners of old fields
Where expectation seemed to have quenched.
The slow, brooding times
When all was awkward
And the wave in the mind
Pierced every sore with salt.The darkened days that stopped
The confidence of the dawn.
Days when beloved faces shone brighter
With light from beyond themselves;
And from the granite of some secret sorrow
A stream of buried tears loosened.
We bless this year for all we learned,
For all we loved and lost
And for the quiet way it brought us
Nearer to our invisible destination.
©John O’Donohue
To Bless the Space Between -
Raskob Foundation has offered us a $30,000 grant which is based on matching new dollars. This means your $500 donation becomes $1000. We are most grateful for this gift that means raising $60,000 toward our CPE chaplaincy program and students who are involved in Trauma, COVID-19, Mental Health and Palliative Care of patients at LAC+USC.
Please support St Camillus Center with a year-end donation.
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- Lenten Sunday ZOOM Series, four Sundays of Lent, guest speakers include Sr Helen Prejean, CSJ, Fr James Martin, SJ.
- Religious Education Congress, virtual conference, February 19-21, 2021
- St Camillus Center Awards, location TBD, April 25, 2021
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When God Winks at You!
By CPE Intern Margaret Mortimore
After recently sharing a profound CPE experience with a dear friend, she suggested that I get the book "When God Winks at You" by Squire Rushnell. It's about how God speaks directly to you through the power of coincidence. This experience that I am going to share was certainly one of these.
This was week #2 of my 12-week CPE at St. Camillus/LAC+USC. I received my first page to go to the emergency room at the request of one of the staff chaplains, Manuel. I answered the call and met Manuel in the ER as a team of doctors and nurses was resuscitating a man. Then another call came in for us to see a father who was waiting to hear about his 4-year-old daughter, who had been brought in by ambulance because of a trauma. Manuel and I walked to the waiting room together and met the father and his sister as they were anxiously awaiting news. The man looked at me and incredulously said my name "Margaret! You worked with my daughter as a physical therapist!" (My profession for the past 37 years has been as a pediatric physical therapist in the community for the Regional Centers.)
I didn't immediately recognize him but when he briefly lowered his face mask, I was stunned…the father of a little one with whom I had worked as her physical therapist for nearly 2 years! He was as shocked to see me, as I was to see him and to hear about what had happened to his sweet daughter. She was taken to surgery for the trauma that she had sustained. Manuel led a prayer together with the father and his sister to provide comfort and strength for the 'days ahead!'
Was this a coincidence? I think not! It took me several days with the support of other chaplains to begin to integrate this experience. We were so grateful that this little girl survived, and I was able to provide some pastoral support for them during her hospitalization. The greatest blessing of all was when the father first said to me when I entered her room on the 8th floor, "Margaret, when I saw you in the emergency room last week, I knew everything was going to be okay!" We both began to cry in gratitude for God's grace and love!
SO, God truly winked at me! It was so clear that God was working through Manuel and me to offer comfort and strength for this little one and her family! It is ‘beyond words’ to fully describe how powerful this CPE experience has been for me. I am incredibly grateful for the support of Fr. Chris, Rev. Rambhoru, the staff chaplains, and my CPE group!
Thank you so very much! -
HIV/AIDS Ministry All Souls' Memorial Service
By Nick Jordan
On Monday, November 2nd, ALL SOULS' DAY, The Catholic HIV/AIDS Ministry of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles hosted "Remembrances and Resources," a prayer service and resource guide walk-through especially honoring those who have died from HIV/AIDS and COVID-19, as well as to introduce the updated guide "The People of God Living with HIV/AIDS: Resources for Education and Pastoral Care."
The evening prayer services, conducted in two separate Zoom sessions, one in English and one in Spanish, were led by members of The Office of HIV/AIDS Ministry team: Fr. Chris Ponnet, Alejandra Aguilar Avelino, Manuel Torres, Dr. Elizabeth Breen, David Kennedy, Renee Stampolis and this writer Nick Jordan with St. Camillus Technology Specialist Gino Yambao overseeing production / technology. The evening included prayer, scriptural reading, a Litany of Souls where attendees noted the names of deceased loved ones, and introductions to areas of the revised guide. The virtual service and introduction were recorded and is available for view here. -
Artwork by John August Swanson appears by gracious permission of the artist. St Camillus Center is very grateful for John’s continuous generous support of our ministries.
