The things you might hear on a hospital escalator

This week's column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

Travelling down a hospital escalator last week I asked a woman for directions to a ward. We got chatting. I knew from her lanyard that she worked in the hospital. 

I asked her if there were any nuns, technically speaking, religious sisters, now working in the hospital. She replied: ‘if there were I wouldn’t be working here’. What could I say to that? 

We were now down off the escalator and both of us were walking in the same direction. I asked her why she had said that. She angrily explained the fear, dread and cruelty she experienced at the hands of the nuns. 

She said they had not all been cruel but the majority of the nuns, who taught her, were horrible women. I had no idea what to say, stood for a moment before we parted company. 

I had gone about two or three steps before going back to her, introducing myself and telling her I was a priest. She immediately says she never met an unkind priest, yes, she knows all about the priest child molesters but she personally and emphatically said she had never encountered an unkind priest, and they were her very words. The tables seemed to turn because I assured her there were unkind priests, and that I had first-hand experience of encountering such men. 

Our conversation began on a hospital escalator, there was something almost absurd, maybe hilariously funny about the toing and froing between us. We chatted on for a few minutes, I told her I was heading back to work. She stopped, looked at me for a moment and then said: ‘Father would you please say a prayer for my son’. I hesitatingly asked her what was wrong, her face suddenly looked downcast and sad before telling me that he was a drug addict. I assured her of my humble prayer; they were our last words. 

She went in one direction, I in another. But our final glances were ones of smiles.

It is highly unlikely we’ll ever meet again, then again, I’ve learned over time how small our world is.

My immediate response to the woman when she spoke about the cruel nuns was to say how sad it was; instead of inspiring young women with the mercy and love of God, all she could remember was their cruelty. 

Of course, I was annoyed and upset but I did say to her, they can’t all have been nasty; she insisted the nasty ones were in the majority.

But then when she told me she never met an unkind priest my mind did all sorts of somersaults; I began asking myself how accurate was her memory.

I thought it interesting how she asked me to pray for her son. All during our conversation I had a feeling that this woman was a woman of faith, who had been seriously hurt and wounded by nuns.

I was reminded of a saying of the famous Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: ‘Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God’.

de Chardin was in much trouble with the Vatican, before being later exonerated.

It’s so easy to mangle the story of Jesus; it’s done over and over right down through the ages.