Coronavirus: the women religious
on the frontlines
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| Nun nurses at an emergency room in Le Molinette Hospital in northern Italy (AFP) |
An army of women religious is responding to the global new
coronavirus emergency as they serve the sick, often at the risk of their own
lives.
By Federico Piana & Linda Bordoni
Invisible to most and always discreet, an army of women
religious is deployed in the battle against the coronavirus pandemic.
Whether they are qualified nurses or cloistered nuns,
whether their charism has them assisting the poor or helping the families of
those affected by the disease, they are armed with two powerful weapons: prayer
and love.
Hundreds of women’s congregations throughout the world are
responding to the crisis, their members signing on for endless hospital shifts,
tending to stricken patients, keeping an open-line with those most in need,
making sure basic services such as sharing prayers and updating information,
continue to be provided.
In Italy, a Covid-19 hotspot, the Daughters of St. Camillus,
whose charism is to dedicate themselves to nursing the sick and the elderly,
have been in the trenches since the start of the pandemic.
The Camillians run five important Italian Hospitals; they
are to be found in Rome, Trento, Treviso, Brescia and Cremona, the latter three
at the heart of the crisis in the north of the country.
Ready to give their lives for others
In an interview with Vatican Radio, Sr. Lancy Ezhupara,
Director of the San Camillo Hospital in Treviso and Secretary-General of her
Order said: "In all our structures nurse nuns are selflessly risking their
lives".
But the sisters, she said, are not afraid… on the contrary!
"We Daughters of St. Camillus make a fourth vow, in addition to the three
classic vows of poverty, obedience and chastity: that of serving the sick even
at the cost of our lives.”
This vow, she continued, has become even more meaningful today
as the Sisters go about their work in isolated hospital wards coping with the
covid-19 infection
Sr. Lancy explained that in the Treviso hospital there are
over a hundred beds for infected patients, “but the difficulties are countless
because there is a shortage of equipment.”
As religious, whose mission is to continue the ministry of
Jesus as healers, she said, the Daughters of St. Camillus find comfort in their
common fearlessness and readiness to do anything to be close to those who
suffer.
“Their total availability and commitment is moving. They are
aware that they too can die, but prayer and the intercession of St. Camillus
gives us strength,” she said.
Prayer: a powerful weapon
As well as the nurse nuns caring for the sick in hospital
wards, thousands of other women religious throughout the Italian peninsula are
using prayer in the fight against the virus.
Some pray the rosary using megaphones placed on the
balconies of their convents; some are mastering social media to be able to
share novenas and prayers online; others, in the solitude of their cloisters,
are more dedicated than ever to sacrifice and prayer.
In Bergamo, one of the cities most affected by the pandemic,
there is the Benedictine monastery of Santa Grata. Speaking to Vatican Radio,
the Superior, Sr. Maria Teresa, explained that even in the cloister "we
have internet and TV and therefore we know the current pain of the
world".
It is precisely in this unfortunate time, she said, that
cloistered women have intensified their prayer: "Indeed, we are engaged in
a real marathon of prayers.”
Sr. Maria Teresa said her sisters are receiving requests for
prayers from all over the world “and we have gladly armed ourselves with
rosaries, novenas” and an ancient prayer that is a tradition of the monastery,
“a prayer which our ancestors used in times of calamity."
As well as prayer, she continued, there is the closeness,
the sharing of pain. "All the nuns,” Sr. Maria Teresa revealed, “are in
telephone contact with the health care staff of the city hospital, many of whom
are on the brink of collapse, and they tell us about the tragedy experienced in
the first person.”
“We do our part not forgetting that the body also has a soul
that must be defended and saved," she concluded, in the certainty that
this is one of the ways the battle against the coronavirus can be won.
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