By Sedona Montelongo
I resonate with the Samaritan story. And as chaplains, I think we all resonate with it, because being a Samaritan is who we are, by the nature of what we do. As chaplains, we gravitate to those who are wounded, physically, emotionally, or spiritually. For many of us, it is second nature.
What is not second nature, at least for me, is to allow myself to be “Samaritanized,” if there is such a word. I don’t readily accept help, and sometimes, I do not accept it graciously. But as I have become more humble, I recognize that the healing balm of a Samaritan is exactly what I need when I have suffered. Andrew Lyke stressed in his plenary yesterday that in life we suffer. My story of suffering and healing showed up spiritually.
As an adult, my desire to learn and grow and be stretched in my faith led me to graduate school in 2001. I got what I was asking for, and I was stretched in many ways. Some of the stretching was easy and comfortable, and some was painful and difficult as my spiritual imagination grew.
The early 2000s was also a time of great crisis and shame in our church as the sexual abuse scandal was headline news. This was a difficult time for me as I struggled to reconcile my place in the church, and I wrestled with the question of whether I wanted to belong to a church whose behavior was reprehensible. This truly brought me great suffering and angst.
Then, one night, my brother called me, crying, to tell me that he was one of the unfortunate young boys to be affected by this scandal. I broke. I became angry, disillusioned, and felt betrayed. When I attended classes, I wondered why I was there, because I no longer believed in why I was there. I could not step foot inside a church without feeling my heart race, and I was filled with anger. I believed the only thing I could do was to walk away. Walk away from my spiritual home that had fed me for so long. But I realized that I needed to feed myself. And I did.
I did this for several years, all the while going through CPE and then becoming certified. But during those years, I had two Samaritans, Mary and Claudia. While there were many times I wanted to suffer in silence, they gently held my grief and pain. They were my guides when all I saw was darkness. They were angry when I needed them to be, and they were silent when I needed them to be. Without them, I don’t know how I would have survived. Like the Samaritan, they covered my wounds with oil and wine – a lot of wine.
When I became certified in 2004, I attended the NACC’s yearly conferences, but I did not attend Mass. Until one year, I felt a yearning to attend the anointing service. I decided to attend, but I decided that I would NOT get anointed. That I was sure of. As I sat in the room and listened to the music with the glow of the candles, I felt a sense of peace that I had not felt in years. I witnessed the people getting anointed, and it was beautiful.
I also felt confused, because I sort of wanted to be anointed – which went against every bone in my body. My head was saying, “Don’t go” and my heart was saying, “It’s OK.”
My heart won. As the priest came up to me and I felt the hands of Samaritans on my shoulders, tears streamed down my face. I felt the weight of anger and grief lifted and the presence of the Spirit envelop me. I took a deeper breath than I had in years. And at that time, I knew that the prodigal daughter was making her way back home.
My healing process has been, and continues to be, a marathon. Mary and Claudia got me to the finish line – which admittedly sometimes feels like it keeps moving. However, it was my NACC community that got me over the finish line. I was chaplain-ed. That day, I received what we do every day, which is to bring the healing love of Jesus to the wounded.
So, if it feels right to you to get anointed today, it would be an honor to be your Samaritan chaplains.
Sedona Montelongo, BCC-PCHAC, is a chaplain for Elevate Hospice in Scottsdale, AZ, and the chair of the NACC’s Certification Commission. She delivered this reflection at the Healing Service at the NACC’s National Conference in Buffalo last weekend.
