(author’s note: This is the first of two columns on “In Sickness and In Health”)

One of the statements that can put everything in your life into crystal clear perspective is to hear that your spouse has some form of cancer. Cancer is a word that can strike fear into the human heart and mind. As people living in the frenetic 21st century we feel able to tackle the world and its problems, but mention that someone we love has cancer and we can go into a panic. The mention of that six letter word is, to our modern mind, what the word leprosy was to people in centuries past. It causes the heart to race, the palms to sweat and the mouth to dry up.

While we have all heard stories of the wonders of modern medicine, and the cures and survival of many people who have had cancer, most of us either know someone personally, or have heard of someone, who has not.The word cancer equals fear.

Now I am not of any particular religion; I have an eclectic spiritual system, but there is an element of religious belief in this story. As my Dad has said there are no non-believers in a foxhole, an airplane, or in the operating room. I don’t think anyone who has had cancer is really a non-believer either.

Alan and I have both been given the diagnosis of cancer within the past three years. Mine was skin cancer in the form of squamous cell carcinoma, (www.bellaonline.com/admin/article_edit.asp?id=28960) on my nose; Alan’s was prostate cancer. Both, (thank you Jesus, thank you Blessed Mother, thank you St. Jude, thank you Whoever hears our prayers), have turned out to be curable.

When I was diagnosed I prayed a little but I never was one who really prayed for my physical self. I let others do the praying if they wanted, figuring I’d be okay. Besides, I had Alan to lean on. When the doctor diagnosed my husband, it was a different story. I couldn’t lean on Alan; he was going through enough. He was leaning on me. But I had to find someone to help me. I couldn’t do this alone. Enter St. Jude.

I had always known of St. Jude as the Patron Saint of Lost or Hopeless Causes; someone to whom you prayed when you were desperate. Believe me, I felt desperate. When I was a child I remember seeing pictures of him at my grandmother’s church. He looked old and rather severe with a flame coming out of his head. He frightened me. Then, about a month before my husband’s operation, I received a letter from the St. Jude Society about the novena that was prayed to him. (Okay, it was a letter of polite solicitation that was most probably from a mailing list that had been bought, but it made me think.)

The prayers were accompanied by a picture of St. Jude that was different from the one in my childhood. The flame was gone and the artist’s rendition of him showed a man in his fifties with kind eyes, holding a picture of Jesus. He looked like someone to whom I could speak from my heart. I also went to the web site mentioned,contacted the webmaster, Daniel Carpini,who was kind and generous in answering all questions,and found something else. You didn’t need to be a Catholic to pray to St. Jude; he heard everyone.I began saying the Novena prayers in addition to prayers to the Blessed Mother and Jesus. Non-Christian as I am, I still felt they were Divine.

I prayed the novenas up to and including the day of Alan’s operation. Because I am a writer I am very specific in what I say so I basically told Jesus, St. Jude, and the Blessed Mother that while I do not believe in any particular religion, I believed in Them. I figured They would understand. I prayed from my imperfect heart. I prayed for a sign.

The night of the operation I was brought to Alan’s room to wait for him to come from recovery. As he was being wheeled in I looked at him, then, for some reason, I looked at the wall directly across from his bed. There on a board, that told us the names of the nurses on duty for this room, was a small wallet-sized picture of Jesus! I was stunned. This was a hospital with no religious affiliation. There was no earthly reason for the picture to be there. Later, while Alan tried to sleep, I took the picture down and looked on the back. Written in Italian, a language I had taught and loved, were the words “I am the Light of the World.” I held my husband’s hand, cried, and thanked all to whom I had prayed for what I considered a sign from Them.

Maybe I’m not as skeptical as some people because there have been times in my life where there can be no other explanation but an “other-worldly” one for things that have occurred in my life. I press my beliefs on no one, just as I wouldn’t want anyone to press theirs on me. I do know however, and will continue to believe, that there are Higher and Divine Powers who hear our prayers by whatever name we may call them. For me They are called Jesus, the Divine Blessed Mother, and my spiritual guide, St. Jude.

How does this all relate to the column on Marriage? When you love someone, you love them in sickness and in health and you will offer heartfelt prayers to make them well again. There is power in the prayers said for someone you love more than life itself. Try St. Jude.


Sacred Jude in my Life, Miracles Abound!!