Ruling the heart

As I was reading a new book by Pope Francis and his biographer, Austin Ivereigh, titled “Let Us Dream,” I realized that I had something in common with the pope. Both of us got sick in the seminary.

You can read the book yourself to find out more about his illness, but what impressed me was that he mentioned two women who came to see him in the hospital. Again, I had a similar experience. Let me give a bit of background.

I went to the minor seminary for high school and the first two years of college at St. Charles Seminary in Catonsville, now the Charlestown retirement community.

In my third year of high school I felt especially good. I used to run the track every day. I even began to lift weights with some of the more athletic members of my class.

Then something changed. I began to eat less, but to gain more weight. I couldn’t sleep because I had a hard time breathing. I felt terrible all the time.

Dr. Alaagia was the visiting doctor, and, while he didn’t seem to know what was going on with me, he did send me to St. Agnes Hospital, where I was diagnosed with acute nephritis, a kidney infection. I was only allowed to walk as far as the bathroom. I literally spent a month in bed.

To put it mildly, I was depressed. I had done everything right – jogging and exercise and a healthy diet – and still I was so ill.

When I went home for the summer, my family doctor asked me if I remembered the names of my doctors in the hospital. I said that I did. He replied, “That’s good because they saved your life!”

In addition to the medical care that saved my life, there were two other people who played a major healing role.

Almost every night, two student nurses came by to visit with me – Eileen and Nancy. One had been assigned to my floor one day a week as part of her training, but coming by to see me almost every night for a month was sheer kindness.

Antibiotics healed my body, but these two wonderful young ladies healed my spirit.

I turned 76 on the first day of March. These two ladies are likely in their middle 70s. Yet, while the calendar may age us all, these two girls will be forever young in the Hall of Fame in my heart. They will be forever beautiful.

If women knew the power they hold over men, they could rule the world. Yet, women mostly don’t want to rule the world. Men like to fight over that.

The struggle for power and domination has gone on for centuries, but women save the world by ruling the heart. And in so doing, they will save the world.

I think the pope would agree with me on that.

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