Thank You For Loving Me

“Thank you for loving me.”

This is a phrase that is often spoken by my childhood best friend and current House of Brigid community member, Katie Wethli. Whether it’s my turn to do the dishes after community dinner, I laugh at one of her jokes, or I walk home with her after work, she always chimes in with a “thank you for loving me.” When I first noticed her saying this phrase for things that I thought were rather small actions or no big deal, I would giggle and respond with a “you’re welcome, Katie.” I always thought to myself, “I didn’t really do much,” and felt undeserving of that large, affirming phrase.

I’ve known that I would have a House of Brigid blog post scheduled on Valentine’s Day for many months now. I’ve also always known that I would probably write about love somehow because well…it just makes sense. After reflecting on this phrase, “thank you for loving me,” and hearing it quite often in our Dublin home, it seems like the perfect thing to reflect on. I originally thought that I would write about how grateful I am for the love of my community members, colleagues, family, and friends during what seems to be a never ending lockdown & isolation here in Ireland. In fact, I had a blog post drafted for this topic already and just hit ‘delete’ before starting to write this one. Yes, I am extremely grateful for all of the love and care I have received over the last few months, so thank you to all who have loved me so hard during these times — even in the smallest of ways. However, after a few days of reflection following a recent encounter here at Newman University Church, I think it is appropriate to talk about another time I responded “you’re welcome” to someone’s “thank you” that I felt quite undeserving of.

Last week before daily Mass, I was doing the typical rounds of asking people to leave because we have to close the doors during services due to COVID-19 guidelines. Being an inner city church, we often have guests who come into our space to stay warm because they do not have any other place to go. It is hard enough to ask people to leave a church, but my heart aches even more having to ask these individuals to leave when I know that the cold street is the only place that they can go to. I walked into the Mary chapel where one of our common visitors was seated, woke him up, and asked him if I could walk him out because we had to lock up. I asked him his name, shared mine with him, and watched him carefully as he began to stand up — a bit fearful that he would fall due to being heavily intoxicated. He did end up falling, the wall caught him, and then he fell again, more seriously this time, onto the hard floor of our church. With the help of Father Gary, we were able to pick him up and sit him down again on a pew knowing full well that he would not be able to make it out of our doors and back onto the street by himself. In a way, I sighed with relief because I knew he would be better protected in our space for the time being. I guided him to the back pew and sat with him during Mass while we waited for others to pick him up and take him to a safer place.

Something that I have always learned about in ministry settings is the practice of ministering through presence. No perfect dialogue between you and the other person, no monologue or motivational speech to fill in the silent space, no physical gifts to offer. Ministry of presence is exactly what it sounds like: being nothing but present and attentive to another person. While sitting at Mass next to a man who had just taken a scary fall in front of my eyes, the last thing I thought about was just sitting and ministering through presence to this person. My mind was spinning with thoughts and my heart rate felt as if it was aggressively shooting through the tall roof of our church.

“What if his arm is broken?” “Do I check his arm?” “Do I call someone else?” “Do I try to talk to him?” “Do I get him food? Water?” “Do I research places for him to stay at and sober up and get help?” “What do I DO here????”

As I look over at him, he is fast asleep again and I uncomfortably teeter on the pew realizing that this is probably a time where I just needed to BE rather than DO even though I really wanted to do everything I could to help this man and to heal his pain. As the homily began, he woke up and started speaking, shouting, and crying. I sat, I listened, I placed a hand on his shoulder, I prayed silently, and I said very few things. I saw the brokenness and immense pain in his watery eyes and heard the cries of longing, anger, and despair in his voice as he told me about his brother, his mother, his struggles, and his suffering. I sat, I listened, I placed a hand on his shoulder, I prayed silently, and I continued to say very few things. Between his cries and muffled frustrations that I often had trouble hearing and understanding, he continuously stopped, took deep breaths, looked me in the eyes, and muttered “thank you very much.”

“I’m not even doing anything, why does he keep saying that?” “As someone who has a warm place to sleep and food to eat, sitting here and doing absolutely nothing concrete for this man feels wrong to me.”

I responded to his “thank you” with the same doubt in my heart and mind as I do when I giggle after Katie says “thank you for loving me” when I do something that I think is utterly small and insignificant like pouring her a cup of tea. I always say “you’re welcome” to Katie even though I know that I can and still want to show my love for her in larger ways. I kept saying, “you’re welcome,” to this man in the pew even though I knew I could and still needed to do more for him and for the issue of homelessness in Dublin. Yes, we can always DO more, we can always love BIGGER. We can do large, active, and concrete things to show our love for our friends, families, and significant others like buying flowers and chocolates for each other, sending fruit baskets, and cards. We can do large, active, and concrete work for those who are severely oppressed, marginalized, and addicted. These large and active things are so important, special, and oftentimes necessary in our world and in relationships. However, this experience at church and my encounters with Katie’s phrase, “thank you for loving me,” help me realize that love can also be found in the “smallest” of actions and words. Another person can feel immensely loved when we are simply present with them. Love can not only be offered by showering someone with candy and gifts, but also through a short and sweet FaceTime call, text, or letter. Love can not only be offered by spending time, energy, and money on making changes for the marginalized, oppressed, afflicted, and addicted, but also by looking one of these suffering individuals in the eyes, listening to their hurt, placing a hand on their shoulder, praying silently, and saying very few things. Sometimes that “small,” subtle love is the exact form of love that others may need in a specific moment.

So this Valentine’s Day, I want to say thank you to all those who have loved me in “big” or “small” ways, especially those who have sat with me, looked into my own hurting eyes, listened to my struggles, placed hands on my shoulders, prayed silently over me, and said very few things. And thank you to those who have allowed me to love them, no matter how small or insignificant those acts of love may seem to me. Thank you for loving me, and continue to love on in big, active ways and in small, subtle ways. I will be sure to do the same.

“Do Small Things with Great Love.” -Mother Teresa