[Mosaic logo composed of people's faces, with Jesus appearing at the centre.]

[Photo of Bishop John Fleming]

Each of us lives with a disability. Few, if any, of us live our lives without the fear of illness, for example. Many of us experience varying degrees of conflict in our lives from time to time. Many of us have difficulties of one sort or another, at work, at home, within ourselves, with our faith, with depression or whatever. Many people have become so traumatised by the hand which fate has dealt them in life that they have abandoned hope and others are forced to live with shattered dreams in an unfaithful partner or a failed job opportunity.

Two particular examples come to mind. Paul, the Apostle, wanted to go to Spain to preach the Gospel but ended up in Rome, in chains and eventually beheaded. While in Rome he lived with a disability, his lack of freedom and his inability to be where he wanted to be. After struggling for years to achieve independence, Mahatma Gandhi witnessed a bloody religious war between Hindus and Muslims and the fragmentation of his country into India and Pakistan before he died. He too lived with the knowledge that he could not do anything to prevent this happening and so he felt powerless.

There are less well known examples as well. They are obvious and they are all around us. There are those whose lives seem limited by accident or tragedy or by a disability from birth. They are regarded as living with a disability. However, disability should not set people apart and mark them out as different. Life, in a variety of ways, ensures that all of us live with a disability of one kind or another and all of us are in that sense disabled. We have realities and issues in our personal lives which limit us and cause us difficulties. The only difference between those who are regarded as living with a disability and the rest of society is that the disabled are more easily identified.

When life confronts us with real difficulties we are forced to ask ourselves the question; how can I cope with this? And we know that the answers are many. We can distil all our pain and frustrations into a core of bitterness and resentment. This we know will poison the soul and scar our lives. We can withdraw completely into ourselves and allow no one to penetrate our hurt, our worry or our inner space. In the short term this may help us to cope but eventually it will make us detached, too unconcerned to love, too passionless to hate, to indifferent to experience joy and too cold to experience sorrow. Another option would be to adopt a fatalistic attitude to life. Content to see ourselves cast as helpless on the vast sea of time and space, we would be content to be inactive, to see life as controlled by irresistible, external, pre-ordained forces. In this we would abandon hope.

Many of those in our society who live with an obvious disability are a living testimony to the vitality of life, the triumph of hope and they are a source of encouragement to us whose disabilities are less obvious. For me Pope John Paul II was the great example of this. I lived in Rome for twenty of his twenty six years as Pope. In the course of my work at the Irish College I met him on many occasions. I saw him become increasingly disabled by his illness, especially during the last years of his life. There were many times when I marvelled at him, at his courage and determination and at his failure to ever mention his pain and suffering as he carried out his ministry of service. His vitality never left him, despite the increasing difficulty he had with being able to help himself.

The Pope was, however, only one example among many. So many people like him have overcome their disability. They have resisted the temptation to become inward looking and instead have become truly human. They have banished fatalism and they bear witness to the strength and resilience given to us by God. By discovering the distinction between the outward accidents of circumstance and the inward, spiritual, strength given to us by a loving God, they have conquered the limitations of their human condition, overcome fear and, with real dignity and amazing courage, they have learned to stand tall and strong despite their difficulties.

[www.dayforlife.org]

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