When my mom was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer in her early fifties, it felt as though the earth shifted beneath our feet. Treatment in India was rudimentary at the time, and few hospitals were equipped to handle the dreaded big “C.” We couldn’t even get good-quality stoma bags locally, I had to order them from the US.
Doctors gave my mom less than six months to live. But to everyone’s surprise, she outlived that prognosis by five years. She lived long enough to see me graduate with a master’s degree in engineering from a US university and witness my wedding.
That period, marked by multiple surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy, was the most grueling time in our lives. Yet our strong faith and the daily reading of Scripture helped sustain us through the trial. I remember being angry with the world, with myself, with the doctors, and even with God. Why was this happening to my mom, a faithful Catholic who had sacrificed everything for her husband and three children, always giving her best?
Dr. Bernie Siegel, author of Love, Medicine and Miracles, wrote:
“Disease is surely one of the ways in which we are tried by life and offered the chance to be heroic. Though few of us will win Olympic gold medals or slay dragons, disease can be the spark or gift that allows many of us to live out our personal myths and become heroes.”
My mom became one such hero. She accepted her condition without complaint or bitterness and gave us strength even in her suffering. As her physical strength declined under the crushing effects of treatment, which destroyed healthy cells along with cancerous ones, her will only grew stronger.
These memories came rushing back recently when a fellow member of our Bible study group, a strong woman of God, was diagnosed with the same condition, thankfully detected in its very early stages. I pray and hope she will emerge from the required treatment transformed by her encounter with illness, as my mother was. I believe she will strengthen her family and friends, just as my mom did.
All those who battle illness and keep their faith are heroes.
Saint Alphonsa, whose short life was marked by continuous illness, once wrote to her spiritual director: “Dear Father, as my good Lord Jesus loves me so very much, I sincerely desire to remain on this sick bed and suffer not only this but anything else besides, even to the end of the world. I feel now that God has intended my life to be an oblation, a sacrifice of suffering.”
Saint Charles Borromeo tirelessly ministered to plague victims in Milan centuries ago, remaining when almost everyone else had fled. He is credited with saying: “Don’t prefer a long life over a holy one.”
Saint Francis of Assisi, afflicted by various ailments including near blindness (for which his eyes were cauterized in a brutal medieval procedure), still spoke with profound clarity: “Keep a clear eye toward life’s end. Do not forget your purpose and destiny as God’s creature.”
Pope Francis, in his message for the World Day of the Sick 2025, offered this deeply consoling reflection: “How can we be strong, for example, when our bodies are prey to severe, debilitating illnesses that require costly treatment that we may not be able to afford? How can we show strength when, in addition to our own sufferings, we see those of our loved ones who support us yet feel powerless to help us? In these situations, we sense our need for a strength greater than our own. We realize that we need God’s help, his grace, his Providence, and the strength that is the gift of his Spirit.”
May we all be strengthened and consoled by God’s promise in Isaiah 41:10:
“Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
(Tom Thomas, a Catholic entrepreneur and writer based in Bangalore, South India, contributes articles to Catholic magazines and media platforms, both in India and abroad.)
