Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. — Galatians 6:2

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God created each of us as unique individuals, but that doesn’t mean He intended for us to make our way in this world on our own. Just as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are in relationship with each other, so we human beings are meant to live in loving fellowship with those around us. And when hard times come, we can bear those burdens together with divine grace. 

St. Cabrini Bore Immigrants’ Burdens
St. Francesca Cabrini knew what it was like to share in the burdens of others. Born in northern Italy in 1850, she felt called to be a missionary from an early age and went on to found the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

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As related on the website of New York City’s St. Frances Cabrini Shrine: “In 1888, Mother Cabrini was approached by Bishop Giovanni Scalabrini. The bishop was deeply concerned about Italians who had emigrated to the Americas. In a single decade, nearly a million had fled poverty in southern Italy. Few had much education, and few possessed skills that allowed them to get good jobs. Instead of finding the better life they envisioned in the U.S., they faced deep prejudice, poor wages, a system of contract labor, and bad housing.”

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Pope Leo XIII therefore asked Mother Cabrini to travel to New York City to minister to its Italian population, who were sorely lacking examples of God’s love and kindness. In 1889, Mother Cabrini and six of her Missionary Sisters crossed the ocean on a boat to New York: “They found a mass of human misery: families crammed into foul tenements, parents working 12-hour days for meager wages, and children who lacked food, supervision, and basic education.”

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“Within days of her arrival, Mother Cabrini organized catechism classes and schooling for the children. She and the Sisters knocked door to door through rough neighborhoods, facing humiliating insults to gather funds to do their work. Their convent quickly became a haven for children from the notorious Five Points neighborhood. An orphanage was established, followed by parochial schools and a hospital.”

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Mother Cabrini and her Sisters suffered much as they worked to serve the people of God. Many New Yorkers, even some priests, told her to “go back to Italy” because of their animosity towards the city’s immigrants. But the future saint would not relent in her mission to fulfill the law of Christ, so she ended up changing the lives and souls of not only New York’s Italian population, but ultimately the lives of the poor and marginalized around the world. As Mother Cabrini once wrote: “Let us seek the right and sure path of perfection, encouraging ourselves in true Charity towards God and towards our neighbor. The one should never be separated from the other.”

Mother Cabrini became the first American saint when she was canonized in 1946. She is known as the patron saint of immigrants and was the subject of the Christopher Award-winning movie Cabrini.

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Soccer Grannies’ Team Spirit
In 2010, when the FIFA World Cup was being held in South Africa, a human-interest story in the province of Limpopo gained international attention. A group of women, ranging in age from their 40s to their 80s, had started playing soccer a few years prior to improve their health. Led by a humanitarian nicknamed Mama Beka, they demonstrated that getting older didn’t mean your life had to go downhill. Their story came to the attention of Jean Duffy, a soccer-loving mom in the U.S., who turned it into the Christopher Award-winning book Soccer Grannies.

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During an interview with The Christophers, Duffy explained that Beka Ntsanwisi possesses a natural instinct to ease the burdens of others: “Even as a young girl, [Beka] saw kids walking long distances to get to school, watched them study all day with nothing to eat, and then start their long walk home. And so, young Beka went to her parents’ larder and took some food to share with those students.”

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As an adult, Beka witnessed the AIDS epidemic hit South Africa hard, as many mothers lost adult children to the disease. “These women found themselves responsible for eight or 10 or 12 grandchildren,” Duffy said. “They needed to clothe and feed and house them, so Beka collected donations to help them out. Beka also helped fund the education of young adults, helping them to find jobs.”

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Even when Beka faced her own hardship, she turned it into a way to lift others up. After being diagnosed with colon cancer at age 35, she needed treatment in the hospital. There, she saw many older women “suffering from heart disease, diabetes, and various mobility issues.” When Beka asked the doctor how she could help, he explained that their conditions were largely caused by stress and that exercise would improve their health, just as it would Beka’s as she recovered.

Beka invited these grandmothers to start an exercise program with her. That led to them kicking a soccer ball around, which led to them starting an actual team. And so, the Soccer Grannies were born. Duffy noted: “Their blood pressures got lower. Their cholesterol was reduced. The doctors were surprised. Some of the grannies boast they don’t take any medications now, and they have better movement. This team formed a new circle of supportive friends around them. If someone misses a practice, they call or check by the house to make sure everything’s okay. If they’re hitting one of life’s rocky periods, they help each other out. They pray together, they sing and dance together.”

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Most of the Soccer Grannies have always relied on God to help them get through tough times. Now, through their loving friendship, God has become more present to them as they carry each other when their individual loads get too heavy.

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Nobody is a Stranger
After 61 years as a nun, Sister Ave Clark still serves as a vehicle of grace to others. Through her Heart to Heart Ministry program, she counsels people who suffer from various types of trauma, from PTSD to the loss of a child to abuse. Her gifts for deep listening and heartfelt compassion ease the burdens of everyone she talks with.

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During an interview with The Christophers about her book Alleluia: A Grace to Hold Life’s Interruptions, Sister Ave recalled her friendship with a woman named Joan Kovacs, who had a fractured relationship with her daughter, Karen, for decades. Joan admitted her own shortcomings as a mother, but Karen struggled with mental illness and homelessness, which made the situation worse.

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One day, Karen wandered into a church, where she saw a flyer for a retreat Sister Ave was giving. She began calling Sister Ave to talk, not knowing that Sister Ave also knew her mother. When Karen discovered this, she almost cut off contact, but Sister Ave convinced her she could be friends with them both.

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Eventually, Karen told Sister Ave that she was in the hospital, dying of breast cancer. She wanted to see her mother, so Sister Ave contacted Joan, who flew in to reunite with her daughter. Karen thanked Sister Ave for listening to her so many times and for facilitating the reunion. “I couldn’t change [Karen’s] life, but I knew I could listen,” Sister Ave said. “Then her mom came in — and the next day, her mom held her as she went back to the Lord. Joan never forgot that moment.”

 

This experience was a microcosm of how Sister Ave sees the Church and our call to bear one another’s burdens: “Where is the church? It’s in you. It’s in me…It’s in people with tears. It’s in people who laugh. It’s in children with special needs who can’t talk. It is when we listen, not just with the ear, but with the heart. Struggle doesn’t make us bad people, even as we make mistakes. Maybe struggle is there to refine us and restore us in a better way. I know people in AA or addiction programs or programs for depression, and every day they get better by sitting with others and saying, ‘I care about you. You’re my brother, you’re my sister.’ That’s what our world can be. Nobody’s a stranger, really, in the world. We’re all brothers and sisters.”