Recycling Shadows Into Sunbeams

By Sr. Lucy Lee, O.L.M.
Summer 2000

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As I arrive early in the morning at the Mother Regina Daycare Centre for victims of AIDS, the patients, children and adults on treatment greet me in chorus, “What are we going to do today Sister?” These people who live in the shadow of illness and pain challenge me constantly to be creative, to seek new ideas for the artisan work we do together. Even though they have access to professional services such as psychologists and physiotherapists, there is satisfaction and a relief from their loneliness in the simple artwork we do, fashioning plastic bottles, newspaper, material that would otherwise be ‘thrown away,’ and giving it new life.

Since many of these people live in isolation and are unemployed, the discovery of new skills produces a small supplementary income for them as well. More importantly, new friendships are made as they share their stories and turn balls of old wool into colourful clowns and cuddly bears, or weave baskets out of recycled newspaper. One person learned to make an intricate jangada, a replica of the poor man’s fishing boat, with all the details on it. It was a great success in a cultural demonstration.

As we work doing needlepoint and crochet, I am enriched by this sharing, hearing of their courageous struggles to bring life out of shadow, to recycle their suffering into shared hope. As we end the day with the Eucharist, I grow ever more certain that it is in giving that we receive.

The following is a translation of a prayer written by a young Brazilian boy who is dying of AIDS and is a friend of Our Lady’s Missionary Sr. Lucy Lee at the Mother Regina Daycare Centre in Fortaleza, Brazil.

“Thank you Lord for having given us a group of Sisters founded in 1949 in a country called Canada. Mary, Mother of Jesus and of all of us, is a lesson of life, of justice and of Peace. She is their mother and patroness. She shows us her mercy and protection in the light and wisdom of Srs. Lucy, Mona, Yoli, Pauline, Lorie, Mary and Mae Janet. These seven are Our Lady’s Missionaries for 34 years in Brazil. I pray to God to free them and all of us from ever having hardness of heart until our last days. Amen.”

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