Like the Princess of Wales, my cancer journey taught me to see God’s light in the darkness

I was deeply moved as I watched the Princess of Wales in the video just released as she emerges from cancer treatment. Soaking up the joy of family, of the warmth and light of sun on her face, of the strength of the steadfast tree trunk, of the feathery brush of ripened grass on fingertips, of the life and strength of limbs.

One of the things that cancer taught me was to be in my body more. My prayer preference is contemplative, and I feel closest to God in silence, away from the world and, as I thought, away from my body. It led to a feeling of separation from my body, a feeling that Spirit is not physical, needs me to deny the physical; is more important than the physical.

She finishes her message with a reflection straight out of scripture: “Out of darkness can come light. So let that light shine bright”

When my cancer was diagnosed, the attention that was paid to my body was almost overwhelming. In every respect, my body came first. And it hurt. Not only did I have to receive the chemotherapy which made me feel so ill, it had to be administered through cannullae which were always, always difficult to insert; the nurses probing and poking, my poor forearms bloody with their attempts, as though my veins just didn’t want to receive the healing poison. I had to take a plethora of other drugs, including dexamethasone, a steroid which kept me even more insomniac than I already am, robbing me of the rest for which I yearned. My body was dominant, and I couldn’t ignore it. Everything else had to fall in behind its needs.

Embracing pain

Taught by Julian of Norwich to face and forgive pain, not to push it away, deny it, suppress it or battle it, I made the conscious choice to embrace my body and all its needs during the time of the treatment. I had blood cancer, which made a nonsense of the notion of a fight, because it wasn’t a tumour to be cut off and discarded, it was cells in my blood which brings life to every part of my body. And it is incurable, so if there is a battle between me and the cancer, the cancer has already won.

Instead, I developed a loving meditation, in which I imaginatively entered my blood, and I asked Jesus if he would come with me into the centre of my illness. Together we flowed around my body, actively loving my blood. It was such a physical experience and yet so interior and subtle. I felt life wanting to live, even in the lowest, most powerless moments.

Julian, herself dangerously ill, had a vision of the Passion in which she, too, experienced its pain in her own body even as she witnessed it taking place on a crucifix held before her dying eyes. She endured the pain - unimaginably worse than anything she had known before - and then she saw her Lord transformed. The same bloody, disfigured body on the cross was resurrected into joy, brimming with joy, and as she felt the pain of the crucifixion, so too she felt the inexpressible joy of the resurrection.

Julian showed me how this horrible experience of grueling cancer treatment can be transformative. And so, I moved through pain to joy, discovering joy on the other side of the pain, not despite it.

Light out of darkness

This is what we have seen Catherine communicate, too. The same body of the princess, which suffered the cancer and endured the treatment, now brims with soft joy. You would not wish cancer and its harsh treatments on your worst enemy. The journey, as she rightly says, is complex and different for everyone.

And yet, we know the joy is all the greater because of the suffering. The suffering can become for us a blessing because it can bring great gifts, especially joy. The suffering can be transformative, if you allow it to be, and I think it has been for the Princess.

I moved through pain to joy, discovering joy on the other side of the pain, not despite it

In speaking about coming “face to face with your own vulnerabilities” and discovering “a new perspective on everything”, Catherine is voicing what many of us who have travelled such paths well know. She has, she says, “a renewed sense of hope and an appreciation of life.”

She finishes her message with a reflection straight out of scripture: “Out of darkness can come light. So let that light shine bright.”

This is my prayer for you, Princess Catherine. That God’s light, which has taken root in you and been strengthened by your trials, will grow ever brighter, for you, for your family, and for the many, many people whom you serve so faithfully.