"Just a nurse?" 

Tomorrow, the 12th May, is Florence Nightingale’s birthday and for that reason is also International Nurses Day – a day to acknowledge the incredible role that nurses play in health care. After the long, hard slog of the past two years of a global pandemic, it seems more appropriate than ever! I think the reality is that a lot of us have come to see that their role is far more complex and demanding than we ever fully grasped before.
 
Last week here on the blog we were thinking about what our faith actually looks like in the working environment – and to honour International Nurses Day I’d love to share something of the story of one nurse called Edith Cavell.
 
Let me take you back to 1915, to a Nazi-occupied Brussels, and the cold stone walls of solitary confinement in St Gilles prison. Alone in the corner Edith has sat for ten weeks, with her favourite book (her only possession), and there awaits her execution at the hands of the firing squad.
 
Edith was a vicar’s daughter from Norwich, whose faith gave her a deep desire to serve the most vulnerable and bring healing to those in pain. She had excelled in her training as a nurse and had such a solid reputation for her ground-breaking contribution to nursing, that when Belgian royal surgeon (Dr. Antoine Depage) wanted to build the countries first ever secular nursing school, he personally invited Edith to come and set it up.
 
When war broke out in 1914, Edith didn't even consider fleeing the city with many of the other British nationals – her place was with the suffering. In a place torn apart by hatred, she held high the flag of peace. “Any wounded solider must be treated, friend or foe.” she taught her nurses, “Each man is a father, husband or son.”
 
However, as the war raged on, life in Brussels became “medieval”; house raids and random arrests, people suddenly disappearing, the press censored, letters and parcels intercepted. The occupying army only employed German staff in their hospitals, and captured soldiers were either shot or sent to POW camps in Germany.
 
Edith could no longer work as a nurse in any traditional sense of the word, but she continued to find creative and courageous ways to serve. Her favourite book was the spiritual classic The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis, a book she always carried with her even when locked in solitary confinement towards the end of her life. She would underline passages that inspired her to strength and compassion:

God hath thus ordered it, that we may learn to bear one another’s burdens; for no man is without fault, no man without his burden, no man sufficient of himself, no man wise enough of himself; but we ought to bear with one another, comfort one another, help, instruct, and admonish one another.

It is good for us to have trials and troubles at times, for they often remind us that we are on probation and ought not to hope in any worldly thing. It is good for us sometimes to suffer contradiction, to be misjudged by men even though we do well and mean well. These things help us to be humble and shield us from vainglory. When to all outward appearances men give us no credit, when they do not think well of us, then we are more inclined to seek God Who sees our hearts. Therefore, a man ought to root himself so firmly in God that he will not need the consolations of men.

Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

 

While outside the streets were dangerous, women and children found safety within the walls of Edith’s school where she gave out food and clothes to those in need, while she herself lived on next to nothing.
 
Late one night there was a desperate knocking at the backdoor, when she opened it there were two wounded British soldiers in dire need of attention. She took them in, treated their wounds and kept them hidden there throughout their recovery period. She knew the price she would pay if caught but could do nothing but care for them anyway. After the two soldiers made a full recovery, Edith arranged for false papers for them and contacted others who could house them safely along the road out Belgium and into freedom.
 
These were to be the first of many wounded who found shelter and healing in her care. Over time Edith became a secret leader in a large resistance network, without whom the numbers of wounded British and French soldiers who survived their injuries and escaped home would have been greatly reduced.
 
Sadly however, during an unannounced search of her teaching hospital, the occupying forces grew suspicious and Edith was arrested and interrogated.
 
During her time in Belgium she attended an Anglican church and the minister from there, Rev H Stirling Gahan, came to visit her in prison. They would share communion together in her cell and talk and pray together.
 
“I have no fear or shrinking,” she would tell him, “I have seen death so often that it is not strange or fearful to me... But I would say this, standing as I do in view of God and eternity, I realise that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.”  
 
Those powerful words that would later be engraved one of the many monuments that stand in her honour, and capture her life and message perfectly.
 
She wrote farewell letters to be sent her nurses at the school, her mum back home, and even to the prison governor – and each one was filled with words of encouragement, hope and above all, love. Receiving these letters to pass on, her priest was deeply moved. He told her: “We shall remember you as a heroine and a martyr.” But Edith replied: “Don’t think of me like that... just think of me as a nurse who tried to do her duty.”
 
Edith’s work and way of life fully embodied her faith in Jesus who “came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.” And who died imitating her Saviour, whose words from the cross still ring out over a hostile world: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”
 
Today Edith Cavell is remembered in many ways, from monuments to hospital wards, operas and festivals; there are parks, mountains and even a corona on Jupiter(!) is named after this remarkable woman of strength and love. But to truly honour her memory and sacrifice is surely to try and adopt her perspective – that each and every single person we meet, friend or foe, familiar or stranger, home or away, is a person made and loved by God, and therefore worthy of our compassion and care.
 

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.
And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

2 Corinthians 5:16-19