VANCOUVER—A humble Chinese sister is starting her 25th year of consoling people in some of their most vulnerable moments.

Sister Cecilia Cham, FdCC, has offered prayers, compassion, and rosaries to sick and dying patients at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) since 1991.

“When you do this job, you really need to have compassion and empathy, and listen with your heart,” she told The B.C. Catholic.

The Canossian sister spends 9:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. shuttling between wards and visiting at least 20 patients a day. She usually has 30-40 requests on her list, but it’s impossible to reach them all in a day.

“Many of the patients, of course, feel frustration and get angry with God: why did it happen to me?” Sister Cham tries to comfort patients, Christian or not, with encouraging words and prayer. “We never know God’s will for us.”

Miraculous cure

Sister Cham has witnessed miracles. Ten years ago a man was brought to VGH after a near-fatal car accident; doctors guessed he wouldn’t survive the night.

“He was so swollen. When you saw him and you went to visit him, he was bandaged everywhere. You could not recognize a human person,” Sister Cham recalled.

The man’s family and friends visited often to pray for him, and his condition began to improve. A few months later he wheeled himself out of the hospital. He and Sister Cham stay in touch through phone calls and chance meetings at Richmond shopping malls.

The chaplain has also become a godmother to many patients. Several years ago, a woman diagnosed with terminal cancer asked if she and her 3-year-old son could be baptized before her death. “It’s very touching.”

Terminal illness

Sister Cham has attended many funerals. Patients have invited her to their funerals while lying on their deathbeds. She always follows through with promises to attend.

“I’ve seen some patients with no religion who die. They struggle so much. For what, I can understand. They don’t know where to follow, where to go,” she said. “I say don’t worry, I will pray for you.”

Strength in prayer

She is quick to say serving at the hospital is not an easy task. “Some days you have a few serious cases, you listen to all of them, and it makes you really heavy.”

The sister draws strength from prayer and daily Mass at her convent chapel in Richmond. “I say, ‘Lord, give me the strength to do Your will and to serve You through the patients,'” she said.

“When I see them, I remember our Jesus saying, ‘When I was sick, you visited Me.'”

Hospital chaplain Michael Pasche does similar work at VGH. He admires Sister Cham’s strength and the depth of her faith.

“Theologically, I really see (our service) as joining God at work,” he said from his office a few doors down from Sister Cham’s.

“I don’t bring God to people in the room; God’s already in there with them. Sometimes I joke and say I show up and try to stay out of God’s way.”

Knowing Sister Cham has spent nearly a quarter of a century serving the sick and dying, it’s hard to believe she was once incredibly squeamish around wounds.

“I was afraid of blood,” she said. “I had already passed my nursing exam in Hong Kong. They wanted me to work. Then I thought about it, and I thought: no!”

Sister Cham, drawn to the Canossian way of life after attending a school run by the sisters, wanted to be a teacher. “You never know God’s plan,” she said. “God gave me the grace, and now I’m not afraid.”

She first thought about donning the Canossian habit as a young teenage Buddhist.

Her teachers “were so kindhearted, so tender with the students and with the poor,” including the children of fishermen. Sister Cham was also inspired when catching glimpses of the sisters praying in the chapel.

The teen told her Buddhist, though not particularly devout, mother about her wishes. She rejected them and suddenly fell ill.

Starting health care

“I asked the Lord: ‘If you want me to become a sister, you make my mom healthy.’ He did. So I said, ‘God took the promise, so I need to take the promise too.'”

She and her mother were later baptized, and after that she was allowed to join the order. Her grandmother later also embraced Catholicism at age 86 and walked to Mass daily until she died.

“I always remember my foundress (St. Magdalene of Canossa) said, ‘When you obey, miracles come.’ When I obey, I can overcome many other things.”

Sister Cham served as a member of the support staff in a Hong Kong hospital for 10 years before being sent to serve in Vancouver.

VGH profession leader Doug Longstaffe praised her efforts over the last 24 years. “She provides pastoral guidance that encourages faith while maintaining an open mind that is accepting of individual differences in approach to religion, health, and healing.”

Longstaffe, a member of the United Church, said Sister Cham brightens his days and encourages “an enormous number” of patients.

“To her we are all family, to which I say: Amen, Sister!”