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	The Rosary of Compassion Garden of Roses: Stories of Abuse and Healing November 18, 2009 http://web.me.com/virginiajones/Compsassionate_Gathering/The_Garden_of_Roses/Entries/2009/ 11/18_The_Rosary_of_Compassion.html Sharon Burke wears her grey blond hair short….. glasses, loose fitting, comfortable dresses … and gets around her house with a cane or on the arm of her supportive husband, Brad. Multiple Sclerosis short-circuited her career as a teacher twenty years ago. The disease makes life difficult enough that leaving home is a struggle. Sharon faithfully attends Mass at Madeleine Catholic Church in Portland, Oregon, that is she attends every Sunday she is well enough to do so. After retiring from teaching, Sharon never gave up trying to create new meaning in her life. She mastered needlework skills and makes layettes for premature babies and Rosaries and undergarments for homeless and at risk women. She feels that helping others is an important part of her own healing process. And Sharon has much to give even if her health limits what she can do. Through The Rosary of Compassion retreat Sharon is able to give one of the few ways she can. The retreat will be held at Ascension Catholic Church at 7507 SE Yamhill Street in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday, December 5, 2009, from 12:30 to 4 PM. The purpose of the retreat is to pray for the people of the Church and the community wounded by all forms of abuse --physical, emotional, domestic, sexual and clergy abuse -- through meditating on the Mysteries of the Rosary. Sharon wrote the meditations for the retreat along with another Catholic parishioner, Ann Czuba, who will co-lead the retreat with Elizabeth Goeke, a clergy abuse survivor. Sharon has been devoted to praying and meditating on the Mysteries of the Rosary all of her life. She recounts, "As a teacher and young mother with five children, I found peace in the midst of chaos through sitting in a rocking chair and praying the Rosary." When Sharon received the diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis twenty-one years ago, her devotion to the Rosary took on new meaning. She lost the use of different parts of her body, including, for a while, the ability to walk or write. At first other members of Madeleine Parish brought the Eucharist to Sharon every day to help her cope with the agony of her losses. Then her husband Brad took her to spiritual healing services at the University of Portland. Sharon says, "It was very clear in my mind that I wanted a spiritual healing rather than a physical healing so I started meditating on the Rosary. Mary always leads you to her son, and she is very comforting. I always get so much strength from her. The Rosary keeps you in that healing process. There is something to holding those beads when you don't know what to do. The more you identify with Jesus, the more you get healing. Jesus shows how to live this very difficult life." In time Sharon made prayer and Bible study the center of her life, replacing television and other distractions she entertained herself with while she made baby layettes. However, she longed for more people in her life. Her husband Brad said, "Well maybe we should invite friends over to our house to pray the Rosary with us." For almost twenty years they have hosted a group of parishioners in their NE Portland home every Friday night to pray the Rosary together. Sometimes they pray with the desire to end the practice of abortion, but they pray about other issues too. Since 2002, when the clergy abuse issue erupted in the news media, they began to pray for clergy abuse survivors. Their Rosary group is not an activist group, but their members are devout Catholics who try very hard to live their faith every moment of their lives. The media stories surrounding clergy abuse moved another member of the Rosary group, Sharon's dear friend, Ann Czuba. Ann read the media stories and understood that survivors felt uncared for and unsupported by other Catholics. Ann prayed for survivors on her own and asked the Rosary group to pray with her. Ann and Sharon and other members of the group slowly began to talk with other Catholics about the issue. As they talked, they discovered clergy abuse survivors among friends and family – people who had not felt comfortable discussing their abuse with other Catholics – that is until they knew they'd be met with compassion. Elizabeth and I met Ann and Sharon in the Fall of 2007 through mutual Catholic friends. Sharon told us over and over, "The two issues I care about; the two issues I want to work on are abortion and healing the wounds of clergy abuse." But Sharon's physical disability caused by Multiple Sclerosis places severe limitations on what Sharon can do to support clergy abuse survivors. Sharon is able to host people in her home, she is able to listen compassionately to the stories of the wounded, and she is able to pray. The meditations Sharon wrote for the The Rosary of Compassion were inspired by her struggle to heal from Multiple Sclerosis. These meditations include one on the Sorrowful Mystery of Jesus' agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. "Jesus : 'Oh my children I felt so abandoned in the garden. My father seemed so very far away. My disciples couldn't stay awake to be with me. Oh the agony……..The loneliness…the desperation… I understood what was to be and I accepted it….but how much easier it would have been if I could have shared my suffering with you…and so now I am giving everyone the grace to join me in the garden and share my pain….unite with me and suffer with me. Kiss my hands and join my heart.'" Sharon knows that clergy abuse survivors often feel abandoned by other Catholics the way Jesus felt abandoned during the events that surrounded His crucifixion. She adds, "People don't understand what they are going through. That is why it is so bad for the Church. That abandonment is mind-boggling. When you grow up Catholic, the Church is such an integral part of your spiritual life, in getting to know God and Jesus and not to have that – I would be a mess." Sharon confided that as she prayed about the clergy abuse issue the thought came to her as though God was speaking, "Did you think that there would be no Judas' in your time?" We brought some survivors to meet Sharon at her house this summer. One wore a purple t-shirt that read, "I was molested by dirty, filthy, rotten Catholics." Many Catholics would find that shirt offensive, but not Sharon. Sharon said, "That shirt said, 'Love me!'" She added, "The survivors we met were so angry they weren't open, but they haven't met enough people in their lives who accepted them for who they are. When I look at all I've done in my life I cannot throw a rock at them. Anger is a part of the grief process. It is one of the first things you go through it. The abuse is never going to be forgotten." Sharon may not be able to be at Ascension Catholic Church on December 5. If she is not well enough to make it, she will be praying for survivors at her home. We would like to invite everyone else to join us physically or in spirit to pray the Rosary for anyone wounded by abuse, clergy or other, from 12:30 to 4 PM Western Standard Time on Saturday, December 5, 2009.
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