At the Foot of the Cross

We crossed paths at the foot of his bed—his bed, his cross. I was close enough that I could have touched his feet, wrapped in the compression devices, struggling to keep his circulation alive. To my right, his mother placed her hand gently on his calf, as if willing her strength into him. A self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head had brought us all here. Life had been overwhelming, and now every machine, every tube, every breath felt like a fragile negotiation with death. His girlfriend clung to his hand, her cheek pressed to his chest, where its steady rise and fall—mechanically sustained—betrayed the uncertainty of a body caught between holding on and letting go. They, mother and girlfriend, clung to hope, waiting for a miracle. Yet I could already feel another story pressing into the room: loved ones standing at the foot of the cross, watching, waiting, aching in silence.

The room was not still. Machines hummed, monitors beeped, and the rhythm of the hospital intruded on the tenderness gathered around this bed. Yet moments earlier, another rhythm had overtaken the room: Father Greg Boyle—yes, that Father Greg of Homeboy Industries—had come to baptize and anoint “Valentín.” His presence was brief but searing. He traced water and oil across Valentín’s right temple, whispered the ancient words of the Church, and poured mercy into the silence.

Afterward, he embraced the mother and girlfriend with the kind of hug that communicates more than a thousand words could. Then, as quietly as he had entered, he stepped back, already drawn toward the next threshold between life and death.

I wondered how many times Father Greg had done this before, how many families he had steadied in the violent storm of sudden loss. For me, it was the first time I stood at the bedside of a patient with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The first time I witnessed the aftermath of a life spiraling out of control.

A hundred questions pressed on my lips—about grief, about carrying sorrow day after day, about what it costs to keep showing up in spaces like this. But I did not ask. Our exchange was brief. I told him I was one of the hospital chaplains, he wondered how many cover Sundays, and I admitted this was my final week of my first summer of training. 

He told me Valentín worked at Homeboy Industries, and that they had been scheduled to travel together in September—one of those small adventures where Father Greg takes homeboys and homegirls into new worlds: a first plane ride, a first moment of public witness, a first time telling their dignity-infused story to a room undone by its beauty and pain.

Before leaving, he walked toward me. He paused, looked me in the eye, and said simply: “Thank you for what you do.”

These words came from a man whose ministry is recognized around the world, whose name is spoken with reverence by thousands. Yet in that moment, he chose to honor me and the vocation I was learning to inhabit: the quiet, often unspoken work of chaplaincy. A work that does not seek a spotlight but bears witness, steadies trembling hands, and preaches in silence.

At the foot of the bed, I let myself imagine. I saw Valentín’s face—twenty, bandaged, and wounded—become the face of Christ. I thought of Christ a decade before Calvary, before the scourging and the Cross, a Nazarean youth whose life could have unfolded in many different ways. 

Valentín had lived with struggle. The world might have judged this young man based on his mistakes, on the weight of choices and burdens that left him scarred. But in that moment, what I saw was not his past—it was his belovedness. His body, stabilized by machines, became for me a kind of crucifix: not polished wood hung on a wall, but raw flesh supported by tubes, wrapped in bandages, and surrounded by love.

This is my body.

His mother, holding his calf, revealed to me the Blessed Mother herself—faithful and sorrowful, unwilling to abandon her child. His girlfriend, pressed close to his side, became Mary Magdalene, bold in her intimacy, daring to stay when others might have fled.

And there I was, a chaplain-in-training, at the foot of Valentín’s cross. I had nothing eloquent to say, no clever words or prepared homily. Only my presence. Only the silent acknowledgment that Christ was here—Christ in Valentín, Christ in the women who love him, Christ even in me as I bore witness.

This is the paradox of chaplaincy: sometimes the room is fuller than it looks. On the surface, there were only four of us gathered—mother, girlfriend, patient, and chaplain. But in truth, the Gospel itself was alive in that hospital room. The silence preached more powerfully than words ever could. I did not need to explain, defend, or interpret. My role was to witness, to stay, to let the sacred imprint itself on me as deeply as it had on them. In the hum of machines and in the quiet weeping of loved ones, the Word was made flesh.