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The Last Word is Love: My Path of Courage through War, Healing and Faith
If life is an adventure, Ruth Pfau lived it. If love is possible, she proved it. Ruth started as an atheist student in post-war Germany and became a medical doctor and then part of the Order of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary. A visit to Karachi as a young sister started her on her way to dedicating her entire life to the people of Pakistan. Her life is a model of understanding how to live in a world of great diversity. This book is her last one. It is the testament of her life and a testament to the splendor of humanity.
208 pages, Paperback
Published November 1, 2018
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February 15, 2024"The conclusion of my long life - in spite of all the shed and unshed tears it has cost me- is that it has been worthwhile. That it is worthwhile. It is worthwhile."
The words of a song by French Jesuit Time Duval came back to me: "that ugly face which has never known a kiss..." that his face would become beautiful as soon as someone began to love it. "
There were days when I could not work out whether the phrase "god so loved the world'' was a blasphemy or a prayer. There were the perennial ups and downs, the ebb days. But now I can see that whenever one has left the tunnel, the darkness can be forgotten. After the birth of a child, a mother can no longer remember the pain.
To pick someone out, to instil initiative and consciousness. To enter into the life of another, to lift him out towards broader horizons, I had that wonderful feeling then.
We had lived with the strong conviction that God could not afford to loose us. Everything had always ended up so wonderfully that nobody needed t convince us that we were somewhat special. We knew it.
All are deeply influenced by religion. It is life the very air that we breathe. Here we are on common ground... Purely humanitarian motives are not enough to see on through. The frustrations, the problems are too numerous.
When Abdullah leaves his warm bed on a misty winter morning and ventures out tinto the snow and biting cold to attend to the patients in their isolated mountain villages, he must be able to draw strength from some spiritual reservoir in order to continue the work so faithfully, so true to the leprosy technicians promise, right up to his tragic and untimely death.
No, it is not the rock strewn mountain paths nor the swaying suspension bridges high over surging rivers nor the nights spent in mountain huts nor the scanty two meals a day that wear us down. It is this never ending misery that we alone cannot alleviate. It is that makes life so difficult.
A life philosophy of denial and repression ultimately misses reality. Whoever closes his eyes to suffering ceases to live. Love, limitations, illness and death are the fundamental experiences of human existence. Love and death; they are life and life hurts. Suffering in itself is meaningless but it serves as a ground for protesting and for fighting deprivation and misery. We must avoid deprivation and misery with all our might and seek to abolish them.
Even in helplessness there is a hidden possibility and significance.
If Christians do not have the courage to be crazy, to be fools for Christ, if they always ask what is this useful for?, rather than what is this good for?, what is Christianity good for?
Our work is the war torn section of Afghanistan began at point zero. There was nothing we could do except caress the young wounded soldiers on the forehead in the gentle way that their mothers would have done it. And hold their hands. We could not save their lives because there were simply no blood transfusions available. Yet our effort had meaning because contact with another is meaningful even when effective medical help is not possible.
On the day of final judgement we shall be asked whether we were crazy like He was, whether we gave ourselves unreservedly to him who was destroyed and was a loser- and who through all that deemed us. If we do not have the courage to fail, if we do not have the courage to stand by when a cancer patient dies or by a homeless person or a drug addict of whom we know we cannot resocialze, if we do not have the courage to say to our spouse even when it is difficult or to a child when we have not planned its coming to say yes and good that you came into my life, then how are we ever going to have the courage to let the craziness of love come into our society.
Zahir's Life History:
When I was six, I had a friend. A fair boy, beaming with zest for life, always ready to start a new adventure. One night when I was eight I overheard the discussion of the village elders. Salim, they said, contracted leprosy. Leprosy was such a dangerous disease, a curse of God. The patient should now be allowed to live. Salim was to be drowned in the river. I have not seen my friend again. Had he heard the verdict? Had his mother succeeded in saving his life? I didn't dare to ask. But I made up my mind: when I grew up, I would see that these patients would their right to live. And then when I did grew up, you came to Afghanistan. (Salim was a leprosy care giver in Afghanistan)
Indifference says the writer Elie Wiesel is the true sin. Hate still has something of humanity in it: victim and perpetrator are still connected by feelings, dark feelings that should not exist but do exist. But even for the perpetrator the existence of the victim is not denied. To the indifferent person, the victim does not even exist in the negative sense.
Even if it is rarely published by the media, I still believe it; no gesture of understanding, effort for peace, affection, and human warmth be it so small is lost because there is a chain reaction of good, just as there is a chain reaction of evil.... Man is created to be happy. Everyone who has once experienced this difference, that success brought about by force provides thrills while care for others provides true happiness, will be forever hungry for this happiness and immune to the thrills of terrorism.
Truth is absolute. Thus Christianity has to uphold its claim to absoluteness as does Islam. However the only possibility to foster tolerance lies in the insight that the absolute truth is always received by a fallible intellect; I am not able to be tolerant wit regard to the truth which I have been entrusted; however I have to be tolerant because I do not know if I have really perceived the absolute truth, which transcends my limited understanding. I do not know if I have erred in the perception of the truth. it is an issue of my intellectual credibility to be aware of the limitations of my perception. therefore tolerance is also a question of logic.
The words of a song by French Jesuit Time Duval came back to me: "that ugly face which has never known a kiss..." that his face would become beautiful as soon as someone began to love it. "
There were days when I could not work out whether the phrase "god so loved the world'' was a blasphemy or a prayer. There were the perennial ups and downs, the ebb days. But now I can see that whenever one has left the tunnel, the darkness can be forgotten. After the birth of a child, a mother can no longer remember the pain.
To pick someone out, to instil initiative and consciousness. To enter into the life of another, to lift him out towards broader horizons, I had that wonderful feeling then.
We had lived with the strong conviction that God could not afford to loose us. Everything had always ended up so wonderfully that nobody needed t convince us that we were somewhat special. We knew it.
All are deeply influenced by religion. It is life the very air that we breathe. Here we are on common ground... Purely humanitarian motives are not enough to see on through. The frustrations, the problems are too numerous.
When Abdullah leaves his warm bed on a misty winter morning and ventures out tinto the snow and biting cold to attend to the patients in their isolated mountain villages, he must be able to draw strength from some spiritual reservoir in order to continue the work so faithfully, so true to the leprosy technicians promise, right up to his tragic and untimely death.
No, it is not the rock strewn mountain paths nor the swaying suspension bridges high over surging rivers nor the nights spent in mountain huts nor the scanty two meals a day that wear us down. It is this never ending misery that we alone cannot alleviate. It is that makes life so difficult.
A life philosophy of denial and repression ultimately misses reality. Whoever closes his eyes to suffering ceases to live. Love, limitations, illness and death are the fundamental experiences of human existence. Love and death; they are life and life hurts. Suffering in itself is meaningless but it serves as a ground for protesting and for fighting deprivation and misery. We must avoid deprivation and misery with all our might and seek to abolish them.
Even in helplessness there is a hidden possibility and significance.
If Christians do not have the courage to be crazy, to be fools for Christ, if they always ask what is this useful for?, rather than what is this good for?, what is Christianity good for?
Our work is the war torn section of Afghanistan began at point zero. There was nothing we could do except caress the young wounded soldiers on the forehead in the gentle way that their mothers would have done it. And hold their hands. We could not save their lives because there were simply no blood transfusions available. Yet our effort had meaning because contact with another is meaningful even when effective medical help is not possible.
On the day of final judgement we shall be asked whether we were crazy like He was, whether we gave ourselves unreservedly to him who was destroyed and was a loser- and who through all that deemed us. If we do not have the courage to fail, if we do not have the courage to stand by when a cancer patient dies or by a homeless person or a drug addict of whom we know we cannot resocialze, if we do not have the courage to say to our spouse even when it is difficult or to a child when we have not planned its coming to say yes and good that you came into my life, then how are we ever going to have the courage to let the craziness of love come into our society.
Zahir's Life History:
When I was six, I had a friend. A fair boy, beaming with zest for life, always ready to start a new adventure. One night when I was eight I overheard the discussion of the village elders. Salim, they said, contracted leprosy. Leprosy was such a dangerous disease, a curse of God. The patient should now be allowed to live. Salim was to be drowned in the river. I have not seen my friend again. Had he heard the verdict? Had his mother succeeded in saving his life? I didn't dare to ask. But I made up my mind: when I grew up, I would see that these patients would their right to live. And then when I did grew up, you came to Afghanistan. (Salim was a leprosy care giver in Afghanistan)
Indifference says the writer Elie Wiesel is the true sin. Hate still has something of humanity in it: victim and perpetrator are still connected by feelings, dark feelings that should not exist but do exist. But even for the perpetrator the existence of the victim is not denied. To the indifferent person, the victim does not even exist in the negative sense.
Even if it is rarely published by the media, I still believe it; no gesture of understanding, effort for peace, affection, and human warmth be it so small is lost because there is a chain reaction of good, just as there is a chain reaction of evil.... Man is created to be happy. Everyone who has once experienced this difference, that success brought about by force provides thrills while care for others provides true happiness, will be forever hungry for this happiness and immune to the thrills of terrorism.
Truth is absolute. Thus Christianity has to uphold its claim to absoluteness as does Islam. However the only possibility to foster tolerance lies in the insight that the absolute truth is always received by a fallible intellect; I am not able to be tolerant wit regard to the truth which I have been entrusted; however I have to be tolerant because I do not know if I have really perceived the absolute truth, which transcends my limited understanding. I do not know if I have erred in the perception of the truth. it is an issue of my intellectual credibility to be aware of the limitations of my perception. therefore tolerance is also a question of logic.
February 22, 2026
«Hay que vivir el amor renovándolo constantemente». Una vida al servicio de los más pobres de los pobres, como la Madre Teresa. La hermana Ruth Pfau se recorrió Pakistán y Afganistán, en medio de guerras, para atender a los marginados: los leprosos.
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