Pope Francis made his first public appearance since leaving the hospital and spoke briefly at the Mass celebrating the Jubilee of the Sick and Healthcare workers, a work that is very close to the Holy Father’s heart. He directed a few short words to the thousands of pilgrims gathered, thanking them and wishing them a good Sunday.

Two of the pilgrims traveled all the way from Krakow, Jolanta Kuc and her daughter Ola brought all the colors of the rainbow with them, to show that life with Leigh Syndrome can be beautiful.

Ola was diagnosed at three years old with the severe neurological disorder and was only given two years to live until she found refuge in Rome at the Bambino Gesu Children’s Hospital.

Ola’s Mother, Jolanta, shared: “Rome, you could say, has been our second home for 14 years. We come here to the hospital—this is where Ola found help for her illness, which is incurable and very serious. Ola was healthy, after all; she fell ill later in life, and thanks to Cardinal Dziwisz, who referred us to our Polish-Italian doctor, Dr. Rita Sforza Wietrzykowska, we were able to enter a clinical trial, which, in fact, is being conducted for the first time here at the Bambino Gesù Hospital. But the medication itself is from California, and Ola is taking it experimentally.”

Being a single mother with a sick child who requires 24-hour care is not an easy thing, but Jola finds joy in these challenges:

“I draw my strength from heaven, faith is my biggest source of strength, if I didn’t have my faith I’d be in the grave of my own life, in darkness and depression…I had to reevaluate everything, turn suffering into joy, the sadness, I wouldn’t have been able to do that without God.”

She added, “If God told us that in the sick, the suffering, the lepers, we are to see Jesus Christ—then I am taking care of Christ.”

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Adapted by Jacob Stein 

Camera by Alberto Basile