At the School of a Fragile Humanity
By Fr. John Roderick, F.S.C.B.
February, 2024
On Sunday, February 11th, the Catholic Church celebrates the 32nd annual World Day of the Sick. St. John Paul II explained the significance of this day in a letter he wrote instituting this celebration, “This day will be celebrated every year on the commemoration of Our Lady of Lourdes, it seeks to be for all believers' a special time of prayer and sharing, of offering one's suffering for the good of the Church and of reminding everyone to see in his sick brother or sister the face of Christ who, by suffering, dying and rising, achieved the salvation of mankind" (13 May 1992).
This annual celebration became meaningful for me during my first years of priesthood while I was on mission at the parish entrusted to our community in Bogotá, Colombia. A few weeks after my arrival in Bogotá, I was asked to preside over this celebration. I was told that this celebration was very important for our parishioners and to expect the church to be at full capacity. As a recently ordained priest, I wanted to have a beautiful celebration without any mistakes, so I studied the rubric of the Missal. In preparation for my homily, I read many papal homilies and messages for this feast. During the celebration itself, I was deeply moved by the faith of the Colombian people and the intense recognition of their need for both spiritual and physical healing. I discovered that many who attended did not regularly participate in our Sunday masses but never missed this annual healing Mass. We heard a lot of confessions, and most people received the sacrament of the anointing of the sick.
I have had the gift of working closely with the sick and the elderly throughout the years of my priesthood. These intense experiences have taught me many beautiful aspects about the mystery of God’s preferential love for the sick, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). On this occasion, I would like to share a few reflections that have helped me to live this closeness to those who are sick.
Lives of saints. For most people, it is not easy or comfortable to accompany someone sick. The saints have been a great help to me. Placing myself at the school of the great saints who received the special grace to intensely love and recognize Christ in the poor and sick has helped to convert my own gaze on a person I might have great difficulty loving. Reading the lives of St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Damien of Molokai, and St. Pedro Claver, just to name a few, can be a special school to learn how to love the sick and suffering. Each of these saints was able to spend and dedicate their life to the service to the poor and sick because they first encountered Christ’s merciful love that embraced and healed their own personal woundedness. Their heroic lives can be understood only as a response to this intense encounter with God’s divine mercy.
Learn through doing. Another important school to learn how to love and serve persons who are sick or in need is simply to begin to spend time with them. During the years of seminary, I had the opportunity to have a few significant experiences of charitable work. One time, I was asked to go to a hospital two mornings a week to visit patients in the oncology unit. Through the simple act of visiting the patients and speaking and praying with them, I began to gradually recognize not only Christ’s wounded presence in them but also his personal invitation to me to stay with Him through these visits. Through these visits, which continue today, Christ is asking me to stay close to Him who is suffering in them. I have come to understand these visits as invitations from Him to stay at the foot of the Cross and to witness and pray for the suffering of these people and their family members. Christ also reveals to me my own personal suffering and sickness that I carry and live in my own body because of my fragile health and personal sin. I have the exact same need as those to whom I visit: to be loved, recognized, accompanied, embraced, and called by name.
Vocation of friends and family. The story of the healing of the paralytic is reported by three of the evangelists (Matthew 9:1-8; Mark 2:1-12 and Luke 5:17-26). What strikes me about this miracle is the friendship and creativity of the paralytic’s four friends, “They came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men” (Mark 2:3). The four friends or family members of the paralytic had compassion on him and recognized his greatest need, which was to encounter Christ. An essential aspect of true friendship and family love is to encourage and help each other go to Christ to encounter his healing mercy. This is especially important when someone we love is sick.
“Child, your sins are forgiven” (Mark 2:5). When the paralytic was lowered, and before Jesus, He was deeply moved by the faith of the sick man and his friends and healed him both spiritually and physically. Jesus looked upon him with tenderness and called him “child.” Jesus’ mission from the Father was to restore intimacy and familiarity with the Father through the healing of our sins and infirmities. When we encounter the merciful love of Jesus, we discover that we are not defined by our physical infirmities or our sins and suffering but, first and foremost, by the Father’s infinite love. This beautiful story reminds us that Jesus’ primary mission is the forgiveness of sins and restoration of our filial relationship with the Father. He says to the sick man, “I say to you, rise, pick up your mat, and go home” (Mark 2:11). Jesus wants us to have faith that He can heal our physical infirmities as well, but the primary healing is our spiritual relationship with the Father.
As we celebrate the World Day of the Sick, let us give thanks to the Church, who invites us on this occasion to reflect deeply on the mystery of our suffering and wounded humanity. By reminding us of the Father’s amazing plan to heal and restore our relationship with Him through his son Jesus, we can come to appreciate that our own sickness and that of our friends and family, although painful, are a privileged place to encounter God’s personal love for each of us. Let us ask God for the grace to discover and communicate this good news to others!
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Image featured in the banner: Jesus Forgives and Heals a Paralyzed Man, mosaic at Sant’Apollinare Nuovo Basilica dated before the 6th century. Image source: www.flickr.com/photos/37979777@N08/54030814702/ via Wiki Commons, detail. Author: bradhostetler. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
