2010-02-06 13:30:52

THE WORLD DAY OF THE SICK


(February 6, 2010) The Church celebrates of the 18th Day of Sick Persons on the 11th of February, 2010 on the feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes. In 1858, near Lourdes in southern France, Our Lady appeared to Bernadette Soubirous, a young peasant girl. She told the girl to drink from a fountain in the grotto. The water from the still-flowing spring has shown remarkable healing power. Lourdes has become the most famous modern shrine of Our Lady. In May 1992, Pope John Paul II instituted World Day of the Sick and designated February 11, Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, as the date for its annual celebration. On this day those who are ill are encouraged to reflect on the Christian meaning of suffering and to recall God’s health-giving presence. We are also reminded that God heals and restores life in unexpected ways. The day is also meant to recognize the importance of those who care for the sick and elderly, whether in a health care facility or at home to express their healing mission. Since 1992, the Catholic Church has celebrated World Day of the Sick on February 11 under the sponsorship of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care. World Day of the Sick has three consistent themes. First: it reminds the faithful to pray intensely and sincerely for those who are sick and elderly. Second: the celebration invites Christians to reflect on and respond to human suffering. Third: this day recognizes and honours all persons who work in health care and serve as caregivers. In the 2002, Pope John Paul II in his message said: “The World Day of the Sick is a moment of intense prayer for all who are suffering pain and infirmity. In this way we are called upon express our solidarity with those who suffer, a solidarity arising from our awareness of the mysterious nature of suffering and its place in God's loving plan for every individual. The Day must continue with serious reflection and study on the Christian response to the world of human suffering, which seems to grow by the day, not least on account of man-made calamities and unsound choices made by individuals and societies. In re-examining the role and task of Christian health care facilities, hospitals, and personnel, this reflection will emphasize and reaffirm the true Christian values which should inspire them. To walk in the footsteps of Jesus, the Divine Healer, who came "that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
Noting how the forthcoming Day coincides with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care, the Holy Father expressed the hope that this fact "will be the occasion for a more generous apostolic commitment at the service of the sick and of their carers". Its felicitous coincidence with this jubilee of the Institution is another reason to thank God for the ground covered so far in the sector of the pastoral care of health, said the Holy Father. He added further saying: “I sincerely hope that this event will be an opportunity to give a more generous apostolic impetus to the service of the sick and of those who look after them.” The Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Health Care Workers was set up by the Motu Proprio Dolentium Hominum of 11 February 1985, by Pope John Paul II who reformed the Pontifical Commission for the Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers into its present form in 1988. It is part of the Roman Curia with Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski as its President. The apostolic constitution Pastor Bonus describes the work of the council as primarily to show the solicitude of the Church for the sick by helping those who serve the sick and suffering, so that their apostolate of mercy may ever more effectively respond to people’s needs. And secondly, the Council is to spread the Church’s teaching on the spiritual and moral aspects of illness as well as the meaning of human suffering. Further its tasks also include coordinating the activities of different dicasteries of the Roman Curia as they relate to health care. The Pontifical Council explains and defends the teachings of the Church on health issues. The Council also follows and studies programs and initiatives of health care policy at both international and national levels, with the goal of extracting its relevance and implications for the pastoral care of the Church.
The Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers announced it will hold a series of events to commemorate its 25th anniversary, which will have as its central event a Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI on February 11 in St Peter’s Square. The first event will take place on February 9 in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, featuring an exhibit of 28 paintings by Francesco Guadagnuolo. The main subject of the paintings is the Venerable John Paul II who 25 years ago instituted this Pontifical Council--and his relationship with suffering. The secretary of the Pontifical Council, Archbishop Jose Redrado, explained that the exhibit is part of the religious celebrations scheduled for the 25th anniversary. It will take place over three days and focus on the title of Pope Benedict XVI’s message for the occasion: “The Church in the service of love for those who suffer.” In this same spirit, a concert will be held on February 10 at the Paul VI Hall with Claudia Koll as host and performances by pianists Rolf-Peter Wille of Germany and Lina Yeh of Taiwan, together with the Junior Orchestra of the Conservatory of St. Cecilia of Rome. On February 9 and 10, an international symposium will take place at the New Hall of the Synod on two apostolic letters: “Salvifici Doloris” by John Paul II and the motu propio “Dolentium Hominum” with which the late Pontiff instituted the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers.
In this celebration of the World Day of the Sick what must be fully realized is that it is only God who heals the whole human person in the way He knows best! The medical professionals, care takers including family and all those who assist in any way they can, are God’s instruments to treat, to comfort in empathy and most of all to support the ailing persons to bear their pain in total communion with Christ in His Passion, Death and Resurrection so that it becomes a source of salvation for the Universal Church and brings joy. St. Paul explains this in his letter to the Colossians chapter one. For us Christians then this is an opportunity to accept the real situation of suffering with courage, in a communitarian spirit of redemption as a Gift of God. All people especially those directly involved with their treatment and care have to actualize this through our dedicated service. In this Healing Ministry of ours the foremost concern must ensure that medical ethics and codes are upheld in all cases and at all times. The ailing persons, whatever their disease and their social status, specially the marginalized, have a right for respect for their lives and to dignity of their individual person, created to the likeness and image of God. Hence holistic health should be primary concern, especially of all those in governance. Our stress has to be clean air - free from pollution, clean hygienic surroundings with proper sewage and waste disposal systems, adequate supply of pure drinking water and wholesome food are basic priorities, the lack of which not only cause diseases but grave mental, psychological stress and destroys holistic health. The concern of the church is that all of us are aware that we need to persuade our fellow citizens to a firm commitment to the promotion of holistic health.
The Pope's Message for the eighteenth World Day of the Sick, which is due to be celebrated in the Vatican Basilica on 11 February 2010, Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, was announced on the third of December. “With the annual World Day of the Sick, the Church intends to carry out a far-reaching operation, raising the ecclesial community's awareness to the importance of pastoral service in the vast world of health care. This service is an integral part of the Church's role since it is engraved in Christ's saving mission itself. He, the divine Doctor, "went about doing well and healing all that were oppressed by the devil," says Pope Benedict XVI. "In the mystery of Christ's passion, death and resurrection", writes the Pope, "human suffering finds meaning and fullness of light.” He then quotes from the Apostolic Letter Salvifici doloris, the Servant of God John Paul II which offers enlightening words in this regard. "Human suffering, has reached its culmination in the Passion of Christ. And at the same time it has entered into a completely new dimension and a new order: it has been linked to love... to that love which creates good, also drawing it out from evil by means of suffering, just as the supreme good of the Redemption of the world was drawn from the Cross of Christ, and from that Cross constantly takes its beginning. The Cross of Christ has become a source from which flow rivers of living water"
“At the Last Supper the Lord Jesus, before returning to the Father,” writes the Pontiff “bent to wash the Apostles' feet in a foretaste of His supreme act of love upon the Cross. With this gesture He invited His disciples to follow His own logic of a love that especially gives itself to the weakest and to those most in need. Following His example all Christians are called to relive, in different contexts, the parable of the Good Samaritan who, passing by a man whom robbers had left half-dead by the roadside, saw him and had compassion, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, "Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back'". At the end of the parable, Jesus said: "Go and do likewise". With these words he is also addressing each and every one of us. Jesus says the Holy Father, "exhorts us to attend to the bodily and spiritual wounds of so many of our brothers and sisters whom we meet on the roads of the world. He helps us to understand that, with the grace of God accepted and lived in everyday life, the experience of sickness and suffering can become a school of hope". Referring to the Encyclical Spe salvi, the Pope says: "It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love."
In his message the Pope Benedict XVI refers back to the documents of the Second Vatican Council regarding the Church’s ministry of caring for those sick and the concern for human sufferings. He says that in the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium we read that "Christ was sent by the Father "to bring good news to the poor... to heal the contrite of heart', "to seek and to save what was lost.' Similarly, the Church encompasses with her love all those who are afflicted by human misery and she recognizes in those who are poor and who suffer, the image of her poor and suffering Founder. She does all in her power to relieve their need and in them she strives to serve Christ". The ecclesial community's humanitarian and spiritual action for the sick and the suffering has been expressed down the centuries in many forms and health-care structures, also of an institutional character. I would like here to recall those directly managed by the dioceses and those born from the generosity of various religious Institutes. It is a precious "patrimony" that corresponds with the fact that "love... needs to be organized if it is to be an ordered service to the community. The creation of the Pontifical Council for Health-Care Workers 25 years ago complies with the Church's solicitude for the world of health care. And I am anxious to add that at this moment in history and culture we are feeling even more acutely the need for an attentive and far-reaching ecclesial presence beside the sick, as well as a presence in society that can effectively pass on the Gospel values that safeguard human life in all its phases, from its conception to its natural end.
Further the Holy Father goes back to the message in the context of the Council Document and says, I would like here to take up the Message to the Poor, the Sick, and the Suffering which the Council Fathers addressed to the world at the end of the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council: "All of you who feel heavily the weight of the Cross" they said, "you who weep... you the unknown victims of suffering, take courage. You are the preferred children of the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of hope, happiness, and life. You are the brothers of the suffering Christ, and with him, if you wish, you are saving the world.” I warmly thank those who, every day, "serve the sick and the suffering", so that "the apostolate of God's mercy may ever more effectively respond to people's expectations and needs". In the current Year for Priests, Pope Benedict XVI also addresses the Priests who are the ministers of the sick, to be a sign and instrument of Christ's compassion which must reach everyone who suffers. In this context he invites clergy to be ready to help and support the infirm and sick and show them that they are the God’s instruments of help and comfort. He tells the priests that the time spent alongside the suffering is rich in grace for all other dimensions of pastoral care. The Holy Father says: “In this Year for Priests, my thoughts turn in particular to you, dear priests, "ministers of the sick", signs and instruments of Christ's compassion who must reach out to every person marked by suffering. I ask you, dear presbyters, to spare no effort in giving them care and comfort. Time spent beside those who are put to the test may bear fruits of grace for all the other dimensions of pastoral care.” At the end of his Apostolic Message the Holy Father addresses directly the persons who are unwell and for whom this day is dedicated. He expresses his care and concern on behalf of the church. "Finally," he adds in conclusion, "I address you, dear sick people, and I ask you to pray and to offer your suffering for priests, that they may remain faithful to their vocation and that their ministry may be rich in spiritual fruits for the benefit of the entire Church".







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