CHURCH IN FOCUS:
20th World day of the Sick
12 February 2012

In our Focus on the Church programme we bring you the Message of Pope Benedict XVI, for the 20th World Day of the Sick celebrated on the 11th of February 2012. Blessed Pope John Paul II instituted this day on May 13, 1992 and since February 11, 1993 it is being celebrated every year on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. This is a special day of prayer and sharing, and of offering one's suffering through Mary, and to pray for all the sick and all those who are taking care for them. The church has always recognised Mary as the healer of the sick and the comforter of the afflicted. On this day we reflect on the Christian meaning of illness, pain and suffering - whether we are in good health or not. People in the medical profession are invited through this day to recognise and value the spiritual dignity of their work. Pope John Paul II had himself experienced much suffering and had been a witness to the sufferings in the communist territories of Eastern Europe and significantly instituted a special World Day of the Sick to realise its special place in the Catholic Church. The same Pope had written a great deal on suffering and believed that suffering is a salvific and redeeming process through Christ, as indicated in his apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris. The feast of Lourdes was chosen because many pilgrims and visitors to Lourdes have been healed by intercessions of the Blessed Virgin Mary. At the shrine of Lourdes is in France Mary appeared to the Shepherd girl Bernadette Soubirous eighteen times over a period of six months.
The 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. And third: this day recognizes and honours all persons who work in health care and serve as care-givers. The Pope delivers his message for the day and it is issued under the sponsorship of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care. The Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Health Care Workers was set up by the special decree 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. The apostolic constitution Pastor Bonus describes the work of the council as follows: The Pontifical Council shows 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. 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. 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 suffering people experience when they are sick can help them grow closer to Jesus,” says Pope Benedict XVI in his message for the World Day of the Sick. "God, indeed, in his Son, does not abandon us to our anguish and sufferings, but is close to us, helps us to bear them, and wishes to heal us in the depths of our hearts." The message dated 20 November 2011 on the Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ Universal King was released in Vatican on the 3rd of January. The message has as its theme the words of Jesus to the leper from the Gospel of St. Luke: "Stand up and go; your faith has saved you". This theme of this year's Day of the Sick - which will be observed on February 11, is a quotation taken from Christ's command to the only leper out of 10 who were cured that returned to thank him. Pope Benedict said that Jesus' command to the leper should raise awareness of the "importance of faith for those who, burdened by suffering and illness, draw near to the Lord," as well as how "reacquired health is a sign of something more precious than mere physical healing, it is a sign of the salvation that God gives us through Christ."
Celebrating the World Day of the Sick on 11th of February 2012 on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, Pope Benedict expresses his spiritual closeness to all sick people who are in places of care or are looked after in their families, and communicates to each one of them the solicitude and the affection of the whole Church. In the generous and loving welcoming of every human life, above all of weak and sick life, a Christian expresses an important aspect of his or her Gospel witness, following the example of Christ, who bent down before the material and spiritual sufferings of man in order to heal them. The Pope said that this year also contributes to the immediate preparations for the Solemn World Day of the Sick that will be celebrated in Germany on 11 February 2013. Here the focus will be on the emblematic Gospel figure of the Good Samaritan, and Pope himself would place his emphasis upon the “sacraments of healing”, that is to say upon the sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation and that of the Anointing of the Sick, which have their natural completion in Eucharistic Communion.
The theme of the message is a consoling factor to every Christian that God cares for us. The encounter of Jesus with the ten lepers, narrated by the Gospel of Saint Luke and in particular the words that the Lord addresses to one of them, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you”, help us to become aware of the importance of faith for those who, burdened by suffering and illness, draw near to the Lord, says the Pontiff. In their encounter with him they can truly experience that he who believes is never alone. God, indeed, in his Son, does not abandon us to our anguish and sufferings, but is close to us, helps us to bear them, and wishes to heal us in the depths of our hearts.
The leper, who on seeing that he was healed, full of amazement and joy, and unlike the others, immediately went back to Jesus to express his gratitude, shows his faith says the Message. This enables us to perceive that reacquired health is a sign of something more precious than mere physical healing, it is a sign of the salvation that God gives us through Christ; it finds expression in the words of Jesus: your faith has saved you. He who in suffering and illness prays to the Lord is certain that God’s love will never abandon him, and also that the love of the Church, the extension in time of the Lord’s saving work, will never fail. Physical healing, an outward expression of the deepest salvation, thus reveals the importance that man – in his entirety of soul and body – has for the Lord. Each sacrament, for that matter, expresses and actuates the closeness of God himself, who, in an absolutely freely-given way, “touches us through material things … that he takes up into his service, making them instruments of the encounter between us and himself. The unity between creation and redemption is made visible. The sacraments are an expression of the physicality of our faith, which embraces the whole person, body and soul, he added.
Pope Benedict insists that the principal task of the Church is certainly proclaiming the Kingdom of God, “But this very proclamation must be a process of healing: ‘bind up the broken-hearted’”, according to the charge entrusted by Jesus to his disciples. The tandem of physical health and renewal after lacerations of the soul thus helps us to understand better the “sacraments of healing”. Anointing of the sick is not a minor sacrament, teaches Pope Benedict XVI, but one that deserves greater consideration today, because of its spiritual benefits to both minister and recipient. The Pope notes that the sacrament, formerly known as extreme unction, may be administered in "various human situations connected with illness, and not only when a person is at the end of his or her life." Anointing with olive oil recalls the "double mystery of the Mount of Olives," says the Pope as both the location of the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus confronted his passion, and the place where he ascended into heaven. Oil thus acts "as God's medicine ... offering strength and consolation, yet at the same time it points beyond the moment of the illness toward the definitive healing, the resurrection."
The Pope says that the sacrament of healing deserves greater consideration today both in theological reflection and in pastoral ministry among the sick. Through a proper appreciation of the content of the liturgical prayers that are adapted to the various human situations connected with illness, and not only when a person is at the end of his or her life, the Anointing of the Sick should not be held to be almost “a minor sacrament” when compared to the others. Attention to and pastoral care for sick people, while, on the one hand, a sign of God’s tenderness towards those who are suffering, on the other brings spiritual advantage to priests and the whole Christian community as well, in the awareness that what is done to the least, is done to Jesus himself.
Reflecting on the Parable of the Prodigal Son the Pope says that God, “rich in mercy”, like the father in the Gospel parable, does not close his heart to any of his children, but waits for them, looks for them, reaches them where their rejection of communion imprisons them in isolation and division. At the same time he calls them to gather around his table, in the joy of the feast of forgiveness and reconciliation. A time of suffering, in which one could be tempted to abandon oneself to discouragement and hopelessness, can thus be transformed into a time of grace so as to return to oneself, and like the prodigal son of the parable, to think anew about one’s life, recognizing its errors and failures, longing for the embrace of the Father, and following the pathway to his home. He, in his great love, always and everywhere watches over our lives and awaits us so as to offer to every child that returns to him the gift of full reconciliation and joy.
The Gospels show the concern of Jesus towards those sick and in need of healing. From a reading of the Gospels it emerges clearly that Jesus always showed special concern for sick people. He not only sent out his disciples to tend their wounds but also instituted for them a specific sacrament: the Anointing of the Sick. The Letter of James attests to the presence of this sacramental act already in the first Christian community: by the Anointing of the Sick, accompanied by the prayer of the elders, the whole of the Church commends the sick to the suffering and glorified Lord so that he may alleviate their sufferings and save them; indeed she exhorts them to unite themselves spiritually to the passion and death of Christ so as to contribute thereby to the good of the People of God.
As regards the sacraments of healing, Saint Augustine affirms: “God heals all your infirmities. Do not be afraid, therefore, all your infirmities will be healed … You must only allow him to cure you and you must not reject his hands.” These are precious instruments of God’s grace which help a sick person to conform himself or herself ever more fully to the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ. Together with these two sacraments, the Pope says that he would also like to emphasize the importance of the Eucharist. Received at a time of illness, it contributes in a singular way to working this transformation, associating the person who partakes of the Body and Blood of Christ to the offering that he made of himself to the Father for the salvation of all. The whole ecclesial community and parish communities in particular, should pay attention to guaranteeing the possibility of frequently receiving Holy Communion, to those people who, for reasons of health or age, cannot go to a place of worship. In this way, these brothers and sisters are offered the possibility of strengthening their relationship with Christ, crucified and risen, participating, through their lives offered up for love of Christ, in the very mission of the Church. From this point of view, it is important that priests who offer their discreet work in hospitals, in nursing homes and in the homes of sick people, feel they are truly “ministers of the sick, signs and instruments of Christ's compassion who must reach out to every person marked by suffering.”
The Pontiff says that anointing of the sick is one of the church's two "sacraments of healing," together with the "medicine of confession," penance. When a sick person confesses sins to a priest, "a time of suffering, in which one could be tempted to abandon oneself to discouragement and hopelessness, can thus be transformed into a time of grace. Both penance and the sacrament of the sick "have their natural completion in Eucharistic Communion. Received at a time of illness, Communion associates the person who partakes of the body and blood of Christ to the offering that he made of himself to the Father for the salvation of all. Accordingly, the pope says that all parishes should ensure that the elderly and the sick enjoy the possibility of frequently receiving Holy Communion.
Becoming conformed to the Paschal Mystery of Christ, which can also be achieved through the practice of spiritual Communion, takes on a very particular meaning when the Eucharist is administered and received as Viaticum. At that stage in life, these words of the Lord are even more telling: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day”. The Eucharist, especially as Viaticum, is – according to the definition of Saint Ignatius of Antioch – “medicine of immortality, the antidote for death”; the sacrament of the passage from death to life, from this world to the Father, who awaits everyone in the celestial Jerusalem.
The theme of this Message for the Twentieth World Day of the Sick, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you”, also looks forward to the forthcoming Year of Faith which will begin on 11th of October 2012, a propitious and valuable occasion to rediscover the strength and beauty of faith, to examine its contents, and to bear witness to it in daily life. Here Pope Benedict encourages sick people and the suffering always to find a safe anchor in faith, nourished by listening to the Word of God, by personal prayer and by the sacraments, while he invite pastors to be increasingly ready to celebrate them for the sick. Following the example of the Good Shepherd and as guides of the flocks entrusted to them, priests should be full of joy, attentive to the weakest, the simple and sinners, expressing the infinite mercy of God with reassuring words of hope.
To all those who work in the field of health, and to the families who see in their relatives the suffering face of the Lord Jesus, the Pope extends his personal gratitude and that of the Church, because, in their professional expertise and in silence, often without even mentioning the name of Christ, they manifest him in a concrete way. Entrusting the family of the church to Mary, Mother of Mercy and Health of the Sick, the Pontiff invites all to raise our trusting gaze and our prayer; may her maternal compassion, manifested as she stood beside her dying Son on the Cross, accompany and sustain the faith and the hope of every sick and suffering person on the journey of healing for the wounds of body and spirit.
We conclude our programme of today with a special prayer used at the mass for the sick and infirm: Father, your Son accepted our sufferings to teach us the virtue of patience in human illness. Hear the prayers we offer for our sick brothers and sisters. May all who suffer pain, illness, or disease realize that they have been chosen to be saints and know that they are joined to Christ in his suffering for the salvation of the world. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Fr Eugene Lobo S.J.