Each year, on February 11, the Church celebrates the World Day of the Sick, instituted by Pope John Paul II in 1992. There is an evident coincidence of this date with the liturgical memoria of Our Lady of Lourdes, whom the Catholic tradition venerates as mediator of graces and also of healing miracles. Every year, on this day, the Pope addresses a message not only to Christians but to the whole world and proposes a reflection in order to revive man’s sensibility to the world of suffering and disease.
This year, the Pope’s Message for the Day of the Sick, whose theme is “A trust-based relationship to guide care for the sick” highlights the importance of personal relationships among the sick people, their family and the medical staff, because they allow them to live the experience of the disease without experimenting loneliness and abandon. On the other hand, reflecting about the meaning of suffering, the Pope refers to Job, the biblical character touched by pain in his own flesh and in his own spirit, and he underlines that, despite the abandonment and misunderstanding he suffered and the screams of anguish he lifted to God, he realized that He had been present throughout his whole experience of pain and, once restored his health and lost goods, he opened before him a “new horizon” of life.
Human nature cannot perceive God’s presence in pain and death. Christian religion that has permeated cultures and traditions throughout the world presents God as a good father and, although the passion, death and resurrection of Christ have revealed the salvific dimension of pain, Christian people also are reluctant to assume that God allows innocent suffering, premature death, violence and everything that endangers life. Threatened and crushed by suffering, the believer also may turn to God invoking his help and deliverance from evil, but also by shouting in anger and, even, turning away from Him.
Followers of other religions live the pain experience according to their own convictions. Some manage to maintain a passive and resigned attitude or to draw from their body and soul the positive energies that can contrast the negative ones that cause them pain, but certainly, whatever be the religious belief, pain and death are hard experiences that make tears flowing on the faces of the sick people and of their loved ones.
Tears watered also the face of Jesus in front of the mystery of his friend Lazarus’ death (cf. Jn 11,32-36) and during his prayer in the Garden of Olives, tears mentioned also by the author of the letter to the Hebrews (cf. Heb 5,7); they were a manifestation of his full humanity, teaching us that the faith and trust in God, that the Son surely possessed in the highest degree, are not a kind of “anesthetics” that reduces or cancels human suffering, but that may help man to face pain supported by the certainty that God does not abandon him. This is the «new horizon» that faith opens before the man who suffers, and that Pope Francis mentions in his Message for the Day of the Sick of this year.
Physical and moral pain play a great role in the human and spiritual formation of the man, and history reveals that all those that we consider «great» have been tested in the «furnace» of pain (cf. Wis 3,6). The physical fragility due to illness, the inner darkness that reduces the life pleasure and all the situations leading man to re-dimension a too high perception of himself, contribute to relocate himself in his truth as a human being, a creature made of clay that only the breath of God makes «great» (cf. Gen 2,7). Pain breaks the clay pot that containing the spirit of the Creator, but it can never smother this same spirit that is able to strengthen weakness (cf. 1Cor 1,25) and clothes man with new life (cf. 2Cor 13.4).
God acts and renews man through pain. The Christian faith illuminates the pain mystery through the Word of God and the example of Christ but, quite often, people outside the Christian message also get strength in the experiences of suffering and discover something positive in the lack of health or in the limitation that affects their existence .
About that I remember a child that I met during my pilgrimage to Lourdes. The little boy, confined to a wheelchair, was praying in front of the Grotto and his mother was encouraging him to pray to the Virgin begging her to to give him back the possibility of walking, running and playing ball like his friends could do but, unexpectedly, the little boy, looking around himself and seeing other children and adults lying on their beds, replied to his mother that he was going to tell the Virgin to help rather those sick people because, at least, he could play ball using his hands. This little boy, perhaps unconsciously, gave a great testimony of how God’s grace can redirect our demands towards what is truly essential and sustain along the experience of pain.
Regardless of our faith and human maturity, God is always present when we cross the river of suffering and, discreetly as He acts when he enters into relationship with his creatures, he holds us with his hand and does not allow us to sink into the sea of pain and of death. In these circumstances, discovering his presence is a profound and regenerating experience, an injection of hope and strength embracing also those who lovely accompany the sick person in his suffering.
Unfortunately, our society tends to avoid the experience of pain and all that “recalls” the existence of suffering, that, anyway is inevitable for the human being and, that is worse, even dares to get rid of the pain, intervening violently with actions that may suppress life and are not morally correct.
In his Message, Pope Francis reminds that “a society is all the more human to the degree that it cares effectively for its most frail and suffering members, in a spirit of fraternal love”; he also says that «health is a primary common good», invites those who hold political and social responsibility to give priority to the investment of resources for the care of sick people and encourages everyone to walk towards this goal, making sure that no one is left alone, excluded or abandoned.
In agreement with the social encyclical “Fratelli tutti”, the World Day of the Sick celebrated this year, in the midst of the pandemic, encourages men of good will to strengthen attitudes of closeness to the most fragile people, being for them, as the Good Samaritan, «a very valuable balm, which provides support and comfort» and exhorts us to look up at God so that, like Job, we can discover his face manifested in the fragility of those who suffer. This will rekindle the strength and hope of a wounded humanity.
Sr. Cecilia Pasquini TC