Pastor's Pen - October 2, 2016

This month’s work of mercy is VISIT THE SICK.

(LK 10: 33-34)But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him was moved with compassion a the sight. He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them. Then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn and cared for him.

(MT 25:36) (I was) ill and you cared for me.”

Occasions for visiting the sick can be endless inasmuch as illness displays so many variations. The debilities of old age, the sorrows of cancer and disease, of mental and emotional trial – the occasions are plentiful if only we have the heart of great love.

The personal challenge in this work of mercy requires a concerted spiritual effort. Saint Augustine described it this way. One must become as if sick oneself in drawing close to the sick, not as though having the same affliction, but by considering with sympathy how one would desire to be treated if sick oneself. The capacity to identify ourselves with the sick person’s suffering is not to experience an identical pain. But it does entail drawing near to a primary need of the sick person.

The very sick person often suffers the depressing worry of being a burden to others. To encourage them, to shine hope, to show our enjoyment of being in their company – these are true acts of mercy. The sick need to know from our own love for them that they have lost nothing of their essential attractiveness.

“Do not be ashamed of the flesh of your brother,” Pope Francis has said. “In the end, we will be judged on our ability to draw close to ‘all flesh.’” The words suggest, among other things, a need to overcome a repugnance that can rise up from contact with grave illness (or, for some, any illness). For a deeper truth is always available. The wounded flesh of the sick person hides another presence. “When you attend to the wounds and bruises of the poor, never forget they are Christ’s wounds” -- Mother Teresa. Jesus has chosen to unite himself with the person in his illness, just as he unites himself to all the suffering and distress of the poor. And every gravely ill person, even someone we have known for long years, is always now a poor person. Our reverence for that same person, encountered in a different manner, must acknowledge this hidden presence of our Lord. (Dare I say this is another way then to adore our Lord.)

This is a reflection from Father Donald Haggerty submitted in the Magnificat Year of Mercy Companion with a couple additions by me in parenthesis.

Fr. Chuck