In his message to the sick people of Naples, Pope Francis praises the example of St. Giuseppe Moscati

Those people who most experience a condition of frailty are ‘the first recipients of the Good News of the Kingdom of God’. This was stated by Pope Francis in his message to the sick of Naples. The meeting with the sick, initially planned for the Basilica of the New Jesus, was cancelled for logistic reasons.

One reads in the message that Jesus Christ ‘continues to make himself near to the sick through so many of his disciples, in all epochs’ and this presence of his is also evident when ‘reading the Gospel’ and must also be evident ‘in the life of the Church’.

The Supreme Pontiff also mentioned a ‘physician saint’ who is dear to the hearts of the Neapolitans and who is, indeed, buried in the Basilica of the New Jesus – Giuseppe Moscati, who ‘saw in those who were in front of him not only as bodies in need of treatment but also and above all else persons who wish to have help and comfort’.

Addressing the medical doctors who were present, Francis urged them to have the same ‘sensitivity’ as that demonstrated by Moscati in treating the sick and the suffering. ‘The humanisation of medicine – how necessary that it is, and how many benefits it can bring, where one manages to live it, to all sick people and their family relatives!’, he added.

The Pope praised the role of the Church in Naples which, following the example of St. Giuseppe Moscati, ‘goes into the street, in the alleys, amongst suffering people, in order to make them know that Jesus is nearby, bending over their wounds, she cares for them, she treats them as the ‘Good Samaritan’ did, and she helps them up’.

The work of medical doctors, Bergoglio went on, is a ‘work of mercy’ that ‘starts from the heart and is expressed in approaches of nearness and gestures of concrete help, as the parable of the Good Samaritan teaches (cf. Lk 10:25-37)’

It is only by cultivating within ourselves the ‘compassion’ that Jesus felt that it is possible ‘to make ourselves neighbours to our brother and care for his corporeal and spiritual wounds’.

When a sick person is ‘touched by the grace of Jesus the Good Samaritan, he does not fold in on himself but manages in his turn to be near and help the other who perhaps encounters more difficulties and is more dismayed’.

Thanks to the mercy of Jesus towards us it is therefore possible, in illness as well, ‘to carry the burdens of other people’. It is precisely Jesus who makes us ‘able to live love of God and our neighbour, in pain, in illness and in suffering as well’ because ‘love is able to transform anything’.

   The prayers of the sick are ‘important’, ‘powerful’ and ‘necessary for the people of God’. For this reason, the Holy Father exhorted the sick to pray for the ‘needs of people’, ‘for peace’ and ‘for the Church’.

When ending his message, he invoked the intercession of the Virgin Mary ‘for all sick people, especially those who are most gravely ill and most abandoned’. Pope Francis then repeated the Neapolitan saying: ‘’E ca ‘a Maronna v’accumpagne!’.

Di Luca Marcolivio

Naples, 21 March 2015 (Zenit.org)