A reflection by Fr. Paolo Guarise, the Vicar General of the Order, on the occasion of the World Day of the Sick 2014

I think that we have asked ourselves why the World Day of the Sick is celebrated every year on 11 February. It is celebrated on 11 February  because on that day we celebrate the liturgical memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, an event which for 150 years has reminded us of the nearness of Mary to those who are living a situation of suffering or of illness. Suffering, that is to say the loss of that psycho-physical harmony with which we were endowed by our Creator at our birth; illness, inasmuch it is a break with the valuable gift of health.

‘Come to the spring to drink and wash’: this is what the Virgin Mary said – amongst other things – to the young Bernardette Soubirous, who was astounded by the presence of that Beautiful Lady who had appeared in that cold grotto on the River Gave. We can see that Mary not only made the young woman joyful because of her apparition, revealing to Bernadette her identity – ‘I am the Immaculate Conception’ – but she also provided physical and spiritual relief through the miraculous gift of the spring of water which was necessary to quench thirst (physical wellbeing) and to wash away impurities (spiritual wellbeing). The presence and the cooperation of Mary during suffering and illness is an instrument by which we reach Christ who is the way, the truth and the life. Mary is an intermediary, as at the wedding feast of Cana, and calls on Christ’s sensitivity towards us.

What is the role of Christ towards us during a period of illness? We are told what it is by Pope Francis in the message that he wrote for the sick on the occasion of today’s World Day: ‘The incarnate Son of God did not remove illness and suffering from human experience but by taking them upon himself he transformed them and gave them new meaning. New meaning because they no longer have the last word which, instead, is new and abundant life; transformed them, because in union with Christ they need no longer be negative but positive’ (Pope Francis, Message, n. 2).

Let us reflect upon this important statement by the Supreme Pontiff which we can sum up in the following way: if we live our time of illness with Christ, illness will be reduced, it will no longer have that vehemence that is specific to the forces of evil because it no longer has the last word; the last word belongs to Christ, to the fullness of life in which he makes us participants. To make these statements of the Pope our own we must see illness in a way that is helped by the Christian virtues of faith and charity. The first virtue pushes us to believe and to entrust ourselves to him; the second teaches us to live through love and solidarity.

This leads us to take into consideration an important area of the Christian life – nearness to, and the accompanying of, the suffering. I am referring to all those people who because of family ties or because of their profession, or because of spontaneous self-giving – volunteers – help the sick and the world of suffering with their work of service and solidarity.  ‘St. John’, the Pope says in his message, ‘reminds us that we cannot love God if we do not love our brothers and sisters’ (Message, n. 5). It should be a part of the DNA of every Christian to exert himself or herself for the needs of his or her brothers and sisters who suffer, as every mother does with her own children. In the Camillian museum of Rome, the House of St. Mary Magdalene, in the cubiculum of St,. Camillus, there is an inscription in Latin: ‘Cum matris corde’: with the heart of a mother. This is a summary of the phrase that St. Camillus used to repeat to his religious: we must serve the sick with that love that a mother has towards her sick only child.

Unfortunately, contemporary society, because of material interests or socio-economic problems, has very much distanced itself from this motherly love, which is needed if its sick people are to be cared for. It is often the case that the places of care where sick people are looked after languish not only because of a lack of funds and equipment but also, and much more often, because of a lack of humanisation and of love.

St. Camillus, the patron saint of the sick and of health-care workers, exhorted all those who work at the side of the sick to have ‘more heart in those hands’! A service and professional activity that does not adopt behaviour dictated by the heart and by tenderness will only with difficulty manage to meet the expectations of a sick person.

The more a society is evolved, the more it will excel in taking care of its sick people, children and elderly people, who are the frailest and most vulnerable members of society. Elderly people make up a category that is greatly expanding and which deserves the concentration of our efforts. In a world that so avidly seeks physical well-being and pleasure, we should not neglect affection for those who, although they no longer constitute a part of the work force, nonetheless still have much to offer society through the trove of their experience/wisdom and though the services that they give in the social and civil field in the form of voluntary work.

The figure of the Good Samaritan – a gospel icon of primary importance in the field of care for the suffering – teaches us to relieve with oil and wine the wounds of a bleeding man in the middle of the road and to take something that belongs to us out of our wallets to provide for care and hospitality for him. Let us, therefore, make our personal resources available – in the way and to the extent that our lives allow – but above all let us make our hearts available. A famous contemporary writer defined the timeless activity of St. Camillus on behalf of the suffering with the following words: ‘a heart for the sick’. Without doubt this is a programme for every Christian.

Look here at the photographic gallery on the Camillian World Day of the Sick 2014

Look here at the press notices