Sick and You Visited Me

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“I was sick, and you visited me,” said Our Lord in St. Matthew (Matt. 25:36). The Church has always recommended that the faithful engage in corporal works of mercy, particularly that of visiting the sick.

It is to be hoped that our interest and charity may partially alleviate another person's suffering. We might even be able to encourage the sick person to sanctify their condition.

The Church encourages us to imitate the Master, who showed so much solicitude for the sick during His life on earth. Corporal works of mercy can do an immense amount of good for the sick person, as well as the benefactor.

St. Paul VI said, “Whether we are dealing with children in the womb, old people, accident victims, the physically or mentally ill, we are always dealing with our fellow human beings whose credentials of nobility are to be found on the very first page of the Bible: ‘God created man in his own image’ (Gen. 1:27). On the other hand, it's often been said that it's possible to judge a civilization by the way it deals with the defenseless, with children, with the sick” (Paul VI, Address, May 24, 1964).

Wherever you have a sick person, there has to be “a supremely human environment where each one is treated with dignity” (ibid.).

If you watch out for hospitals with a Catholic ethos, hopefully, you'll see this point staring at you in the face. In sub-Saharan Africa, there's a great presence of Catholic hospitals. In Kenya alone, 30 percent of the hospitals in the country are run by the Catholic Church.

The level of satisfaction with people in all these countries with hospitals with a Catholic ethos tends to be much higher than in government-owned hospitals.

In many places, you could say the same thing, and often it's because of that particular point. Each person is tried to be treated with the greatest dignity possible. When one is sick, one experiences “the closeness of brothers and friends.”

The Evangelists make frequent reference to Christ's love and mercy for people who are in pain. The Gospels are full of miraculous cures.

In his letter on human suffering, John Paul II said it was St. Peter who summed up the life of Jesus of Nazareth with these words: “He went about doing good and healing” (Acts 10:38).

“His actions concerned primarily those who were suffering and seeking help. He healed the sick; consoled the afflicted; fed the hungry; freed people from deafness, blindness, leprosy, from the devil and from various physical disabilities; three times he restored the dead to life. He was sensitive to every human suffering, whether of the body or the soul” (John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, Salvifici doloris, Point 16, February 11, 1984).

Our Lord was not content to heal only those who came to Him. He also went in search of the sick. When He saw the paralytic by the pool, a man who had been there for thirty-eight years, He asked him without hesitation, “Do you want to be healed?” (John 5:1-6).

On another occasion, He offered to travel to the house of the centurion to heal his servant (Luke 7:1-10). Our Lord did not avoid people with contagious diseases. He went right up to the leper outside Capharnaum, though He surely could have cured him from a distance, and He stretched out His hand and touched him (Matt. 8:2-3).

Our Lord sent His apostles “to preach the kingdom of God and to heal, giving them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases” (Luke 9:1-2).

Our Lord taught His disciples to see the sick in a new way. Whenever we take care of a person who is suffering, we take care of Christ Himself: “Truly, I say to you as you did it to one of these, the least of my brethren, you did it to me” (Matt. 25:40). You helped me to bear that illness, that sadness, that tiredness, that loneliness.

We could try to take a closer look at the attention we give to those who suffer in our surroundings, to see how much time we make available for them. How much interest?

In The Way, Point 419, St. Josemaría says, “Children. The Sick. —As you write these words, don't you feel tempted to write them with capitals? The reason is that in little children and the sick, a soul in love sees Him.”

Mercy is one of the fruits of charity. In a certain sense, mercy is “a certain compassion for the misery of one's neighbor,” says St. Augustine, “born in one's heart, and by which, if we can, we try to help him” (St. Augustine, The City of God).

We try to do in those circumstances what Christ would do. So the very essence of mercy is to pour oneself out, to expend oneself for the one who suffers pain or need, and to take on another's pain or need as one's own, in order to remedy them as best one can.

Consequently, when we visit a sick person, we're not fulfilling a mere precept of courtesy. On the contrary, we're making their pain into our pain.

We try to alleviate it, perhaps with a kind conversation concerning news of interest to that person, possibly providing them with some material assistance. We should encourage sick people to sanctify this treasure which God has placed in their hands. We can join together in prayer. We can read from a good spiritual book, whatever seems appropriate.

We will then be acting as Christ would act. We will act as if we were going to visit Jesus Christ Himself.

When we make the sacrifice to visit a sick person or one who is in some way needy, we make the world more human. We come close to the heart of man and at the same time pour over that person the charity of Christ.

St. John Paul has written: “We could say that suffering, which is present under so many different forms in our human world, is also present to unleash love in the human person, that unselfish gift of one's ‘I’ on behalf of other people, especially those who suffer.

“The world of human suffering,” he continues, “unceasingly calls for, so to speak, another world: the world of human love; and in a certain sense man owes to suffering that unselfish love which stirs in his heart and actions” (John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, Salvifici doloris, Point 29, February 11, 1984).

We can do an awful lot of good by being merciful to those who are suffering. A lot of grace is produced in our soul as a result.

Our Lord enlarges our heart and makes us understand those words He once said: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). Our Lord is generous beyond our wildest dreams.

It can be very formative to bring young children to visit sick children, bring them in contact with suffering in that way, and hopefully open their eyes to see the blessings that God has given to them with their health, with their eyesight, with their hearing, with their limbs, with all those things that daily, they take for granted.

St. Augustine says, “Mercy is the showpiece of the soul since it makes it appear good and beautiful” (St. Augustine, Catena Aurea).

It “covers a multitude of sins,” says St. Peter (cf. 1 Pet. 4:8). “He who begins to suffer over the miseries of others,” says St. Augustine, “begins to abandon sin.”

For this reason, when we go to visit the sick, it's good to bring along a friend. This should be a natural part of our apostolate.

The soul that partakes of another's sufferings is rewarded with a richer understanding of the love of God. St. Augustine says by loving one's neighbor, we purify the sight of our eyes in such a way as to be able to see God (St. Augustine, Commentary on St. John’s Gospel).

Our vision is sharpened in the perception of divine goods. Egoism hardens the heart, while the exercise of charity enables us to rejoice in God. And so, charity is a foretaste of eternal life (1 John 3:14).

St. Thomas says, “Eternal life may be understood as an uninterrupted act of charity” (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, Question 114).

What better reward could Our Lord give to us than the gift of Himself? What better prize than for Christ to increase our ability to love others?

In The Way of the Cross, St. Josemaría says, “No matter how much we love, we will never love enough. The human heart is endowed with an enormous coefficient of expansion. When it loves, it opens out in a crescendo of affection that overcomes all barriers. If you love Our Lord, there will not be a single creature that does not find a place in your heart” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Way of the Cross, Eighth Station).

In our modern world, we can't help but notice that there is a growing number of people who require the assistance of Christians: the elderly, the sick, the depressed, the homeless.

“There are many people,” says one spiritual writer, “who suffer in their own homes the difficulties of sickness or the disgrace of poverty. But there may be fewer of these people than there once were. Today we have many nursing homes and residences for old people. There are many organizations and programs dedicated to people in need.

“Yet despite the best of intentions, these institutions often harbor multitudes of lonely individuals who live in great spiritual want. Deprived of the affection of friends and relatives, these sorry people may find themselves completely abandoned” (Jose Orlandis, The Eight Beatitudes).

When we provide companionship to those who suffer in this way, we bring upon ourselves the mercy of the Lord. This is something which we need as much as anyone else.

The Liturgy prays: “Bring it about, that we might know how to discover you in all of our brothers and sisters, above all, in those who are poor and in those who are suffering” (Liturgy of the Hours, Morning Prayer).

Throughout Scripture there is an urgency on God's part to see that men also have stirrings of sympathy and deep-seated feelings of mercy, that they too have this “compassion for another's misery which moves us to remedy it, if at all possible,” says St. Augustine (St. Augustine, The City of God).

Our Lord promises us happiness if we have a merciful heart towards others, and gives assurance that we will obtain mercy from God in the same measure as we ourselves show it to our fellow men.

The scope for mercy is as great as the extent of the human suffering that needs to be remedied. And, since mankind is subject to misery and calamity in the physical, intellectual, and moral order, the possible works of mercy are innumerable—as many as men have needs—though traditionally, by way of example, fourteen ‘works of mercy’ have been cited, since in them this virtue is capable of being exercised in a special way.

Our attitude of compassion and mercy must, in the first place, be shown towards those who are near us—our family, our friends, our close associates—to those whom God has placed at our side, and then to those beyond who are most in need.

Mercy will frequently consist in our attention to the health, the recreation, and the nourishment of those whom God has commended to our care. The sick merit a special attention in terms of our company and our real interest in their illness, as we show them how and help them to offer their sufferings to God.

In a society dehumanized by frequent attacks on the family, more and more elderly people and those who are ill are left without consolation and affection. Visiting them in their loneliness is a work of mercy that has never been more necessary. The time spent in keeping them company is rewarded by God in a special way.

Alongside the so-called material works of mercy, we also have to carry out those that are spiritual. In the first place, it's our privilege and duty to correct those in error with our advice when the opportunity arises, and charitably, without ever causing offense.

Secondly, it is to teach those who don't know, especially with regard to ignorance of religion, an ignorance which is the great enemy of God; it increases daily in alarming proportions so that catechesis has become a work of mercy of prime importance and urgency.

Next comes giving counsel to the doubting, honestly and with the right intention, so as to help them on their way to God.

Then follows the consolation of the afflicted, by sharing their sorrow and encouraging them to recover their happiness in their supernatural understanding of the pain they suffer.

Pardon those who have offended us, promptly and as often as necessary, without giving excessive importance to the offense.

We are advised too, to give help to the needy, carrying out this service generously and joyfully.

And, finally, we have to pray for the living and the dead, feeling ourselves linked in a special way through the Communion of Saints to those we owe most because of family relationships or friendship.

Our attitude of merciful benevolence towards others must extend to many different aspects of life. St. John Chrysostom says “Nothing can make you such an imitator of Christ as your concern for others. Although you fast, although you sleep on the floor, even though, I dare to say, you kill yourself, if you're not attentive to your neighbor, you've done very little; you are very far from being an image of Christ” (John Chrysostom, Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians).

In this way, we will obtain mercy ourselves, and perhaps also merit it for others in that immense depth of mercy that “extends from generation to generation” (Luke 1:50), as Our Lady prophesied to her cousin Elizabeth.

We can call down divine mercy on ourselves who are so much in need of it. We can ask for it to be extended to our generation through Mary, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope.

Close by the side of those who suffer, we'll always find Our Lady, Comforter of the Afflicted. She will make our hearts more sensitive to the needs of others. Then we will never ignore sick people or keep our distance from anyone who is suffering in body or soul.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

RK