The Role of the Sick in the Mission of the Church
By
Cardinal Justin Rigali
As Americans, we pride ourselves on being people of action. Our technology,
our cities and our inventions are a tribute to the activities of so
many who have worked so hard to make our country what it is. The spread
of the Gospel even involves great activity. This is why Jesus gave what
we call a mission mandate to His disciples to take His message to the
ends of the earth. Yet, there is always a certain danger that accompanies
a desire for constant activity. It is the danger of thinking that we
are not accomplishing anything if we are not doing something. In fact,
well over one hundred years ago, Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) wrote an
Apostolic Letter, addressed to Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore in
which, among other things, he cautioned the young and vibrant Church
in the United States to not neglect the spiritual life in the midst
of praiseworthy apostolic activity (1899, Testem Benevolentiae).
In our well-meaning desire to help someone, we often say: “What
can I do for you?” This is a praiseworthy sentiment, often inspired
by truly Christian charity but it can also be a subtle reminder of how
often we equate physical activity with really accomplishing something.
This is why the Church calls us to look to those who can and do accomplish
a great deal, even though they may not seem involved in great physical
activity: the sick. We only need to look at a crucifix to be reminded
that Jesus took an act, which seemed to render Him helpless and defeated,
and made it the work of the salvation of the world. Not only did He
pay us the compliment of telling us that we could share in what the
Cross accomplished but He also commanded that we do so if we expect
to be saved. This week, we want to highlight very privileged people,
our beloved sick, who join their sufferings to those of Jesus and whose
accomplishments will only be known in Heaven.
150th Anniversary of the Apparitions at Lourdes
This subject is always of great importance but we dwell on it this week
in a special way because our Holy Father has called upon us to celebrate
the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Apparitions of our Blessed
Mother at Lourdes, which took place in 1858. Who among us has not seen
images of the thousands of sick pilgrims who visit this place of physical
and spiritual healing each year? They go with great faith and hope and
they are cared for with great charity by those who go to Lourdes for
the express purpose of accompanying and aiding the sick. In an era of
great advances in medical science, they still go to an out of the way
place to visit the spot where the humble Virgin Mother of God appeared
to the peasant girl whom we now know as Saint Bernadette. It is the
constant living out of the teaching of both the Old and New Testaments
which tells us that God confounds the strong and exalts the weak. It
is also the manifestation of the words of Mary herself who said in her
Magnificat: “He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones
but lifted up the lowly” (Luke 1:52). This past Sunday, February
10, was designated as the World Day of the Sick, and I had the pleasure
of celebrating that day when I offered Mass at our own Immaculate Mary
Home in Philadelphia on Monday, the Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes.
These are some of the reasons why I share these thoughts on the sick
with you this week.
Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter
In 1994, Pope John Paul II wrote an Apostolic Letter, Salvifici Doloris,
on the concept of Christian suffering. The Pope began his Letter with
that remarkable phrase of Saint Paul in which he almost boasts of the
privilege of sharing in the sufferings of Christ, when he says: “In
my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ
on behalf of his body, which is the church” (Colossians 1:24).
We all know that the sufferings and death of Christ were sufficient
to save the entire world. However, in His desire to have us intimately
share in the work of our own salvation, Jesus permits us to share in
His own sufferings. This is why Saint Paul could justly make his boast.
This concept of redemptive suffering has been with us from the beginning.
In fact, it is also found throughout the Old Testament as we read the
account of God’s relationship with the Jewish people, our own
ancestors in the faith. We all know the story of Job, who had been so
faithful to God and yet who seemed to have everything taken away from
him. Those without faith taunted him and tried to convince him that
God had forgotten him. The devil and the world which sees no value in
inactivity taunts us with the same message. Job does not deny the reality
of his sufferings but he also does not deny God’s love for him.
Jesus brought this understanding of redemptive suffering to its fulfillment
in His teaching and in His own Person. It was accepted from the beginning
as part of Christian belief. This is why Saint Paul could have spoken
as he did. This is why it was said in the first centuries of Christianity,
which were a time of great suffering and persecution, that “the
blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” This is what
has made courageous men and women from all walks of life suffer torments
for the faith; this is what gives the dying hope at the end of their
earthly existence; this is what makes suffering, borne in union with
Jesus, of great value to the one who suffers and to the world.
Our Lady and the mystery of suffering
It is certainly true that many cures have taken place at Lourdes over
this century and a half. We all know of the rigorous study that each
claim of a cure is exposed to by a panel of impartial doctors and yet
they have over and over again acknowledged that there is no medical
explanation for some of the events that have taken place at Lourdes.
However, we may say that, more than a place for cures, Lourdes has become
a place where the intimate role of Mary as the companion of those who
suffer is made present. In Pope Benedict’s Letter announcing the
World Day of the Sick this year, he has beautifully made reference to
this truth. He said: “The 150 years since the apparitions of Lourdes
invite us to turn our gaze towards the Holy Virgin, whose Immaculate
Conception constitutes the sublime and freely-given gift of God to a
woman so that she could fully adhere to divine designs with a steady
and unshakable faith, despite the tribulations and the sufferings that
she would have to face. For this reason, Mary is a model of total self-abandonment
to God’s will: she received in her heart the eternal Word and
she conceived Him in her virginal womb; she trusted in God and, with
her soul pierced by a sword (cf. Lk 2: 35), she did not hesitate to
share the Passion of her Son, renewing on Calvary at the foot of the
Cross her ‘yes’ of the Annunciation. To reflect upon the
Immaculate Conception of Mary is thus to allow oneself to be attracted
by the ‘yes’ which joined her wonderfully to the mission
of Christ, Redeemer of humanity; it is to allow oneself to be taken
and led by her hand to pronounce in one’s turn ‘fiat’
to the will of God, with all one’s existence interwoven with joys
and sadness, hopes and disappointments, in the awareness that tribulations,
pain and suffering make rich the meaning of our pilgrimage on the earth.”
It is because of Mary’s intimate and total sharing in the Passion
of her Son that she brings to many pilgrims at Lourdes a gift even greater
than the physical cures that have been attested to. This is the gift
of serene acceptance of sickness and suffering in union with Jesus,
according to her own example.
Our Bicentennial and the sick
During this Bicentennial Year of our Archdiocese, you have seen and
perhaps have taken part in the activities that have taken place and
will take place in connection with this great anniversary. This is certainly
part of our giving thanks to God as a diocesan family for His many gifts
to our local Church. However, in the spirit of what I said at the beginning
of th00is week’s article, I would never want those who are sick,
or physically or mentally challenged in any way, to think that they
are not a part of this celebration. They are an intimate part of it
because they are an intimate part of the life of the Church. If they
are in the company of the suffering Jesus; of His Mother Mary, whom
we also call the Mother of Sorrows and the Health of the Sick; of Saint
Paul, with whom they are “filling up what is lacking in the afflictions
of Christ for the sake of his body, the church,” then how can
they not be a part of us?
I think of the sick of our Archdiocese, who join their sufferings to
those of Jesus, as being our great treasure. I am indebted to them and
I beg them to pray for me and for the mission of the Church of Philadelphia.
It has been said that there is a “Theology of Suffering,”
and indeed there is. However, theology is only the explanation of a
greater reality. This reality is lived out in so many hidden places
each day throughout our Archdiocese. If you are reading this now and
you are among the sick and suffering, I say: “Thank you!”
If you care for the sick, I encourage and praise you. If sickness or
suffering comes to you or to me, let us look at the Crucifix, which
many saints have referred to as their “book,” because it
contains all the lessons we need to know. Just below the Crucifix, we
will see Mary, who is ever the comfort of the sick and suffering, just
as she was for her dying Son.
February 14, 2008
Cardinal
Rigali's Lenten Letter 2008