World Day of the Sick

The theme of this 31st World Day of the Sick, “Take care of him,” is taken from the parable of The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). What thoughts arise in you as you reflect on this theme inviting you to Take care of him? Might your first thought be, who is this he and how would I take care of him, or her? 

We may never have occasion to take care of someone attacked and beaten by robbers, however, we are invited to be in solidarity with all who are hurt or sick in body, mind, or spirit and to pray for them. Recently a dear friend, seriously ill in hospital, described those who were praying for her as her backbone, as hers was crumbling. We are invited to be there for those who suffer. When we embrace be-attitudes, being there for others, praying and visiting the sick, we are their backbone. Through our prayer, we can make a difference in someone’s life.

In his message for this World Day of the Sick, Pope Francis invites “all of us to reflect on the fact that it is especially through the experience of vulnerability and illness that we can learn to walk together according to the style of God, which is closeness, compassion, and tenderness.” As important as it is to pray for our sick sisters and brothers, being good-hearted alone is not enough. It is a good start, but more is asked of us.  We also need to be present and attentive towards those who are ill. Visiting and compassionately supporting them, provides support and consolation in their suffering. 

Besides praying for the sick, offering gratitude to healthcare professionals, frontline staff, first responders, those who provide spiritual healing and volunteers. Holding them in prayer, is equally important. Just think of all those medical staff who spent the last years wearing PPE and battling to save people’s lives.

Many people live in environments that are not healthy, live lives that are not healthy. Let us pray daily for the sickness in our world as well as for our planet which itself is sick. Again and again, we hear that nearly half the planet is under threat. As a friend of mine tends to say, let’s change things by spilling good. Together, let us spill good and pray daily for all those who work for healing and wholeness for our ailing world and all who tend to our sick sisters and brothers.

We would do well to make our own the sentiment of the Quaker missionary Etienne de Grellet:

“I shall pass this way but once; any good that I can do or any kindness I can show to any human being; let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”

https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/sick/documents/20230110-giornata-malato.html

Sr. Magdalena Vogt, cps

A Prayer this Canada Day

Today, on Canada Day, O Creator,

We offer You gratitude for Canada’s great beauty,

for the power and the majesty of its land and waters.

As descendants of settlers and newcomers

we recognize the Indigenous Peoples

who have long cared for these lands and waters.

Creator, we ask for your guidance

as we commit once again to truth-seeking, to self-reflection,

and to building just and mutual understanding

between ourselves and Indigenous Peoples.

We All Need Healing

Our beautiful residence chapel was the setting for this year’s annual May retreat.  The entire house was in silence as we entered five days of quiet to rest, deepen, meditate, and pray.

Retreat is also a time of personal healing.  In keeping with this reality, a poignant event of our retreat, was the celebration of the sacrament of the anointing of the sick.  This is an important ceremony in the life of us Sisters. As aging people, our need for healing from our ongoing illnesses, infirmities physical, psychological, and spiritual is ever-present.

As our celebrant spoke about the healing effects of anointing with holy oil, a spirit of deep reverence descended among us.  When Father took his place in front of the altar with a Sister assistant on each side, I was granted an interesting vantage point.  Their placement and my seat in chapel provided me with a unique view of each Sister’s face as the celebrant made the sign of the cross on her forehead and hands with the oil as he prayed, “Through this holy anointing, may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit”.

During the rite, I was moved to prayer for each Sister as she reverently received the blessing. In a striking new insight, I realized how deeply I am connected to each one. These are the holy, generous women with whom I have shared life in community for over 50 years.  I have seen them in the joys and sorrows of life.  I silently named some of the infirmities with which they have coped throughout the years, just as they know how I have coped with mine.  Even under the weight of older age, they strive onward through life’s vicissitudes, still fresh, still green in love and service.

As the lilting notes of a familiar Carey Landrey hymn played softly in the background, I hummed silently:

Lay your hands gently upon us

Let your touch render your peace

Let them bring your forgiveness and healing,

Lay your hands, gently lay your hands.

At the end of the moving service, I was not the only one with handkerchief in hand.

-Sister Jean Moylan, csj

Being Presence: Being Mercy

A REFLECTION FOR WORLD DAY OF THE SICK, 2022 

The World Day of the Sick, initiated by Pope St. John Paul 11 thirty years ago and recognized in the Catholic Church each February 11, is a day set aside to pray with and for those who are sick and to be reminded of our human and faith-based call to respond with care, commitment and healing presence. This designated day is not, however, a one-off annual remembrance. Its intent is to sharpen our focus everyday on the needs of those who are sick.   

Given the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic we might want to say that we cannot help but be aware of the overwhelming numbers of those who are sick; many ill with Covid, others whose medical care and treatments have been delayed, numerous others struggling with mental health issues and those at the end of life facing isolation in dying. We are living days of great disease, of suffering and of loss. To what then does this World Day of the Sick call us in the context in which we find ourselves?  

In his message for the 2022 World Day of the Sick, Pope Francis reminds us that we are called to be “merciful like God”. He says, “mercy is to be understood not as an occasional sentimental feeling but as an ever-present and active force. It combines strength and tenderness.” It’s to this that people of faith, as we work with others, are called in these harrowing times. Christians, Francis says, must imitate the healing ministry of Jesus, who as the Gospels remind us, “encountered people suffering from various illnesses” reaching out to heal them.  

While we are rightly grateful for all the advances made in medical science and for courageous, self-giving health care professionals risking all right now, we also each have a role in caring for those who are sick. 

Image: Unsplash/Kelly Sikkema

Sometimes, when faced with illness, we can feel fearful or inadequate and yet we are, nonetheless, called. We can never forget the dignity and vulnerabilities of each person. Someone who is sick is always more than his or her disease. Dr. Lissa Rankin, a physician specializing in mind-body medicine remarks, “Sometimes we forget when people are sick that what they most need is to feel connected, to be loved, to be touched.” Each of us, given the diversity of our gifts, can attend to this even in these days of restriction. 

Image: Unsplash/chris liu

Perhaps, above all, we are called to be a merciful presence; to be with, to walk with those who are sick and with their carers for whom we may be able to offer practical help or a time of respite. Even if I have personal physical limitations I can pray daily with and for those who are sick. I may be able to call someone to support them, send a card or letter expressing love, comfort and concern reminding a person of the gift they have been in my life or recounting special memories of times past spent together. Perhaps a visit is possible, even a socially-distanced visit! Above all, I can find ways to listen respectfully, tenderly. I can simply be with another. I don’t need a multitude of words, I don’t need to worry what to say I just need to “be there”.

Silence is sometimes the gentle gift. An appropriate tenderness of touch can speak more than a million words. Especially in the context of illness at the end of life, presence is one of the greatest gifts I can offer. This is expressed eloquently in the question posed by Sister Mary Catherine Hilkert, O.P., “Can I say to my neighbour ‘I have no solution, I don’t know the answer but I will walk with you, search with you, be with you?” This, perhaps above all, is the invitation of the World Day of the Sick each year. 

-Sister Mary Rowell, csj

World Day of Prayer for Vocations

BE BEARERS OF A PROMISE:
A REFLECTION FOR THE WORLD DAY OF PRAYER FOR VOCATIONS, 2021

In these troubled days in our world, as we face the prolonged Covid crisis and all of its consequences, and as we experience social unrest globally, many of us long for a message of hope and promise. In his address for the 2021 World Day of Prayer for Vocations (April 25), Pope Francis reminds us that it is not simply a matter of waiting for these gifts of hope and promise to come to us but that we are all called to be the “bearers of promise” – God’s promise.

How? We are to listen for and search out God’s dream for our life and like the Apostles, Simon, and Andrew in Scripture (MK. 1: 16-20)  to follow it without hesitation.  More widely, in the gift of creation, we observe God’s design in the glorious diversity and unity of the Universe and as part of that design, we each have a vital part to play. It is to discover and embrace our particular call from God, for God, with God. As Pope Francis puts it, “We are called to be bold and decisive in seeking God’s plan for our lives”, and in turn to share that in our giftedness in the world. God does have a plan for each of us.

“God has created me to do Him some definite service; God has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission … I have a part in a great work.”

— St. John Henry Newman

As St. John Henry Newman said: “God has created me to do Him some definite service; God has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission … I have a part in a great work.” Each of us, no matter who we are, in our personal vocation (marriage, partnership, committed single life, consecrated life, diocesan priesthood), and whatever our particular gifts and vulnerabilities each have a part to play in a great work. Our own context matters – especially now, we change the world where our feet are and we do that by embracing and living fully our own call.

To embrace our vocation, Pope Francis says, is first to welcome an encounter with God. Francis reminds us, God’s call “is not an intrusion of God in our freedom; it is not a ‘cage’ or a burden to be borne. On the contrary, it is the loving initiative whereby God encounters us and invites us to be part of a great undertaking.” From that encounter with God, an encounter of joy and discovery, not unlike an encounter “with the person we wanted to marry or when we first felt the attraction of life of consecration”, we experience the exhilaration that is the source of our encounter with and commitment to the other in love.

So we pray, on this 2021 World Day of Prayer for Vocations, to listen and discover our call, to hear its resonance anew in each day of our lives, to affirm and accompany one another as each of us contributes to the great work of God in our world today and as each of us finds the courage to risk becoming “bearers of promise” in these days so hungry for hope. 

Sister Mary Rowell, CSJ
President | National Association of Vocation and Formation Directors