of card. Anthony Poola *
The reflection of the Archbishop of Hyderabad – the Dalit prelate chosen by Pope Francis for the College of Cardinals – today, World Day of the Sick and Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes: “Prayer and closeness to those who suffer announce to all a new way of walking together”.
Hyderabad () – The Catholic Church is celebrating the World Day of the Sick today, instituted by John Paul II in 1992 on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. On the occasion of this anniversary, the Archbishop of Hyderabad, India, Card. Anthony Poola – the first cardinal from a Dalit (so-called non-caste) family – presided over a mass at the Gunadala Matha shrine, a mission founded a century ago by PIME missionary Fr Ugo Pezzoni, near Vijayawada, in Andra Pradesh. For some years now, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes has attracted tens of thousands of faithful to this place. We publish below an excerpt from the homily delivered today by Card. Poola.
Revelation tells us that God is present in our midst. All Marian apparitions – in Lourdes, Fatima, Vailankanni, Guadalupe or Medjugorje – teach who God is and how we should address Him.
Bernadette wonderfully summarizes her experience of the Marian apparitions in Lourdes: “I cannot explain to anyone what I saw, because no matter how hard I try to explain it, each one understands it in their own way. God and the Mother of God can only be understood when each one of us sees them face to face”. In Lourdes, Bernadette received an experience of God. The experience of God happens to each one of us: when we read the Word of God , when we participate in Holy Mass, when we make a novena, when we participate in a retreat, or in our commitment for the liberation of the oppressed. And God also works miracles today. To realize this we need the eyes of faith.
On this 31st World Day of the Sick, our Holy Father has chosen the theme “Take care of him: compassion as a synodal healing exercise”. And it has three dimensions: the first is the World Day of the Sick on February 11; the second is his encyclical Fratelli tutti; the third is the current synod for a synodal Church 2021-2024.
The Pope says: “Illness is part of our human experience. But, if it lives in isolation and abandonment, if it is not accompanied by care and compassion, it can become inhuman”. He invites us to reflect on the fact that especially through the experience of vulnerability and illness we can learn to walk together in God’s style, which is closeness, compassion and tenderness.
To explain it, take the text of Ezekiel 34, 3-4 and 15-16: the foundation is God’s compassion, God discards the shepherds who fed on the sheep and sets himself up as the true shepherd, who sympathizes and takes care. God comes to seek out the vulnerable, the sick, the weak, and the downtrodden.
In the encyclical Fratelli tutti, through a creative interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan, Pope Francis invites us to be compassionate people. In the parable two travelers, considered pious and religious, see the wounded man, but do not stop. On the other hand, the third person who passes by, a Samaritan, a despised foreigner, takes pity on and cares for this stranger he has met on the road, treating him like a brother. In this way, without even thinking about it, he makes the world more brotherly.
When we are sick we feel abandoned and alone. Sometimes we may think that God has abandoned us or treated us unfairly. The World Day of the Sick invites prayer and closeness to those who suffer. But he also wants to sensitize the people of God, health institutions and civil society about a new way of walking together.
The Samaritan asks the owner of the inn to “take care” of the wounded man (Lk 10,35). Jesus asks the same of each of us. He exhorts us to “go and do the same” (Lk 10,37). On this day we must remember the commitment of health workers and social workers, family members and volunteers, through whom good confronts evil every day.
Today, by turning our gaze to Our Lady of Lourdes, we can imitate her in her search for the weak and vulnerable. She herself experienced vulnerability at the foot of the cross. Let’s try to include the sick in our way. May they be in the center.
Invoking the intercession of Mary, Arogya Matha, Health of the Sick, we entrust to her all who are sick, physically, mentally and spiritually. To her we entrust our health workers, family members and volunteers, so that through them a fraternal bond of communion can be built. Let us care for each other through compassion, which is a synodal healing exercise.
* Archbishop of Hyderabad
(with the collaboration of Nirmala Carvalho)
