In his message for the 31st World Day of the Sick, Pope Francis stressed that the Good Samaritan is a Christian style of compassion, and urged all Christians to care for the sick around them and make the world more humane.
(Vatican News Network)Pope Francis released a message for the 31st World Day of the Sick, on January 10, with the theme “‘Take care of him’ (Lk 10:35): compassion as a cure for practitioners”. The annual World Day of the Sick is celebrated on 11 February.
The theme of the Pope’s message for the Day of the Sick is a reference to the parable of the “Good Samaritan” in the Gospel of Luke, which is also the biblical basis of the encyclical “Brothers”. It is this encyclical on fraternity that presents a “realistic reading of the parable”, observed the Pope, as he dwells on the “many forms” in which people are separated from the suffering today. “The fact that people beaten and robbed are left on the road means that too many of our brothers and sisters are left behind when they need it most.”
The press release states that the “attacks” on human life and human dignity are different. And “all suffering takes place in a ‘culture’ of which there are many paradoxes”.
A “moment of attention” and a “movement of compassion” are enough to free the sick and suffering from the loneliness and abandonment they will experience. The Pope underlined that the Samaritan, who considers his brother the stranger in his misfortune, “changes everything without thinking twice, makes the world a friendlier place”. It is with this evangelical example that the Church must measure whether she really wants to be “a real field hospital”
At the end of the message, the Pope recalled the years of the pandemic, noting that “our gratitude to those who work every day for health and scientific research is multiplied”. However, “it is not enough to honor the heroes when one emerges from a collective tragedy of this magnitude”, since the pandemic has also “shown the structural limits of the existing ‘welfare’ system”. Therefore, the Pope reminded governments to “actively seek strategies and resources to guarantee access to treatment and the fundamental right to health for all”.
Finally, the proclamation reads: “The sick are the center of God’s people, and the Church, as a prophetic sign of humanity, goes forward with the sick. In such a humanity, everyone is precious and no one is discarded.”
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