In 1992, Saint Pope John Paul II designated Feb. 11, the memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, as World Day of the Sick. In his apostolic letter instituting the day, the Holy Father said it should be “a special time of prayer and sharing, of offering one’s suffering for the good of the Church, and of reminding us to see in our sick brother and sister the face of Christ.”
How fitting that the pope should choose the memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes for that purpose. Lourdes, a picturesque town in the Pyrenees mountains of southern France, was the site of several apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1858, to Bernadette Soubirous, a humble, illiterate peasant girl.
During one of those apparitions, the Blessed Mother instructed Bernadette to dig in the ground to release the waters of a fresh underground spring. The water still flows today, and pilgrims who are ill often drink it and bathe in it. To date, there have been more than 7,000 unexplained cures, 70 of which have been officially declared by the Church to be miracles.
So what about those who are not cured?
To be sure, suffering is a great mystery. Jesus spent a good deal of his public ministry healing the sick and suffering. Yet he himself, the Divine Physician, suffered terribly on the cross even though he prayed in his agony that the Father would let that cup pass from him. Indeed, he embraced his salvific suffering as the will of the Father.
Consider the suffering Jesus on the cross. His head is bent down looking at all of us who stand sin-sick beneath the cross. His arms and hands are wide open to receive us in a compassionate embrace. His pierced heart is laid bare to us and flowing with healing streams of blood and water. As Mother Teresa said, when we are sick and suffering, in pain and sorrow, lonely and dejected, we have drawn so close to our crucified Lord that he can kiss us. In fact, he wants to kiss us!
We learn in Sacred Scripture that Saint Paul suffered from a nameless illness, perhaps malaria or a debilitating eye disorder. Whatever it was, he named it a “thorn in the flesh” and even “an angel of Satan.” (2 Cor. 12:7) He begged the Lord three times to take it away from him.
When he finally learned that this alleviation of sickness was not to be, so that he might not become proud and boastful, he received these words of consolation from the Lord: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor. 12:9)
Consider, too, Saint Bernadette, the poor seer of Lourdes. She spent much of her time on earth in sickness and suffering, finally succumbing to the ravages of tuberculosis at the young age of 35. Although she had no formal education, she was gifted with more wisdom than the most learned of men. She never wasted her illness, but constantly offered it up to Jesus for the conversion of sinners.
In 1866, Bernadette left Lourdes to avoid publicity and entered the convent of the Sisters of Charity at Nevers. One time, some visitors asked her if she was aware of all the cures taking place at Lourdes. They were particularly curious why she, who had been Our Lady’s instrument for opening up the spring of healing water, had not herself been cured of her own sickness. She simply and calmly replied, “You see, my job is to be ill.”
When we get sick, our priorities in life change. Things that were once so important to us suddenly become trivial. Our physical abilities are transformed. As a result, our mindset undergoes a shift, which is sometimes quite radical.
If we are open to that special grace as Saint Bernadette was in accepting her condition, God will remake us in marvelous ways through our own suffering and sickness. God may cure the condition or not. We may or may not like the divine makeover, but it will most certainly be for the best. We can be sure, for example, that God will conform us more perfectly to the image of his suffering Son, with resurrection on the horizon, which is the best kiss we could ever possibly receive.
So, accepting in our sickness the magnanimous offer of God’s grace, we can be sure that we will always be healed from sin and death (that is, second or eternal death), which is the goal of all other cures. In short, we may not be cured of the illness, but we will certainly be healed of the disease – the “dis-ease.” Father Edward Kolla is a retired priest of the Diocese.
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