Vatican Insider: Time given to the sick is holy, ‘praising God’. Francis claims this in his message for the XXIII World Day of the Sick that will take place on the 11th February 2015. He addresses especially ‘all of you who are burdened by illness and are united in various ways to the flesh of the suffering Christ, as well as to you, professionals and volunteers in the field of health care’.
The Pope claims that it is a hypocritical lie that ‘lurks behind certain phrases which so insist on the importance of “quality of life” that they make people think that lives affected by grave illness are not worth living!’. About this ‘great lie’, he says that ‘even when illness, loneliness and inability make it hard for us to reach out to others, the experience of suffering can become a privileged means of transmitting grace’. So then, ‘people immersed in the mystery of suffering and pain, when they accept these in faith, can themselves become living witnesses of a faith capable of embracing suffering, even without being able to understand its full meaning.’ Read more here.
