In his message on the 31st World Day of the Sick, Pope Francis pointed out 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 issued 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 fellow practitioners”. The annual World Day of the Sick is held on February 11.
The theme of the Pope’s message for the Day of the Sick is a reference to the parable of the “Good Samaritan” in Luke’s Gospel, which is also the biblical basis of the encyclical “Frethren”. It is this encyclical on fraternity that presents a “realistic reading of the parable”, the Pope noted, as it focuses on the “many forms” in which today people are separated from the sufferer. “The fact that beaten and robbed people are being left on the road means that too many of our brothers and sisters are being left behind when they need it most.”
The statement reads that the “attacks” on human life and human dignity are diverse. And “all suffering occurs in a ‘culture’ of which there are many paradoxes”.
All it takes is a “moment of attention” and a “move of compassion” to free the sick and suffering from the loneliness and abandonment they will experience. The Pope emphasized that the Samaritan, who considers the stranger in his misfortune a brother, “changes everything without thinking twice, he makes the world a friendlier place”. It is with this evangelical example that the church must measure whether it really wants to be “a veritable field hospital”
At the end of the message, the Pope recalled the years of the pandemic, noting that “our gratitude is multiplied to those who work every day for health and scientific research”. However, “it is not enough to honor heroes when emerging from a collective tragedy of this magnitude”, as 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 everyone access to treatment and the fundamental right to health”.
Finally, the proclamation reads: “The sick are the center of the people of God, and the Church, as a prophetic sign of humanity, moves forward with the sick. In such a humanity, everyone is precious and no one is discarded.”
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