While we bring to this altar prayers for his health, priceless to us, he brings here his compassionate concern for the sick. He entrusts us to consecrate the living instruments of his own tender mercy.
Let us follow, brethren, the Christian movement of the king’s heart. Let us think about that special kind of love for mankind whose object is the sick.
First, let us require for this kind of love as much attention as it deserves in various respects.
Some works of love for mankind, which according to the Gospel will give a right to blessing at the judgment of Christ and to the call to blessedness, present themselves to our attention without being sought.
The hungry man, the thirsty man, the stranger, and the man in need of clothing appear, come, tell us their need, and show it. In them the virtue of love for mankind follows us, pursues us, and wants to press into our homes.
Only do not flee. Only do not lock the doors. But the one afflicted by illness lies in bed. Who will see him? If he asks for help, who will hear him?
Often, the more he needs help, the less he can explain his need, or even understand and feel it. Therefore take thought for compassion toward the sick.
This kind troubles you less than other kinds of love for mankind. Go, seek out this virtue, because it cannot follow after you.
Sometimes the reason for the inattentiveness of the prosperous toward certain afflictions may be this: they have not experienced them. They do not always believe the appearance of affliction. They consider the afflicted man guilty of his affliction.
For example, what it means to be hungry for lack of bread is something most of us do not know by experience, even in a time that others call famine.
Compassion for those confined in prison may be cooled by the thought that they shut themselves there by their own deeds. The affliction of illness is not like this.
Even if you have walked the path of life long enough, blamelessly and safely, without meeting it, it is more than likely that it will meet you later, in old age, before death.
Therefore, at the bed of the sick man, suffer with him, and with yourself. Remember the law of Providence, which can so often be read in events, even if it were not written in the Gospel.
“With the measure you use, it will be measured back to you” (Mt 7:2). Take care to comfort and relieve the sick man, so that at some time the needed comfort and relief may be sent to you by Providence.
According to the greatness of the affliction, great must be the compassionate attention toward the afflicted. It is difficult to determine the greatness of an affliction.
Our own affliction usually seems greater to us than another’s. What is actually experienced seems greater than what is heard about or represented in thought.
Yet the example of the much-suffering Job lets us understand how great the affliction of illness can be in comparison with other misfortunes. When he was overtaken by poverty and childlessness, he still reasoned nobly and blessed God.
But when he was struck by illness, “Job opened his mouth and cursed his day” (Job 3:1).
Because of this greatness in the affliction of certain sick persons, beneficence toward the sick is presented in the Gospel not only as a praiseworthy work of human virtue. It is also a lofty work of divine love for mankind.
Among the man-loving deeds of Jesus Christ Himself, it shines with special glory. He fed the hungry, as when He fed five thousand people in the wilderness with five loaves, and on another occasion four thousand with seven loaves.
Visiting the sick, or receiving those who came, He healed every disease and every infirmity among the people. Both kinds of beneficence were wondrous.
Yet when the Apostle Peter had to prepare Cornelius and certain other Gentiles to enter Christianity, he described for them the divinity of Jesus Christ’s person and the lofty beneficence of His deeds.
Then the preacher’s attention especially stopped on the second kind of beneficence. “God anointed Him,” he says, “with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing.”
Therefore to heal is a divine work. For this reason, visiting the sick, comforting them, relieving them, and strengthening them in spirit is a human beneficence that follows in the steps of the divine.
Finally, one cannot fail to mention the special importance of visiting the sick in this respect: the state of illness not rarely becomes the vestibule of death.
It is the important arena of earthly life, the last one. There, by a successful final struggle, the preceding struggles are completed. Sometimes their lack is supplied, more or less.
Or, on the contrary, an uncrowned end more or less darkens the whole work. There, presence of spirit in the decisive battle wins eternal victory.
Or, on the contrary, a fainthearted and useless attempt to flee from death is threatened with a captivity from which there is no return. There, by a few remaining steps, man crosses into heaven, or stumbles into the abyss.
The last battle is hard to understand, and therefore hard to govern and not without danger. It is the battle of corruption with incorruption, of the aging man with the renewed man.
It is the battle of the binding body with the soul being set free, of earthly habits and attachments with heavenly desires. It is the battle of memories of the past with hopes and fears of the future.
Sometimes the failing bodily powers, as it were, bury under their ruins the soul not yet detached from the body. The sick man does not see approaching death.
He does not remember the intentions he had earlier formed for this time. He does not notice the importance of the approaching struggle. He does not seek helps.
Approach this wavering athlete, you fresh reserve warrior. Remind him of preparations for the decisive battle. Support him in the struggle. Give him spiritual weapons: the shield of faith and the helmet of the hope of salvation.
Strengthen him with power from the treasures of grace. Help his spirit, through the ruins of the flesh, to rise to the Father of spirits.
By the comforting and life-giving divine word, and by the quiet breathing of prayer, spread and lift the wings of the departing soul.
Who knows? Perhaps, having unerringly completed its flight on high, that soul, through the reciprocity of love beyond time, will someday return to you.
Like the dove to Noah, it may come with the unfading branch of peace, when the time also comes for your soul to leave the ark of the mortal body for the land of the living and immortal.
If these reflections, brethren, give you some idea how worthy of attention and practice the man-loving and Christian visitation of the sick is, then it remains for me, secondly, to indicate briefly the dispositions required in such visitation.
This is so that it may be truly useful.
Visitation of the sick must be undertaken from a sense of duty and at the same time from a free disposition. Free choice alone would not secure constancy in this work, which is often wearisome.
With only a slavish sense of duty, this work would be cold and dead. It would be tasteless to the visitor and unnourishing to the one visited.
For this reason especially you, sisters of compassion who have been called, are given a time of preparation to test your free disposition. Then the sense of duty is strengthened by a vow.
In visiting the sick, Christian love must be an inseparable companion. With love, this work, like every work, is easy for the one who does it and pleasant for the one for whom it is done.
Above all, Christian love, as in all relations it is, according to the Apostle’s saying, “the fulfillment of the law” (Rom 13:10), so also in relation to the sick, can alone replace all rules.
Or, if needed, it can give them, receive them, and fulfill them. It will strive to provide the sick man every possible consolation except what is harmful. It will gild for him the bitter but saving medicine.
This same love will call meekness and patience to the sick man’s bed. Yet special attention must be given to these, so that they do not depart from there.
As the Apostle said of the actions of the old man, “It is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me” (Rom 7:20), so one may sometimes say of the sick man’s dispositions: it is not he, but the illness.
In him it can be unusually irritable, impatient, and stubborn. If, in dealing with him, you do not preserve meekness and patience on your part, you may pour oil on the fire, and on a destructive fire.
Finally, bring to the sick man’s bed, and unfailingly bring, faith and prayer. If you already find him in feelings of faith and prayer, add your incense to his incense.
Sustain the fire of his censer with the breath of your prayer. But if, sadly, his censer is not lit, and neither the warmth of faith nor the fragrance of prayer is noticeable in him, use your faith and prayer there no less.
If one dead, burning coal is kindled by the nearness of another dead and cold coal, how much more can a heart animated and inflamed by living faith and prayer kindle the same fire in another heart?
It can do this even in a heart entirely cold, even in one half-dead. Do not hesitate to bring your burning censer near this unkindled coal.
By a quiet but constant direction of the will that works with God, breathe upon it the life-giving spiritual fire. Perhaps it is not yet too late to blow even a small spark of spiritual life into the fading life of the flesh.
Then you will have accomplished not only the greatest beneficence for a man, but also an apostolic service to God.
Occasions for using these thoughts and counsels can meet everyone. For those now called to the compassionate service of the sick, let them be provisions for this God-pleasing ministry. Amen.
THEOSIS