One year after the encyclical 'Fratelli tutti', what has changed?The Good Samaritan (Lk 10:25-37) Illness, an added valuePope Francis: "Fragility is, in fact, our true wealth".Pope Francis has published a brief message for the 31st World Day of the Sick, which will be celebrated on February 11. The Holy Father began by warning that "sickness is part of our human experience. But if it is lived in isolation and abandonment, if it is not accompanied by care and compassion, it can become inhuman".
Francis points out that these experiences of illness allow us to "see how we are walking: if we are really walking together, or if we are on the same path, but each one is on his own, looking out for his own interests and leaving others to fend for themselves".
The sick and the synodal journey
The Pope invites that, taking into account the synodal journeyLet us take advantage of the World Day of the Sick to "reflect on the fact that it is precisely through the experience of fragility and illness that we can learn to walk together according to God's way, which is closeness, compassion and tenderness.
Echoing a passage from the book of the prophet Ezekiel, Francis reflects that "the experience of straying, sickness and weakness are part of our journey in a natural way, they do not exclude us from the people of God; on the contrary, they bring us to the center of the Lord's attention, who is Father and does not want to lose any of his children along the way". It is, therefore, God himself who teaches us "to be truly a community that walks together, capable of not allowing itself to be infected by the culture of discarding".
The encyclical Fratelli Tutti
The Pope recalls his encyclical Fratelli Tuttisigned on October 3, 2020, in which he delves into the parable of the Good Samaritan that Jesus tells in the Gospel. Francis says about this parable: "I chose it as a axisas a turning point, in order to be able to leave the "shadows of a closed world" and "think and develop an open world" (cf. n. 56).
Reclaiming the timeliness of the message pronounced in the aforementioned Gospel passage, the Holy Father affirms that "there is a profound connection between this parable of Jesus and the many ways in which today the fraternity". Thus, continuing with the comparison, he observes that "the fact that the beaten and stripped person is abandoned by the roadside represents the condition in which many of our brothers and sisters are left when they are most in need of help."
Analyzing the situation of the victim in the parable, the Pope says that "the important thing here is to recognize the condition of loneliness, of abandonment. This is an atrocity that can be overcome before any other injustice, because, as the parable tells us, all that is needed to eliminate it is a moment of attention, the inner movement of the compassion". The attitude of the Samaritan, then, "without even thinking about it, changed things, generated a more fraternal world".
Fear of fragility
Francis continues his message with a resounding affirmation: "we are never prepared for illness". The Pope goes further when he says that "we are afraid of vulnerability and the pervasive culture of the market pushes us to deny it. There is no place for fragility. And so evil, when it bursts in and assaults us, leaves us stunned".
The consequences of this soon become apparent and "it may happen, then, that others abandon us, or that it seems to us that we should abandon them, so as not to be a burden to them. Thus begins the solitudeand we are poisoned by the bitter feeling of injustice, by which even Heaven seems to close in on us".
Not only are relationships with others affected, but also "it is difficult for us to remain at peace with God". Faced with this, the Pope considers it necessary that "the whole Church, also with regard to sickness, be confronted with the Gospel example of the Good Samaritan, so as to become an authentic field hospital".
The experience of fragility is a reminder that "we are all fragile and vulnerable; we all need that compassionate attention, which knows how to stop, approach, heal and lift up. The situation of the sick is, therefore, a call that interrupts indifference and slows the pace of those who advance as if they had no sisters and brothers."
The World Day of the Sick
For all these reasons, the World Day of the Sick is important and timely, since "it not only invites to prayer and closeness to those who suffer. It also aims to sensitize the people of God, health institutions and civil society to a new way forward together".
Returning to the above-mentioned Gospel passage, the Pope says that the conclusion of the parable of the Good Samaritan suggests to us how the exercise of fraternity, initiated by a face-to-face encounter, can be extended to organized care".
Recalling the great crisis initiated by the COVID 19 pandemicThe years of the pandemic have increased our sense of gratitude to those who work every day for health and research," Francis said. But, from such a great collective tragedy, it is not enough to come out of it honoring a few heroes. It is essential that "gratitude be accompanied by an active search, in each country, for strategies and resources so that all human beings are guaranteed access to care and the fundamental right to health.
"Take care of him."
The Pope concludes his message with the appeal made by Jesus Christ through the parable: "Take care of him" (Lk 10:35) is the recommendation of the Samaritan to the innkeeper. Jesus also repeats it to each one of us, and at the end he exhorts us: "Go and do likewise". As I emphasized in Fratelli tuttiThe parable shows us with what initiatives a community can be rebuilt starting from men and women who make the fragility of others their own, who do not allow a society of exclusion to be built up, but who become neighbors and raise up and rehabilitate the fallen, so that the good may be common" (n. 67)" (n. 67).
Situations of pain remind us that "we were made for the fullness which is attained only in love. It is not an option to live indifferently in the face of pain" (Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti, n. 68).
Francis also invited that "on February 11, 2023, let us also look to the Shrine of Lourdes as a prophecy, a lesson entrusted to the Church in the heart of modernity. It is not only what works that counts, nor is it only those who produce that count. Sick people are at the center of the people of God, who go forward with them as a prophecy of a humanity in which everyone is valuable and no one must be discarded." Along with this, the Pope commended the intercession of the Virgin Mary for all the sick and the people who take care of them, and sent them his blessing.
