Healing, caring for the sick an important work of mercy

Jesus' words, '[I was] ill and you cared for me," a foundation for works of mercy

Published: April 19, 2016

By Mike Nelson
Catholic News Service

CNS / Gregory A. Shemitz, Long Island Catholic

An extraordinary minister of holy Communion visits with a patient at St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center in Smithtown, N.Y. Hospitals, let alone nursing homes, are places most of us don’t want to visit.

CNS / Gregory A. Shemitz, Long Island Catholic

Some of Jesus’ final words to his disciples help form the foundation of our corporal works of mercy — including “[I was] ill and you cared for me” (Matthew 25:36).

But let us also recall Jesus’ words much earlier, in his commissioning of the disciples (Matthew 10:7-8): “Cure the sick. ... Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”

Though “caring for the sick” is not the same as “curing the sick,” there is certainly healing when we are sick and tended to by caring people who we may or may not know, but who are truly interested in our well-being. And they aren’t the least bit interested in being paid back.

My late mother was a registered nurse, an excellent nurse by all accounts. That was her profession, but it was also her gift that she continued to share long after she stopped working professionally.

In her retirement community, she continued her nursing career unofficially, checking in on those she knew were sick or elderly and in need of attention.

While she didn’t administer medication, the time she spent with these folks no doubt brought them a measure of comfort and, I am sure, healing — physically, spiritually and emotionally.

For who among us wishes to be lonely, however healthy we are in body? And if we aren’t healthy physically, how much worse do we feel if no one — other than, maybe, our doctor — ever does anything for us?

We would expect to receive loving care, of course, from our families and those we know. But how many of us model the good Samaritan, who, in Luke 10:29-37, lovingly tended to an injured stranger on the road, without regard to cost or kinship?

In this story, Jesus not only makes a Samaritan — an outcast in Jewish society — the hero, he casts a priest as one of the villains for not tending to the injured man’s needs.

This is a device Jesus uses regularly, to let us know that we cannot be bound by societal customs or mores when it comes to serving (and loving) one another — if, that is, we wish to be his disciples.

Click for the Holy Year of Mercy index