Cathal Barry
The Church teaches that Jesus’ compassion allows him to identify with those who suffer, writes Cathal Barry
Illness and suffering have always been among the gravest problems confronted in human life, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
“In illness, man experiences his powerlessness, his limitations, and his finitude. Every illness can make us glimpse death,” the Church’s key teaching document states.
“Illness can lead to anguish, self-absorption, sometimes even despair and revolt against God. It can also make a person more mature, helping him discern in his life what is not essential so that he can turn toward that which is. Very often illness provokes a search for God and a return to him.”
The Church teaches that illness becomes a way to conversion. God’s forgiveness “initiates the healing”, the Catechism states.
Christ’s compassion toward the sick and his many healings of every kind of infirmity, according to Church teaching, are a “resplendent sign” that “God has visited his people” and that “the Kingdom of God is close at hand”.
Jesus has the power not only to heal, the Church teaches, but also to forgive sins. The Catechism states that “he has come to heal the whole man, soul and body”, noting that “he is the physician the sick have need of”.
Likewise, the Church teaches that Jesus’ compassion toward all who suffer goes so far that he identifies himself with them: “I was sick and you visited me” (Mt 25:36).
Love
“His preferential love for the sick has not ceased through the centuries to draw the very special attention of Christians toward all those who suffer in body and soul. It is the source of tireless efforts to comfort them,” the Catechism says.
In the Gospels, Jesus often asks the sick to believe and makes use of signs to heal: spittle and the laying on of hands (Mk 7:32-36; 8:22-25) and mud and washing (Jn 9:6-7). The sick try to touch him, “for power came forth from him and healed them all” (Lk 6:19).
Moved by so much suffering, the Church teaches that Christ not only allows himself to be touched by the sick, but he makes their miseries his own: “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases” (Mt 8:17). However, the Catechism notes, he did not heal all the sick.
“His healings were signs of the coming of the Kingdom of God. They announced a more radical healing: the victory over sin and death through his Passover,” the teaching document states.
“On the cross Christ took upon himself the whole weight of evil and took away the ‘sin of the world’ of which illness is only a consequence. By his passion and death on the cross Christ has given a new meaning to suffering: it can henceforth configure us to him and unite us with his redemptive Passion.”