VATICAN CITY, 13 DEC 2009 (VIS) - This morning the Holy Father visited the Sacred Heart Hospice, a private clinic in Rome offering free medical assistance to patients suffering from cancer in its final stages, Alzheimer's and motor neuron disease. The centre came into being at the initiative of two groups: the "Circolo San Pietro" and the "Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Roma". Over eleven years, the number of patients has risen from three to more than thirty.
"We know", said the Holy Father in his address, "how certain serious diseases inevitably cause the sick to suffer moments of crisis and disorientation, and make them reflect seriously about their personal situation.
"Progress in medical science", he added, "often offers the instruments necessary to face these challenges, at least as concerns their physical aspects. Yet, it is not always possible to find a cure for every disease".
"Today", Pope Benedict went on, "the predominant efficiency-oriented mentality often tends to marginalise [the sick], holding them to be a burden and a problem for society. Yet, people who have a sense of human dignity know that they must be respected and supported as they face the difficulties and suffering associated with their health. To this end, ... alongside the vital clinical cures, it is necessary to offer the sick concrete gestures of love, closeness and Christian solidarity in order to meet their need for understanding, comfort and constant encouragement".
After then highlighting how, "over the centuries, the Church has always shown herself to be a loving mother to people who suffer in body and in spirit", the Pope encouraged those people who, "making themselves icons of the Good Samaritan, ... offer appropriate and attentive assistance to the needs of everyone".
The Holy Father also assured the sick of his prayers and invited them "to find support and comfort in Jesus, in order never to lose faith and hope. Your sickness is a painful and unique trial, but in the face of the mystery of God Who took on our mortal flesh it acquires its full meaning, and becomes a gift and an opportunity for sanctification".
And he continued: "When suffering and discomfort are greatest, think that Christ is associating you with His cross because, through you, He wishes to pronounce a word of love to all those who have lost their way in life and, closed in their own egoism, live in sin, far from God. Your state of health bears witness to the fact that true life is not here, but with God".
The Pope concluded by recalling how "the period of Advent, in which we are currently immersed, speaks to us of the visit of God and invites us to prepare the way for Him. In the light of faith we can see sickness and suffering as a special experience of Advent, a visit from God Who, in a mysterious way, comes out to meet us and so frees us from solitude and non-meaning, transforming pain into a time for meeting Him, a time of hope and salvation".
BXVI-VISIT/SICKNESS/ROME VIS 20091214 (520)
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