Given at the Mass in honour of Our Lady of Lourdes in Westminster Cathedral on the World Day of the Sick, 11th February 2023
The Message of Pope Francis for this World Day of Prayer for the Sick begins with these words:
‘Illness is part of our human condition. Yet if experienced in isolation and abandonment, unaccompanied by care and compassion, it can become inhumane.’
Indeed, I think everyone has some experience of illness and the pain it can bring. For some, it is a life-long experience. For others, it comes with incidents or temporary conditions. For most, ill health, discomfort and pain come with advancing years! No escape!
Pope Francis emphasises the crucial importance of the care and compassion which we can offer each other. It is this that we celebrate today and I thank all of you who offer that care and compassion in whatever capacity it may be. What a difference that makes - the constant companionship and regular care given to those who are suffering. Thank you all!
The readings we have heard cast this care into the figures of women, firstly in the symbolic figure of Jerusalem in whom we are to rejoice and who will carry us, her nurslings at her breast and fondle us in her lap.
The Jerusalem of Isaiah refers not so much to the city of the Middle East but to the heavenly Jerusalem, standing for the great promises of God, made repeatedly throughout the pathway of God’s searching for and speaking to us, promises to come into their fulfilment in Jesus, the Christ.
Perhaps we do well to remember this promise, as understood and developed by St Paul, as the gift of freedom, a freedom in which our spirit soars into the fullness of God, taken up in the sheer delight of the glory of God.
Now that sense of freedom, and its promises, can be heavily dampened if not extinguished by the weight of illness and pain. Then it can indeed become ‘inhumane’. Yet, with the care and compassion that we can both receive and give, that burden can be lightened a little and slowly a glimpse of a freedom to come appears and can be sensed, even if only briefly. Yes, even here we have eyes for heaven.
Then, in those moments, we can know that there is more to this experience of illness than the distress, pain or isolation we feel. We slowly come to know that it is all not pointless, but, in contrast, this can all be handed over to our Blessed Lord so that he may enfold our pain into the gift that he makes to his Heavenly Father for the saving of our world. Then our distress can begin to lift as we glimpse a purpose in these most difficult moments of life. And when we make that gift, then a tiny shaft of the light of heaven can pierce our clouds.
In his Message, Pope Francis goes on to say this:
‘Lourdes is a prophetic lesson entrusted to the Church for our world. The sick are, in fact, at the centre of God’s people, and together we learn that everyone is precious and no one should be discarded or left behind.’
Yes, this, too we know to be true and this too we celebrate today. Lourdes is prophetic, declaring to the world that there is purpose in our pain and that together we can carry its burden, with even a touch of joy. And Lourdes makes this so clear through the person of Our Blessed Lady, who walks with us, prays with us and for us, even as we cry out: ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.’
A prophetic voice is one which calls us to the ways of God. We saw the power of the prophetic voice of Lourdes here, in this country, in this diocese, in this cathedral when the relics of St Bernadette came here, among us. I thank everyone who had a part in enabling that pilgrimage to take place and who conducted it with such grace and generosity.
Here, with the prayers of St Bernadette, we saw so many come before our Blessed Lady and entrust into her hands their joys and sufferings. I will never forget one mother, who came into the cathedral with her tiny, tiny baby. Carefully she unfolded a white cloth before the statue of Mary, alongside the relics of Bernadette. Then, with a gesture of such tenderness, she placed the baby on the cloth, handing her over into the care of her heavenly Mother.
So many people did likewise, with different and varied gestures, and in the silence of their prayer. Yes, our Heavenly Mother, who opens for us the door of care and compassion, which flows through us from the Sacred Heart of her Son.
Isn’t that what happened at Cana in Galilee, just as we have heard in the Gospel? There, the Mother of Jesus brought to him the troubles of the newlyweds. She trusted him explicitly and with such utter confidence. And this Son could never refuse his Mother.
She is our Mother too. For us, too, she can obtain so many small and silent miracles, given through the power of her Son and the Holy Spirit, poured out at the command of the Father.
Today, in the sacrament of the anointing of the sick, not only will echoes of the prophetic voice of Lourdes fill this cathedral, but, at the Father’s command, the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon you. In that Spirit, the promises of the Lord will be strengthened in you, and his blessing will rest upon you.
Amen.
✠ Cardinal Vincent Nichols
Archbishop of Westminster
Photo: Mazur/CBCEW.org.uk