Pope Francis' Visit to Naples March 23, 2015
Pope Francis' Meeting with the Sick in Naples
"The sick suffer, they mirror the suffering Christ: there is no need to feel
fear to approach the suffering Christ."
NAPLES, March 23, 2015 - On Saturday, following his meeting with the clergy at
the Cathedral, Pope Francis made his way to the Basilica of Gesu Nuovo where he
met with the sick.
Here is a translation of the words Pope Francis addressed to those present.
* * *
It’s not easy to approach a sick person. The most beautiful things of life and
the most miserable things are modest; they are hidden. Out of modesty one seeks
to hide the greatest love; and the things that show our human misery, we also
seek to hide it. Therefore, to meet a sick person, one must go to him, because
life’s modesty hides him. We must seek the sick person. And when there are
sicknesses that last a lifetime, when we meet with sicknesses that mark a whole
life, we prefer to hide them, because to go to meet the sick person is to go to
meet our own sickness, the one we have within. It is to have the courage to say
to oneself: I also have a sickness in my heart, in my soul, in my spirit ; I am
also a spiritually sick person.
God created us to change the world, to be efficient, to master Creation: it’s
our task. However, when we find ourselves before a sickness, we see that this
sickness impedes this: that man, that woman who was born like this, or whose
body has become like this, is a saying “no” – it seems – to the mission to
transform the world. This is the mystery of sickness. One can only approach a
sickness in a spirit of faith. We can well approach a sick man, woman, boy or
girl only if we look at Him who took upon himself all our sicknesses, if we make
a habit of looking at the Crucified Christ. The only explanation of this
“failure,” of this human failure, of a life-long sickness is there. The only
explanation is in Christ Crucified.
To you, sick, I say if you cannot understand the Lord, I ask the Lord to make
you understand in your heart that you are the flesh of Christ, that you are
Christ Crucified among us, that you are the brothers who are very close to
Christ. It is one thing to look at a Crucifix and quite another to look at a
sick man, woman, child, who is, crucified there in their sickness: they are the
living flesh of Christ.
To you, volunteers, thank you so much! Thank you so much for spending your time
caressing the flesh of Christ, serving Christ Crucified, alive. Thank you! And I
also say thank you to you, doctors, and nurses. Thank you for doing this work,
thank you for not making of your profession a business. Thank you to so many of
you who follow the example of the Saint who is here, who worked here in Naples:
to serve without enriching oneself from the service. When medicine is
transformed in commerce, in business, it is like the priesthood when it acts in
the same way: it loses the kernel of the vocation.
To all of you Christians of this diocese of Naples I ask that you not forget
what Jesus asked us and which is also written in the “protocol” on which we will
be judged: I was sick and you visited me (Cf. Matthew 25:36). We will be
judged on this. The world of sickness is a world of pain. The sick suffer, they
mirror the suffering Christ: there is no need to feel fear to approach the
suffering Christ. Thank you so much for all that you do. And let us pray that
all the Christians of the diocese are more conscious of this and let us pray
that the Lord may give you, and to the many volunteers, perseverance in this
service of caressing the suffering flesh of Christ. Thank you.
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