Meeting with the Sick at Vaduz

On Sunday, 8 September 1985, the Holy Father met with the sick in the Church of San Florin, at Vaduz (Liechtenstein). the Pope assured them that Mary was at their side in their suffering, as she was at the side of her Son in His suffering.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Lord!

1. “Stabat Mater Dolorosa . . . The Mother of Christ stood in pain / by the cross and wept from the depths of her heart, / while her beloved son hung there.”

These sad words of the passage that recalls Mary's sorrows also resonate in the hymn and echo in our hearts. The power of the notes and the poetic structure of the words want to introduce us to that great mystery that is announced by Saint John in his Gospel: "Now standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, 'Woman, behold, your son!' Then he said to the disciple, 'Behold, your mother!' And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home" ( Jn 19:25-27).

“Behold your Mother”, thus says the crucified Lord also to us. He speaks thus on today’s feast of the Nativity of Mary, through me, his humble servant on the Chair of Peter. He speaks in particular to you, the sick, the suffering and the elderly, to whom I feel especially close. Here in this house of God, in the hospital, in the care institutions and in your homes throughout the country. You yourselves have seen the face full of pain, the painful wounds of the crucified Savior. You look perplexed at the cross on which hangs the body of Jesus, tortured and disfigured. You look, together with Mary, at that wood of martyrdom that we only with the eyes of faith can recognize as the “sweet wood” (“dulce lignum”) and as the “tree of life” (“arbor vitae”). I have come to you as the bearer of the glad tidings of Christ to help you look with the same eyes of faith also at your personal destiny. With the disciple John, you too take Mary, the Mother of the Lord, as your mother, and with her help open your eyes to faith. With her help you will more easily bear the weight of your illness, your pain and your old age.

2. Mary is at your side because she herself suffered with her divine Son, according to the prophecy that the old Simeon had made to her in the temple of Jerusalem: “And a sword will pierce your own soul also” ( Lk 2:35). The face of the sorrowful Mother is familiar to all of us and we carry it deeply imprinted in our hearts: the dead body of her divine Son lies in the lap of the grieving Mother, the womb from which he came into the light. Mary's maternal heart is pierced by pain; because no one is as close to her son as his own mother. But the heavenly Father, who does not abandon men even in the most extreme tribulations, gave the Mother of Jesus the strength to resist beneath the cross and to share in the passion of her son.

The special devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows can also be a source of strength for you, to accept with devotion the burdens of life, and through prayer and meditation to consciously unite them with the passion and death of the Lord. With the patient endurance of daily toils and pains you sanctify yourselves and at the same time the Church and the world. Pain accepted for the love of Christ is always a saving pain. You know that St. Paul - he too had to endure much suffering and adversity - to explain this saving power of pain, said: "In my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church" ( Col 1:24). Yes, as faithful of Christ, we too must try to understand and live the meaning and dignity of human pain.

3. Illness, disability and the burden of age are never for the Christian faithful only a sad fate, which must be accepted with resignation; rather they are a call and a mission, offered to us by divine Providence. They are an appeal from God to men to give with loving solicitude to the suffering assistance and protection, and to alleviate, indeed - to the extent possible - to heal their infirmities with all the means of the medical art.

For the sick and the suffering they are a mission to be lived, in the concrete situation, as a Christian vocation: a way to earn salvation. Especially where human medical art fails, Christian faith can still illuminate the path to the deep secret of pain. The good news of Christ cannot certainly eliminate external infirmities; but it can make them more bearable, because it allows us to access their deepest meaning and understanding. In the suffering permitted or destined by divine Providence we finally encounter the inscrutable mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ himself. It is his call to a very particular type of following, the following of the cross. It is ultimately Christ himself who invites us to accept infirmity, suffering, abandonment, as his yoke, as if showing us a way to follow in his footsteps. Only pious acceptance can profoundly transform all human pain. It becomes a personal participation in the expiatory and saving passion of Christ. He continues his own passion in the men who suffer.

4. Dear sick, suffering and elderly brothers and sisters! I implore with you the strength that will enable you to accept your sufferings and infirmities in the spirit of Christ, the suffering Savior, who sacrificed himself and rose again. Only in this way will your infirmities not oppress you, but on the contrary become for you a source of strength and confidence. With Christ, offer the sacrifice of all anguish and adversity for the salvation of the world. Seek the meaning of your sufferings in the sanctification of your life, of your families and of the communities in which you live, assisted by the affectionate help of your loved ones and neighbors. Be grateful for the patience and the ability to endure that God gives you again day by day. Be grateful for every service that is rendered to you by your brothers.

Together with you, I heartily thank all the doctors, nurses and nurses who offer their service with fidelity and dedication to the sick and those in need of help in this country. They must know that all the help and love they give them is ultimately given to Christ. “I was sick and you visited me”, says Christ; and he continues: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” ( Mt 25:36, 40).

For you, dear brothers and sisters, I would like to add in conclusion, as an invitation, the words that I placed at the end of my Apostolic Letter on the Christian meaning of human suffering: “Together with Mary, Mother of Christ, who stood beneath the Cross, we pause beside all the crosses of the man of today. We invoke all the saints, who throughout the centuries shared in a special way in the sufferings of Christ. We ask them to support us” (John Paul II, Salvifici doloris , 31). May God bless you, give you strength, protect you!

5. With cordial affection I also greet the other participants in this meeting: you, my brothers in the priestly ministry of the Deanery of Liechtenstein; you, dear religious, who have followed the Lord's call to a life according to the evangelical counsels; you lay faithful, who by the grace of your Baptism and Confirmation collaborate in various pastoral fields in this country.

In you I greet the most decisive forces, the structures that support the life of the local Church. The religious life of your community largely depends on your spiritual vitality, your seriousness and the commitment you put into the tasks of the moment. I thank you for the zeal you put into your personal mission for collaboration in the kingdom of God. I also exhort you to continue in the name of Christ in your many commitments for the natural and supernatural good of men and institutions entrusted to you.

Your task, demanding but exciting, is to build here in your country the living Church of Christ, in communion with your bishop and under his direction, as priests, religious and lay collaborators. Your first and greatest duty is to show men the path that leads to Christ; to commit your best forces so that life may be “awakened” in Christ, in the liturgy, in the preaching of the Gospel, in catechesis for all ages, in diakonia or in solidarity with men and peoples who are in need.

Christ, who through you continues his mission of salvation in your community, has no other words than yours to announce the good news, no other hands than yours to transmit his supernatural gifts of salvation, and only your feet to reach even the lost sheep. Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, put yourselves without reserve, body and soul, at the disposal of your religious activities, as Mary, the Mother of our Lord, did by pronouncing her “fiat”: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” ( Lk 1:39). With her obedient yes, which she never withdrew, but which instead, in ever closer union with her Son, she lived until the cross, Mary became the great model for our faith and for our service.

Mary, Mother of the Church, is also particularly at your side in your ecclesial service. Your commitment to Christ and to the Church will be complete, and truly fruitful for the salvation of men, only if you follow her admonition: “Do whatever he tells you” ( Jn 2:5). Do it first and foremost in your own lives, for your full conversion and personal sanctification. Do it in fidelity to the commitments you have undertaken, do it in your daily service among men. Do what he tells you! Because ultimately it is Christ himself who through you can bring his salvation to today's world, and this can be operative in the mission of the Church. May his kingdom become ever more a reality, here in the deanery of Liechtenstein, thanks to your example of religious life and thanks to your faithful service as priests, religious and lay people.

I once again heartily invite you, dear Christian brothers who are sick, suffering and elderly, to support, always according to your strength, with the devout endurance of your sufferings, with your prayers and your sacrifices, the activity of the Church, here and throughout the world. The Pope himself, in his singular pastoral activity, relies heavily on your active collaboration. And he prays above all that the Lord will always send a sufficient number of workers into his vineyard, so that his name will everywhere be worthily praised. Praised be Jesus Christ!
 

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