Our People

Suffering in Union with Christ

Mass and Blessing of the Sick
Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, Earlwood

By Most Rev. Julian Porteous
Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney
8/10/2006

My brothers and sisters,

Sickness, suffering, pain remain an impenetrable mystery in human life. Some lives are remarkably free from any form of suffering, others whole lives are consumed by the experience of pain and sickness.

Each human life is its own mystery. Each human life has its own unique characteristics. Each human life, though, can be lived in a vital dialogue with God, and there in that dialogue the individual characteristics can become salvific.

Those who know pain and suffering can be drawn closer to the redeeming work of Christ. Pain can isolate us and can overwhelm our contact with the world around, but it can also cause the soul to seek a path to God who is Love. Pain can teach humility and surrender and open up the human heart to the transforming work of grace. Those who know suffering can become God’s chosen ones.

Suffering can bring us into real contact with the ultimate human reality. Those who lives are seemingly superficially blessed with health and good fortune, can often be the ones who are furtherest from God. The Beatitudes given by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount have particular meaning for those who know well the world of pain or sickness:

Blessed are the poor in spirit...
Blessed are those who mourn...

One path can open to us is the path of uniting ourselves with the suffering of Christ. Christ has endured the ultimates of human suffering, not only physically but also the personal anguish of spirit witnessed in the Agony in the Garden and in the cry from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me”. Each person in the midst of their suffering can unite themselves with Christ in his moments of suffering and in doing so can offer themselves in union with him so that their own sufferings may in some mysterious way be redemptive.

The other path for one in the midst of suffering is to approach Christ who showed such great compassion for the sick. They can reach out to him and ask for healing, as so many did to the Lord himself. All those who appealed to him experienced his healing power and they were restored to health. Christ, revealed himself as Son of God, as one who showed forth the compassion and mercy of God to those who suffer. God never ignores the pleas of those in pain. The heart of God is a heart of mercy. He is one who will bring comfort to the sick and longs to heal the human heart.

Each person whose life is consumed with suffering can, in the depths of their soul, seek the path that the Lord has ordained for them: the path of uniting their sufferings with the sufferings of Christ, or the path of seeking healing and restoration. The prayer can be simple: “Lord, what path would you have me follow in my suffering?”

Today we gather at this shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes. And here we are reminded of the phenomena of what occurred in Lourdes in France to a young woman, Bernadette Soubirous.

It was on Thursday, 28th February 1858, that Bernadette was asked by Our Lady, as Bernadette would explain later, to go to the very back of the grotto where she had on previous occasions met the Immaculate Virgin and drink of the water that was found there. The water was muddy and Bernadette had three times to try to gather enough to be able to drink. She emerged with mud on her face and scandalised many who were there to witness. But in time a spring began to flow and miracles began to occur.

Lourdes is today the most famous location for miracles and attracts some two million pilgrims a year. Great miracles have been attested to, and countless thousands come as an act of faith to bathe in the healing waters. Many return still carrying their sickness, but wonderfully renewed in spirit.

Today, remembering Lourdes, we gather to seek the healing grace of God offered through a blessing with the Blessed Sacrament. As the sick were brought to Christ, so today the sick are brought to Christ, truly present in the Blessed Sacrament.

Sickness bourne in isolation can lead to a crippling of the human spirit. Sickness opened to Christ’s love can become a channel of grace.

Let us approach Christ with trusting and open hearts. Let us invoke the Blessed Virgin who wished that her presence at Lourdes would be a lasting place of peace and healing of the human spirit.