visiting the sick

“Illness and suffering have always been among the gravest problems confronted in human life. In illness, man experiences his powerlessness, his limitations, and his finitude. Every illness can make us glimpse death”[1]. In the Old Testament, it was regarded as an act of love for the visitor to visit the sick: “Do not shrink from visiting a sick man, because for such deeds you will be loved” (Sir 7:35). This text expresses the Jewish understanding which emphasizes the visitor more than the sick, in contrast to Matthew 25:36, where it is the sick person who has a dignity that must be recognized because it is Christ himself! In this sense, “the sick person has a Christic sacramentality which makes him into a sacrament of Christ” (Manicardi)[2]. 

The B.O.L. foundation will come to the aid of sick by visiting them in the hospital to share three moments with the sick: visit, prayer, and ritual (laying on of hands). These three moments which are biblical in nature (Acts 28:8) are an invitation to go beyond visiting the sick. And hence, the foundation realizes that Christ’s call to “visit the sick” is not confined within the limits of hospitals or clinics but rather to reach out to them in the society. A society which is suffering with dreaded disease like AIDS, Alcohol Abuse, Tobacco Epidemic, Cancer, Diabetes, Mental Illness, etc. The foundation will play an important role to educate and spread awareness about these diseases with health improvement initiatives like necessity of sanitation and self-hygiene. 

[1] CCC, 1500.

[2] The Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy (Pastoral Resources for Living the Jubilee) by Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, Chapter 2.