{"id":2983,"date":"2007-02-11T09:37:47","date_gmt":"2007-02-11T09:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/world-day-of-the-sick.html"},"modified":"2007-02-11T09:37:47","modified_gmt":"2007-02-11T09:37:47","slug":"world-day-of-the-sick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/world-day-of-the-sick.html","title":{"rendered":"World Day of the Sick"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pope, today:<\/a><\/p>\n

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On the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, now also the World Day of the Sick, the pope did not stop at talking about miracles and healing. Thanking health workers and relatives of sick people, he called for the \u201cdevelopment of palliative care that offers holistic support\u201d, giving \u201cterminally ill people the human support and spiritual accompaniment that they badly need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benedict XVI recalled the \u201cprodigious event\u201d of \u201cthe first apparition of the Virgin Mary to St Bernadette, which took place on 11 February 1858 in the grotto of Massabielle in Lourdes\u201d. This event, continued the pope, made \u201cthe location, situated in the French slopes of the Pyrenees, a global center for pilgrimages and intense Marian spirituality. In this place, for nearly 150 years now, the call of Our Lady to prayer and repentance still reverberates powerfully, a quasi permanent echo of the invitation with which Jesus inaugurated his preaching in Galilee: \u2018The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.\u2019 (Mk 1:15).\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Although miracles and healings confirmed by a team of doctors often take place at Lourdes, the pope saw fit to draw attention to a more profound miracle: \u201cMoreover, the shrine has become a destination of many sick pilgrims who, putting themselves in a position to listen to the Most Holy Mary, are encouraged to accept their sufferings and to offer them for the salvation of the world, uniting them with those of the crucified Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benedict XVI explained the connection between the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes and the World Day of the Sick: \u201cIt was precisely because of this link between Lourdes and human suffering that, 15 years ago, the beloved John Paul II wanted the World Day of the Sick to be celebrated on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. This year, the focus of this feast is in the city of Seoul, capital of South Korea, where I sent Cardinal Javier Lozano Barrag\u00e1n, President of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Health Care to represent me. I send an affectionate greeting to him and to all those gathered there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pope continued: \u201cI would like to extend my thoughts to health workers across the world, well aware of the importance of their service to sick people in our society. In particular, I want to express my spiritual closeness and my affection for our sick brothers and sisters, especially those who are afflicted by more serious and painful illnesses. On this Day, our attention is turned towards them in a special way. It is necessary to support the development of palliative care that offers holistic support and gives terminally ill people the human support and spiritual accompaniment that they badly need.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Pope, today: On the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, now also the World Day of the Sick, the pope did not stop at talking about miracles and healing. Thanking health workers and relatives of sick people, he called for the \u201cdevelopment of palliative care that offers holistic support\u201d, giving \u201cterminally ill people the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nWorld Day of the Sick - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/world-day-of-the-sick.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"World Day of the Sick - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Pope, today: On the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, now also the World Day of the Sick, the pope did not stop at talking about miracles and healing. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2983\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}