| Christ crucified, in You Love meets all sorrow and Mercy meets all suffering. May our work participate in Your work. May we, along with our patients, meet You here today. Holy Family, poor in material goods, but rich in divine blessings, pray for us. Amen |  |
Cristo crucificado, en tu Persona, el Amor encara toda tristeza y la Misericordia encara todo sufrimiento. Que nuestro trabajo sea parte del tuyo. Que junto con nuestros pacientes, Te encontremos aquí hoy. Sagrada Familia, pobre en bienes materiales, pero rica en bendiciones divinas, ruega por nosotros. Amen |
The inspiration for this prayer comes from the hymn The Wonderful Cross in which we sing, “Did e’er such love and sorrow meet?” As well as from Sacred Scripture, “By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24) and “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you, except Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).
As Christ-followers and medical missionaries we seek to give healing to the “poor”. Who are the “poor”? Who is in need of healing? In the sharing of gifts that is mission work, who is offered help? Our heart-felt desire and sincere hope is that we would find ourselves able and well disposed to participate in the Divine Life that is always seeking to meet the sorrowful and the suffering with His love and mercy. We want to be able to truly bring Christ the Healer to the sick. And at the same time, we are aware that in engaging in this endeavor, Christ meets us. There is a receiving in the giving. In being “with” those lacking in goods and in health there is a corresponding encounter with Christ for the caregiver. As St. Augustine once put it, “…he that loves the sons of God, loves the Son of God…and comes through love to be in the frame of the body of Christ, so there shall be one Christ, loving Himself ” (Homily 10 on First John).
Like the sick person, the caregiver is also “poor”, truly lacking, perhaps not so much in a material way or a physical way, but certainly in a spiritual way. We recognize in the earthly life of Jesus, Mary and Joseph a material poverty, and yet with the eyes of faith we see in the Holy Family the riches we all seek. By them, through them, the abundant graces from the cross flow, God’s answer to everyone’s predicament. By His wounds we are healed. We must remember in our work, we are all patients.