Our readings this Sunday present us with suffering that is brought on by human weakness, frailty and sickness.  Jesus has been sent by the Father to lead us into an abundant life.  Sickness and illness are obstacles to this abundant life and stand in the way of Jesus’ mission to reveal the tender mercy of God and preach the good news of salvation.  Wherever Jesus encounters sickness he immediately begins healing, to restore people to freedom and wholeness and to reunite them with the community and with their loved ones.

     When we are sick we often are isolated from others and begin to feel alone and abandoned.  The little things that we were able to do so easily in the past now become a struggle for us and it seems that we have been consigned to constant struggle in our lives.  Life itself becomes a burden to us and it seems like we are never going to experience happiness again.  Job reminds us of this condition of human weakness, sickness and suffering.

     In our gospel we find all of the world of sickness and brokenness gathering at the door of Jesus’ home and he cures many of them and drives out the demons from those who are possessed.  Liberation from sin and death begins with liberation from our human weaknesses and frailties and continues on in the sacraments of penance and reconciliation to heal the lacerations of the soul caused by sin.  Jesus has been sent into the world to bring the healing of God’s love and to restore human persons to their dignity and the joy of communion.

      Pope Benedict sent a message to the Church on the World Day of the Sick:  “From a reading of the Gospels it emerges clearly that Jesus always showed special concern for sick people. He not only sent out his disciples to tend their wounds (cf. Mt 10:8; Lk 9:2; 10:9) but also instituted for them a specific sacrament: the Anointing of the Sick. The Letter of James attests to the presence of this sacramental act already in the first Christian community (cf. 5:14-16): by the Anointing of the Sick, accompanied by the prayer of the elders, the whole of the Church commends the sick to the suffering and glorified Lord so that he may alleviate their sufferings and save them; indeed she exhorts them to unite themselves spiritually to the passion and death of Christ so as to contribute thereby to the good of the People of God.

     This sacrament leads us to contemplate the double mystery of the Mount of Olives, where Jesus found himself dramatically confronted by the path indicated to him by the Father, that of his Passion, the supreme act of love; and he accepted it. In that hour of tribulation, he is the mediator, “bearing in himself, taking upon himself the sufferings and passion of the world, transforming it into a cry to God, bringing it before the eyes and into the hands of God and thus truly bringing it to the moment of redemption”. But “the Garden of Olives is also the place from which he ascended to the Father, and is therefore the place of redemption … This double mystery of the Mount of Olives is also always ‘at work’ within the Church’s sacramental oil … the sign of God’s goodness reaching out to touch us”.

    In the Anointing of the Sick, the sacramental matter of the oil is offered to us, so to speak, “as God’s medicine … which now assures us of his goodness, offering us strength and consolation, yet at the same time points beyond the moment of the illness towards the definitive healing, the resurrection (cf. Jas 5:14)”… As regards the “sacraments of healing”, Saint Augustine affirms: “God heals all your infirmities. Do not be afraid, therefore, all your infirmities will be healed … You must only allow him to cure you and you must not reject his hands”. These are precious instruments of God’s grace which help a sick person to conform himself or herself ever more fully to the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ…To Mary, Mother of Mercy and Health of the Sick, we raise our trusting gaze and our prayer; may her maternal compassion, manifested as she stood beside her dying Son on the Cross, accompany and sustain the faith and the hope of every sick and suffering person on the journey of healing for the wounds of body and spirit!”