World Day of the Sick 2020 in Calcutta
by Angelo Forti
On this World Day of the Sick, Jesus invites everyone to the source of joy, in fact, this year, the slogan is a verse from the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus says: «Come to me, all you who are tired and oppressed, and I will give you refreshment." The city of Calcutta was chosen as the venue for this year's Day, the stage of heroic Christian charity witnessed and experienced by Mother Teresa.
The novelist Dominique Lapierre in his book The City of Joy describes an experience he lived in a slum in Calcutta.
Lapierre, who lived an exceptional experience of service to that population with Mother Teresa, was struck by the way of life of the inhabitants of this very poor neighborhood of Calcutta. This population, despite living on nothing, in extreme poverty, thanked God for the little they had - sometimes it was just the breath to breathe! – and showed extraordinary serenity.
Dominique Lapierre declared that he changed the names of the characters in the novel but the substance of the facts narrated correspond to reality and Mother Teresa is the protagonist.
His heart, his hands, in fact, designed this cathedral of love in which everyone feels loved and sings the joy of living.
During her lifetime Mother Teresa wrote that «If I ever become a saint, going to heaven, I will certainly be a saint of darkness. I will be continually absent from Heaven, I will go around to turn on the light to those who live in darkness."
It has rightly been said that «if the light is the same for everyone, the night is always different for each of us» During the course of the illness, always and in any case, the shadow of fear descends on us, tiredness becomes our traveling companion and the pause in the lost solitude becomes an invocation. However, it is a life experience that those who wish to know the meaning of living must become an ally of their pain to emerge regenerated for the better. In fact, every suffering hides a seed of blessing that we should try to embrace in order to reveal the fruit of the blessing that God has enclosed in that shell of suffering.
Jesus' verse: "Come to me" is aimed in particular at those who feel like a wreck in life, at those who are tired; however, it can be read as the voice of the patient himself who desires closeness, solidarity, companionship and sharing.
In a family context, suffering correctly involves not only relatives, but also healthcare workers as Samaritans of physical but also psychological well-being.
Upon closer inspection, even the prayer that, in the silence of the night, is born on the lips is the search for a lifeboat that will take the sufferer to dry land where he can find a relationship.
In the "city of joy" Mother Teresa did not wait for the sick to be brought to her, but she herself made pilgrimages to the slams in search of solitudes to fill, tears to dry and wounds to heal and dying people to hand over to the eternity of the good God.
It is said that one evening Mother Teresa laboriously carried a woman consumed by illness to her shelter for the night. She arrived at that Samaritan shelter, got her a bed, cleaned her, bandaged her wounds and before saying goodbye, that woman made a sign to her: she wanted to talk to her. She asked her in a low voice: "Why did you do all this?". Mother Teresa lovingly replied: "Because I love you." That poor woman's eyes lit up with joy and she said, "Tell me again." Perhaps, no one before Mother Teresa had a word so necessary to live,
Jesus' invitation to come closer to him to enjoy the warmth of his love pushes us to be like good Samaritans on the tiring paths of suffering to make people feel that God is the Father of all and Jesus proves it.
