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Illustration; The Good Samaritan by Jacob Jordaens, c. 1616
Pope Francis’ address to the Pontifical Biblical Commission
Thursday, 20 April 2023
“Sickness and suffering in the Bible”.
Dear members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission,
I am happy to welcome you at the end of your annual Plenary Assembly.
I am grateful to Cardinal Luis Ladaria for his greeting and for the explanation he offered on the theme you have considered: “Sickness and suffering in the Bible”.
It is a theme that concerns everyone, believers and non-believers alike.
Indeed, human nature, wounded by sin, carries inscribed within itself the reality of limitations, frailty and death.
This theme also responds to a concern that is particularly close to my heart, which is that illness and finitude are often seen as a loss, in modern thinking, a non-value, a nuisance that must be minimized, countered and aeliminated at all costs.
One does not want to ask the question about their meaning, perhaps because one fears their moral and existential implications.
But no one can escape the search for this “why” (see: St. John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Salvifici doloris, 9).
Even the believer can sometimes waver before the experience of pain.
It is a frightening reality, and when it breaks through and attacks, it can leave one distraught, to the point of shattering one’s faith.
The person is then faced with a crossroads:
He can either allow suffering to lead him to withdraw into himself, to the point of despair and rebellion; or
He can welcome it as an opportunity for growth and discernment of what really matters in life, up to and including the point of an encounter with God.
The latter is the vision of faith that we find in Holy Scripture.
The Old Testament man lives sickness with his thoughts constantly turned to God:
He trusts in Him in the moments of tears (cf. Ps 38),
He implores Him to heal his infirmity (cf. Ps 6:3; Is 38), and
he often returns to Him, in moments of trial, with gestures of conversion (cf. Ps 38:5, 12; 39:9; Is 53:11).
In the New Testament, the event of Jesus breaks through (cf. Jn 3:16): the Son who reveals the love of the Father, his mercy, his forgiveness and his constant search for the sinful, lost and wounded man.
It is not by chance that Christ’s public ministry is marked to a great extent by contact with the sick.
Miraculous healings are one of the main characteristics of his ministry (cf. Mt 9:35; 4:23): He heals the lepers and the paralytics (cf. Mk 1.490-42; 2;10-12);
He heals Simon’s mother-in-law and the centurion’s servant (cf. Mt 8:5-15);
He sets the demon-possessed free and heals all the sick who trust in Him (cf. Mk 6:56).
It is precisely his compassion for them and the numerous healings he performs that are presented as the sign that “God has visited his people” (Lk 7:16) and that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand (cf. Lk 10:9); they reveal his divine identity, his Messianic mission (cf. Lk 7:20-23) and his love for the weak, to the point of identifying with them, when he says: “I was sick and you took care of me” (Mt 25:36).
The culmination of his identification takes place in the Passion, so that the Cross of Christ becomes the central sign of God’s solidarity with us and, at the same time, our possibility of sharing with Him in the work of salvation (cf. Col 1:24).
Even after the Resurrection, when the Lord entrusts to the disciples the mandate to continue his work, He tells them to care for the sick, to lay their hands on them and to blessing in his name (cf. Mk 16:15-18).
The Bible, then, does not offer a banal and utopian answer to the question of sickness and death, nor a fatalistic response, that would justify everything by attributing it to an incomprehensible divine justice, or worse, to an inexorable destiny before which one can do nothing but bow down without understanding.
Biblical man, on the contrary, feels invited to face the universal condition of pain as a place of encounter with the closeness and compassion of God, the good Father, who with infinite mercy takes care of his wounded creatures in order to heal them, to raise them up again, and save them.
Thus, in Christ, even suffering is transformed into love, and the end of the things of this world becomes the hope of resurrection and salvation, as the author of the Book of Revelation reminds us (cf. Rev 21:4).
In reality, the way in which we live pain tells us about (1) our possibility of loving and letting ourselves be loved, (2) our ability to give meaning to the vicissitudes of existence in the light of charity, and (3) our willingness to accept limitation as an opportunity for growth and redemption[1].
It is what Saint John Paul II emphasized when, based on his personal experience, he indicated the path of suffering as a way of opening oneself to a greater love (cf. Apostolic Letter Salvifici doloris, 20).
Finally, one last aspect of the experience of illness that I would like to emphasise is that it teaches us to experience human and Christian solidarity, according to God’s style, which is closeness, compassion and tenderness.
The parable of the Good Samaritan reminds us that stooping before the pain of others is not an optional choice for man, but rather an indispensable condition, both for his full realization as a person and for the construction of an inclusive society, truly oriented towards the common good (cf. Encyclical Letter Fratelli tutti, 67-68).
Dear members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, I express to you all my personal thanks and encouragement for the demanding work you carry out in the service of the Word of God, through research and teaching.
You are engaged in one of the most important areas of the inculturation of faith, which is a fundamental part of the Church’s mission.
Remember, however, that your work will grow to the extent that you are able to personally welcome the mystery of Incarnation in your life of faith.
Therefore, I wish you a fruitful continuation of your work, I invoke on you the light of the Holy Spirit, and I bless you from my heart. And, please, do not forget to pray for me. Thank you!
