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Last week Sydney hosted the Ninth World Day of the Sick. Initiated by Pope John Paul II in 1993, the event calls to mind two images – Michelangelo’s Pieta and Pope John Paul himself
– which say much about sickness and about healers.
The Pieta, Michelangelo’s Mary of Sorrows, is a powerful image of woman as healer, comforter and nurturer. How many pictures of devoted nurses, female
hospital doctors and carers in homes throughout the world it evokes!
And not only women carers.
Art critics have noted that the shoulders of the Pieta are a man’s shoulders. This reminds us that men
too serve in the helping professions.
But sickness involves the sick as well as carers. This is where John Paul himself comes in. This elderly man fought his way back to health after an assassination
attempt. He then forgave and visited his would-be assassin, showing a health of spirit far beyond mere physical recovery. And now he struggles with Parkinson’s disease and advancing years. But his touching fortitude
in suffering is as potent a ministry as his earlier outreach to the world.
Experience shows us that sickness can soften the hearts of both sufferers and carers, ennobling them.
A little story will serve to illustrate this:
Mary had a fun-loving disposition and the big city was the breath of life to her. Jim, her husband, however, won the argument about where they should live and
they went to live in the country. Mary responded by getting back at Jim, needling him on his weak points. But,
‘It is the small rift within the lute
Which by and by will make the music mute.’
And so the music of the couple’s marriage, which had been built more on fascination than congeniality, was stilled.
Then came
Mary’s nine-year illness and what could have been a sad old story ended on a high note. Jim with the help of their son, Matt, cared for Mary for all those years and she died happily in her own home after enjoying
much love, care and fun too.
Sadly, problems are not always resolved as sweetly as this. Sometimes suspicion, irritation and even anger can be aroused in carers as the following story shows.
Frank was
labelled a hypochondriac. “They’ve done everything for him,” it was said. “It’s all in the mind.” But years later a doctor opened Frank up and the hypochondriac was found to have a bladder full of gallstones.
Sickness does not sit well with modern ideas on living. But it is an inescapable fact of life. It is not a sterile fact, but it can be a door into nobler living and deeper love. The words of Jesus challenge us here:
“As long as you did it to one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it to me.”
Many are the stories of those who, nursing the sick, have found Christ in those they tended.
NO TO MORE POKIES
The Premier has extended the ban increasing the number of poker machines in clubs and hotels. Predictably there has been outcry from those waiting for the moratorium to
expire so that they can increase poker machine numbers. It would seem their concern is monetary.
They may say otherwise, citing all kinds of community benefits that will follow from more gambling
opportunities, but their protestations don’t ring true. Poker machines are almost a licence to print money. Proceeds as high as $80,000 per machine each year have been cited.
Used in moderation, gaming
machines can provide innocent fun for many people. But, regrettably, there are too many who are incapable of such moderation.
The excitement of the tumbling wheels grows into an addiction with severe
personal and social consequences. The challenge for government is to allow liberty to those for whom gambling constitutes no problem while safeguarding those who cannot handle it.
The poker machine advocates
speak of the social benefits which gambling revenue provides for the community. But is only half the story. The wretched underbelly of the poker machine phenomenon is the personal misery that follows in its wake for
so many, and the harm it does to families deprived of essential money.
Governments are loath to curtail the supply of money available to them from gambling. But by his stand the Premier has shown – and not
for the first time – that he has the courage to take decisions that will have long term benefits.
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