YOUCAT Question n. 241 - Part II. Why did Jesus show so much interest in the sick?
(Youcat answer – repeated) Jesus came
in order to show God’s love. He often did this in places where we feel
especially threatened: in the weakening of our life through sickness. God wants
us to become well in body and soul and, therefore, to believe and to
acknowledge the coming of God’s kingdom.
A deepening through CCC
(CCC 1504)
Often Jesus asks the sick to believe
(Cf. Mk 5:34, 36; 9:23). He makes use of signs to heal: spittle and the
laying on of hands (Cf. Mk 7:32-36; 8:22-25), mud and washing (Cf. Jn 9:6-7).
The sick try to touch him, "for power came forth from him and healed them
all" (Lk 6:19; cf. Mk 1:41; 3:10; 6:56) and so in the sacraments Christ
continues to "touch" us in order to heal us.
Reflecting and meditating
(Youcat comment) Sometimes a person has to become sick in
order to recognize what we all—healthy or sick—need more than anything else:
God. We have no life except in him. That is why sick people and sinners can
have a special instinct for the essential things. Already in the New Testament
it was precisely the sick people who sought the presence of Jesus; they tried
“to touch him, for power came forth from him and healed them all” (Lk 6:19).
(CCC Comment)
(CCC 1505)
Moved by so much suffering Christ not only allows himself to be touched by the
sick, but he makes their miseries his own: "He took our infirmities and
bore our diseases" (Mt 8:17; cf. Isa 53:4). But he did not heal all the
sick. His healings were signs of the coming of the Kingdom of God. They
announced a more radical healing: the victory over sin and death through his
Passover. On the cross Christ took upon himself the whole weight of evil and
took away the "sin of the world" (Jn 1:29; cf. Isa 53:4-6), of which
illness is only a consequence. By his passion and death on the cross Christ has
given a new meaning to suffering: it can henceforth configure us to him and
unite us with his redemptive Passion.
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