Rev. Francis X. Doyle, SJ
Christ The consoler

There can be no doubt about Our Lord’s love for the sick. The Gospels are filled with instances of His Divine Compassion, and when Saint Matthew wished to summarize the works of Christ, he could find no more appropriate words than these: He went about doing good and healing all that were suffering. (Matt. 4:23)
He sorrowed over the sick as a mother over her children.
When Our Lord Himself desired to express to the disciples of the Baptist that He was the the One Who was to come, the Messias, He emphasized this characteristic of His ministry: The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise again, the poor have the Gospel preached to them. (Matt. 11:5)
He sorrowed over the sick as a mother over her children, and to cure the sick and console the bereaved, He worked most of His miracles. One of His beautiful parables is that of the Good Samaritan, wherein He draws a striking picture of Himself curing the ills of abandoned humanity. The Lord of the world does not hesitate to cure a fever any more than He delays to raise the son of the widow of Naim and give him back to his mother. In Saint Luke we read How Our Lord cured the mother-in-law of Saint Peter, and the details of this incident will not only impress deeply on our minds the eagerness of the people in crowding around the Master, hoping for a glance of His eyes or the favor of a cure, but will also paint upon our imaginations and engrave on our souls a lively image of the Comforter, the Consoler, the great Healer of Israel.
Simon’s wife’s mother was taken with a great fever, and they besought Him for her. And, standing over her, He commanded the fever and it left her. And immediately rising, she ministered to them. And when the sun was down, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them to Him. But He, laying His hands on every one of them, healed them. (Luke 4:38)
He is not too great and mighty and majestic to feel compassion...
Here indeed is the picture of a kindly Lord. He had been preaching in the synagogue, and on the approach of evening, accompanied Simon Peter to his poor abode. For the Master of the world and the heavens, the sudden sickness of an insignificant creature, the work of His hands, only one among billions of human beings, is not beneath His notice. He Who could hang the sun on its axis and fix the stars in their place; He Who could take the slime of the earth and mold it into the marvelous body of man and breathe into it the breath of intelligent life rooted in an immortal soul. He is not too great and mighty and majestic to feel compassion for a poor woman suffering from fever. After Our Lord had simply commanded the fever to depart, we need not wonder that the old mother rose and eagerly waited on her Benefactor. What adoring reverence shone in her eyes as she quietly set the dishes before Him, as she watched to anticipate His every want, for He Who had ministered unto her from the deep compassion of His Sacred Heart was conferring a gracious favor in allowing her to prepare His food and serve at His table.
Outside the little cottage the impatient villagers await Christ. The sun had set. The sky was streaming with color. The stillness and beauty of evening were settling on all, potent enough to charm even the rudest heart. But these poor people, gathered in front of Simon’s house saw nothing of the beauties of nature. They were waiting for Christ. And the suffering sick people who had been carried thither, with great pain to themselves and labor to their relatives, gazed with hope and yearning at the doorway through which Christ would appear.
Our Lord, no doubt, was wearied with the toil of the day, but at last, when the simple meal was finished, He arose, went forth from the house, walked among the reverent multitude, cured the sick, and laid hands on every one of them. We are familiar with the prayer of the poor leper who came and adored Christ and said, Lord, if You will, You can make me clean. Jesus stretching forth His hand, touched him, saying, I will, be made clean. Forthwith his leprosy was cleansed. (Matt. 8:2-4)
The answer to this pitiful prayer for a cure from terrible physical sickness contains, as we notice, much more than was asked by the leper, for Jesus stretched forth His hand and touched him, a favor which the unclean leper would never have dared to ask, but which our Blessed Lord conferred from the unsounded depths of His mercy, perhaps, because the leper was so humble and confi dent that he left this cure entirely to the will of God.
When the soldier begged for the life of his servant, Our Lord again is wiling to grant more than was asked. He said, “I will come down and heal him.” But the noble captain of soldiers, quite a different character socially from the leper, protested beautifully, telling Our Lord that there is no need for Him to come down to the house. The journey is long, the way is tiresome, and all this trouble for a mere servant to whom the soldier would say,”Do this!” and be certain of instant obedience. Besides, the soldier protests that he is not worthy to receive Our Lord. Lord, I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof; but only say the word and my servant shall be healed, urging Our Lord respectfully, humbly and with wonderful faith, to command the disease and it would depart. The result is that Christ praises the captain’s faith and humility and works a miracle on a poor man miles away simply by an act of His divine will. Go, He said to the Centurion, and as You have believed, so be it done to you. The servant was healed at the same hour. (Matt. 8:5)
You will recall too the dramatic scene at the pond called Probatica, or in Hebrew, Bethsaida. Our Lord had gone up to Jerusalem for the festival of the Jews and came to this pond, round which were fi ve porches, wherein lay a great multitude of sick, blind, lame, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. An Angel of the Lord descended at certain times into the pond; and the water was moved. And he that went down fi rst into the pond after the motion of the water was made whole of whatsoever infirmity he lay under. (John 5:4)
Jesus came, walking slowly through the five porches gazing with great pity on the sick; and one man especially, who had labored under an infirmity for eight and thirty years, attracted the Lord’s attention. Christ stoops down and quietly speaks to the prostrate invalid.
The pity of it all smote upon the Heart of Jesus, and He said to him, “Arise, take up your bed and walk."
Will you be made whole? He asks. The infirm man stared up into the eyes of Christ, but knew not that this was Jesus. He answered, Sir, I have no one when the water is troubled to put me into the pond. For while I am coming, another goes down before me.
An answer which shows the utter helplessness of the invalid, and implies the lack of charity among the Hebrews who frequented the pond because, wrapped up in their own interests, they had not a moment to spare in order to assist the sick man into the saving waters. The pity of it all smote upon the Heart of Jesus, and He said to him, Arise, take up your bed and walk.
The man heard the words, gazed in astonishment at the speaker, but, seeing in the face of Jesus something that thrilled his soul and gave him confidence, he attempted to move his stricken, stiff and almost dead limbs.
With the effort, new life floods into them, the muscles become supple, the blood flows warmly, and rising to his feet, the man stoops, turns over the cane mat which had served so long for his bed, and stands staring wide-eyed into the face of the Lord. He spoke not, but his mind was asking the question, Who is this Man Who did more than the Angel of the Lord when moving the curative waters of Probatica? As Christ walks slowly away, the man gazes wonderingly after Him, and the persistent query will not be stilled.
Who is that? Who is that Man? The Jews, who were perfectly familiar with the invalid because of his long-continued presence at the pond, and who, ridiculous in minute observances were totally blind to the Messias in their midst, beheld the man walking about, carrying his rolled mat tucked under his arm, crowded around and asked, Who is that man that said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk?’ But the man could not answer. This was his own question and this was what he must fi nd out, for he who was healed, knew not who it was.
Think of him lingering there, wandering hither and thither among the less favored sick still lying in the porches, amazed and dumbfounded at the blessing so suddenly and so unaccountably bestowed upon him. He lingered with the one purpose of meeting that Man again, but it was later on in the Temple that Jesus came up to him and said softly, Behold, you are made whole; sin no more, lest something worse happen to you.
Ah, the man had sinned? And did Our Lord cure his soul fi rst, and did this cure have its effect on the man’s body? Or did Our Lord cure the man’s body to show that his sins were forgiven, and that for the future he should sin no more?
Christ comes to us in sickness and especially when we are in danger of death, and strengthens us with the holy oils and the graces of the Last Sacraments.
These examples present Christ to us as the Good Samaritan. In Penance and the Eucharist, He is the Good Shepherd, searching out His lost sheep, cleansing them from the foulness of sin, feeding them with His own life. But in Extreme Unction, the Good Samaritan gives consolation, courage and relief to us poor travelers who have fallen among thieves, been beaten and robbed, and thrust out on the wayside of the world to gasp forth our last painful breath to heedless and frowning skies. Men would let us suffer and die unheeded. They are engrossed with their own affairs and like the priest and the Pharisee, hurry on, absorbed in their business. But Christ comes to us in sickness and especially when we are in danger of death, and strengthens us with the holy oils and the graces of the Last Sacraments.
Death is a crisis. It is the door swinging from one world to the other, shutting on time and opening into eternity. We struggle and are agonized. Morally and physically we are weak, exhausted, gasping. So much must be accomplished before the brazen door shuts on us! Our last wishes, our last farewells, must be spoken. We must scan the book of our lives and reckon up the credit and the debt before God and no matter how much we cry out with wild shrieks of fear, no matter whether we have finished our or our scanning, the door ponderously and slowly, but inevitably, swings open; we are forced over the threshold of earth, we stand a moment hanging between Heaven and Hell; and the door, swinging shut at last, seals our fate forever. Paradise or pain is our lot and once settled we can never change it.

But Christ, even as He came up unexpectedly to the invalid at the pond of Probatica, comes to us as the door closes, and with the Last Sacraments, soothes our agony, brightens our faith, strengthens our hope, and with confidence we go into the presence of God.
