- health ministry -

"IF you do not heal YOUR BROTHER IS ILL, You ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BLOOD^». THE HOSPITALITY OF IDENTITY AS A COMMUNITY healing.

[…] long before the phrase of Pope Francis on the image of the Church as field hospital, the first Christian communities were urged by the Holy Spirit to this form of care and assistance in the form of hospitality. The Church began as a friendly community - that is hospital - friendly place in which to recognize need of care, healing and reconciliation with God and the brothers: "For this, it is important to reach out to the sick, enabled them to experience the tenderness of God, integrate them into a community of faith and life in which they can feel welcomed, understood, supported, worthy, in a word, to love and be loved.

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The Apostle Paul, It invites us to be considerate in hospitality with these words: "Rejoice in hope, patient in tribulation, persevere in prayer, solicitous for the needs of the brothers, Practice hospitality " [R 12, 1]

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In the first century d.C at the entrance of some churches there was this warning:

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"If you do not heal your brother who is ill, you are responsible for his blood " [cf. Beppino Cò The 7 spiritual stages of physical healing, pg. 6 and. Villadiseriane].

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I open this new article starting from this suggestion that I found in a small book which deals with the physical healing inserted into a spiritual healing path. While it can not verify the source of history more accurately, what struck me this sentence is not so much an invitation to healing the brother or the charism of healing itself, but the posting of such words re-entry of a church.

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Reflecting on this, I was struck by this certainty: the Church was born to be healing communities, via santa where rid of their infirmities and enjoy the health and salvation that God gives to his children eagerly. In this you can see the realization of the words of the prophecy of Isaiah:

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"Shall return the ransomed of the Lord

and come to Zion with jubilation;

everlasting joy upon their heads;

joy and happiness will follow them

and sorrow and sighing shall flee away " (cf. Is 35,10)

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It is all the more necessary a missionary journey that puts in crisis today certain choices that often - as a community of believers - we prefer. The papal teaching helps us to bring clarity to this effect:

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"In fact, the Church over the centuries has felt strongly that service to the sick and suffering as part of his mission and not only favored among Christians the blossoming of various works of mercy, but also he expressed by its wing many religious institutions with the specific purpose of promoting, organize, improve and extend the assistance to the sick. missionaries, for their part, in conducting the work of evangelization, They have consistently associated with the preaching of the Good News with the assistance and care for the sick. " (cf. personal concern, 1)

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We must therefore take note how long before the phrase of Pope Francis on the image of the Church as field hospital, the first Christian communities were urged by the Holy Spirit to this form of care and assistance in the form of hospitality.

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The Church began as a friendly community - ie hospital - friendly place in which to recognize need of care, healing and reconciliation with God and the brothers:

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"For this, it is important to reach out to the sick, enabled them to experience the tenderness of God, integrate them into a community of faith and life in which they can feel welcomed, understood, supported, worthy, in a word, to love and be loved. For them - as for each other - contemplate Christ and be "watching" from him is experience that opens them to hope and motivates them to choose life (cf. Dt 30,19)» (cf. Tarcisio Mezzetti, Welcoming the weary and the oppressed, and. Elledici, the. 11].

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In addition to:

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"In communion with the crucified and risen, with the one who has experienced significant pain and death, the Church becomes hospitable inn, lap friendly where life, in its entirety, it is respected, defense, loved and served, place of hope, where any weary pilgrim and sick, researcher of the sense of what is experimenting, You can live healthy and saving his suffering and his death, and writing a significant chapter in its history of alliance with others and with God " [cf. Luciano Sandrin, Church, community healing, pg 77, It. St. Paul].

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The Church can not give up this essential feature of its identity, which represents a model is essentially therapeutic service through diaconia of ecclesial communion.

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Ecclesial communion - for the Church of all time - it is the biggest and most difficult challenge to generate a discipleship that conforms to the image of Christ [cf. RM 8,29]. Ecclesial communion is in fact certainty of the presence of Christ, not only a sign of his loving assistance [CF. Mt 18,20].

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To be in communion among us - and then enable the resources to be able to bring healing to others - it is essential to be in communion with Christ, pacificarmi with him.

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Mother Teresa of Calcutta, addressed to Cardinal Angelo Comastri, It was very clear in this regard: "My son, without God we are too poor to help the poor!», wanting to paraphrase these words in the orientation of our reflection we come to affirm as: without God we are too sick to help the sick!

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Jesus gives us a hint to heal and figure out if we got to be in full communion with him: mutual love [cf. GV 13,35]. We can also surprise us, but not a telltale sign of the presence of Christ in the disciple the number of communions received or made pilgrimages or alms bestowed, not because these things have no value, on the contrary! In fact in human villainy, I can draw near to communion in a state of spiritual disorder, make a pilgrimage with dissipated soul, or bestow alms for personal gain.

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But I never, never am able to love each other and to feel respect for him if they are not in communion with Christ. I will readily smascherabile and prey of my weaknesses I do not live this communion in the authenticity.

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Jesus challenges us to a land where it is impossible to cheat. For this reason, ecclesial communion was the pride and the torment of the first Christians, the blessed Apostle Peter the recommended path in the hospitality: "Be hospitable to one another, without murmuring " [cf. 1PT 4,9], and Paul on the path of mutual esteem:

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"Love one another with brotherly affection, outdo one another " [cf. RM 12,10].

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The Church hospital, It becomes a place of welcome when Christ is received with all the kindness; place of esteem and respect, when we recognize beloved children of the Father [cf. MC 1,11].

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The therapeutic interventions of the Church is given by obedience to the Word, as I was able to say in another of my contributions, [cf. article, WHO], that while faith is proclaimed arouses, increases the hope, It invites to charity and produces therapeutic benefits. He says the evangelist Mark:

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"And they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that attended it " [cf. MC 16,20].

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This statement which concludes the second Gospel it's a only throughout the New Testament, Christ works together with the community of believers so that in the ecclesial communion ARISING OUT preaching fruitful with the gift of faith and healing.

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In the Christian community after Easter one of the most eloquent manifestations of the presence of the Risen was made right from the healings - as physical recovery - and the liberation - as a spiritual restoration -.

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Stay in the Church it means clearly perceiving the living presence of Jesus who restores us to health by entrusting us to a community that is made by the Holy Spirit capable of protecting us after being collected by the Lord.

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It is the evocative image of the Good Samaritan that St. Augustine sums:

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"This inn will be the home from which they will migrate until, fully redone in health, we will not come into the kingdom of heaven " [cf. Sant'Agostino, word, 131, 6, PL 38, 732].

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Following the example of the Good Shepherd that leaves the ninety-nine sheep to find the lost [cf. LC 15,6], it is necessary that the whole Church, in its lay and ministerial component, are and come back to look for the sick with the freshness and enthusiasm of apostolic times.

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A Church truly hospitable, dilates her womb so that the weak, the sick and malnourished can recover in the light of the Risen. The Church must respond to a divine imperative: take your hand and look after the sick waiting for Christ [cf. LC 10,35].

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The Church hospitable communities and healing, gathered around the Savior in ecclesial communion, acquires a pastoral style that intends to operate and interact in accordance with the dignity of the baptismal and ministerial priesthood because

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"In both cases,, the ministry is realized as a charism serviceable, implemented by the community: the richness of the gifts of the Spirit in the ecclesial body is such that not only the whole Church is to be characterized as a ministerial community, but the various personal or even communal forms of ministeriality never by themselves exhaust the charismatic possibilities that believers are invested with by those who blow where they want " [cf. Bruno Forte, The Trinity Church. Essay on the mystery of the Church, communion and mission, the. 304, St. Paul, Cinisello Balsamo (Milan) 1995].

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Cardinal Elio Sgreccia It amplifies and better defines these words, referring them to the specific ministry of health:

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"It's certainly more ecclesial bring evangelization aid, of sacramental grace, Christian charity, the fact redemptive to patients through priests, deacons, Religious / e, lay people who not only through the chaplain. To the point that, if the priests were not lacking, we should prefer this formula to the one that only sees the chaplains work in the hospital " [cf. Elio Sgreccia, The hospital chaplaincy, a draft pastoral community, in Together to serve, 3 (1990), the. 43]».

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As all’interno of the Christian community nobody - but nobody - should feel entitled to exclude the suffering caregiving: since this exclusion would bring a mortal wound to communion, action of the Holy Spirit, the real presence of Christ among his, urgent yearning of every man who - since the time of Abel - seeks faith about the reasons for suffering, innocent blood, the pain that has the right to find a warm heart and open arms.

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Cagliari, 25 May 2019

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