Today Mercy Health was honoured to host Mass at Mercy Place Parkville on the occasion of the 20th World Day of the Sick. 

Presider Archbishop Denis Hart with Mercy Chaplains and the Vicar for Health said Mass for residents, staff and representatives from Mercy Health and other care services who joined in prayer for those who are sick and those who care for them.

Mercy Health's Director of Pastoral Services in Aged Care, Kate Hewett said, “This is a special day in which we not only pray for the sick but acknowledge healthcare as a vital ministry of the Church. We give our thanks to those who tirelessly work in this ministry.”

Since 1992, the Catholic Church has celebrated World Day of the Sick on 11 February – the day on which the Church commemorates the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes under the sponsorship of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care. World Day of the Sick reminds people to pray intensely and sincerely for those who are sick and invites us all to reflect on and respond to human suffering and recognise those who work in healthcare and serve as caregivers.

In His message for World Day of the Sick 2012, Pope Benedict shares these thoughts:

“Dear Brothers and Sisters, on the occasion of the World Day of the Sick, which we will celebrate on 11 February 2012, the Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, I wish to renew my spiritual closeness to all sick people who are in places of care or are looked after in their families, expressing to each one of them the solicitude and the affection of the whole Church. In the generous and loving welcoming of every human life, above all of weak and sick life, a Christian expresses an important aspect of his or her Gospel witness, following the example of Christ, who bent down before the material and spiritual sufferings of man in order to heal them...

“God, ‘rich in mercy’ (Eph 2:4), like the father in the Gospel parable (cf. Lk 15:11-32), does not close his heart to any of his children, but waits for them, looks for them, reaches them where their rejection of communion imprisons them in isolation and division, and calls them to gather around his table, in the joy of the feast of forgiveness and reconciliation. A time of suffering, in which one could be tempted to abandon oneself to discouragement and hopelessness, can thus be transformed into a time of grace so as to return to oneself, and like the prodigal son of the parable, to think anew about one’s life, recognizing its errors and failures, longing for the embrace of the Father, and following the pathway to his home. He, in his great love, always and everywhere watches over our lives and awaits us so as to offer to every child that returns to him the gift of full reconciliation and joy.”