Pilgrimage of the Sick, Aylesford

Last week I was asked by our Prior to preside and preach at the annual sick pilgrimage organised by the Society of Our Lady of Lourdes. I don't normally write out a homily, just notes and jottings from my understanding of the scripures and further reading around the subject at hand. Here are my notes for Sunday's sermon in a readable form. This not how the homily was delivered, but the structure around which I built my input

Assumption of BVM & Anointing of the sick

The proclaiming of the assumption of Mary in 1950 by Pope Pius XII, was the Churches response to the ravages of both World Wars in the first half of the twentieth century. For those living at the time, the terrors and carnage of the wars was like the apocalypse. Tens of millions were lost in trenches and on fields. The final horrors of concentration camps and holocaust bombings of cities including Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also involving millions, though technological triumphs, were human catastrophes. There were lots of dead bodies across Europe, Africa and the Pacific. Human life seemed very cheap and expendable. It was as if human beings, as bodily creatures, were very insignificant.
That is NOT what Christians believe about human beings! Despite today’s situations, where AIDS, war, famine, poverty and various forms of oppression take their toll on human bodies and souls, the body is not an embarrassment or a burden. For centuries in the early Church, heresies denied the goodness of the body. With that kind of thinking, the Incarnation, the coming to flesh of Jesus, would not make sense. In the book of Genesis, God created human beings in his own image and likeness. Jesus took on human form: the body, thinking, language and culture of a man living twenty centuries ago. Through him we learned that flesh, the body, is destined for glory.
Jesus’ body showed the marks of his life: his work hands, travelled feet, scourged and scarred back, major wounds. After the resurrection, his body seemed different; the scars and wounds became signs of victory and glory, “shining stars.” The resurrection of Jesus showed that death does not rule or have the last word. It signals an affirmation of the body, speaks of the vision of human dignity accorded to the body. In the resurrection (which had to happen first, so that others would follow) and assumption, we see the truth about human beings, the truth about ourselves: we see our destiny.
The Feast of the Assumption, then, is a celebration of the truth about human beings: we are God’s beloved creatures, rescued and saved, forgiven and healed by Jesus, who is the way to “paradise”, the one who re-opened its gates. In God’s eyes we are beautiful creations, summoned into God every day. …
The Assumption reminds us that life, and faith, is an experience or encounter with the risen Christ, the embodied God (John Paul II). It recalls our great dignity and destiny. Death is not the final word for human beings. The Assumption is one of the least understood of Catholic celebrations. Even the name seems a bit of a mouthful and a mystery!
I would like you all to take a moment and look at the people around you. What do you see? Humanity comes in many shapes, sizes and experiences. In each one of us Christ has made his home. In each one of us the gospel, the ‘Good News’ of Jesus is written deep in our hearts. Each one of us is an expression of how much God is in love with the world, each one of us is God’s gift to the human family.
Henri Nouwen the writer and priest wrote about the precious gift of life that we all receive. He said it is not precious because it is unchangeable like a diamond but because it is vulnerable like a little bird.

To love and experience life means to love its vulnerability even when it challenges us. Being vulnerable means asking for care, attention, guidance and support.

Sometimes we feel it would be better if we were like a diamond. Unbreakable, always perfect and always with a sparkle but we are not like this, in fact we experience life in a very different way.

We are more like the world around us, which is vulnerable and breakable and challenged by day to day experiences. We experience cold and sickness, heartbreak and joy.
What is most challenging beyond these physical challenges is the experience of darkness and fear all that afflicts the heart and mind on life’s journey.

God did not create us as diamonds but more vulnerable creatures. It is remarkable to recall that God chose to share this human experience by becoming a child, an infant in the womb of Mary. God who we often picture like a diamond; one who is invulnerable, unbreakable, reflecting and full of light, choose to become a child and share life with us, the gift of life that he gave us.

He came to the sick and weak. He came to the vulnerable and those in need. He came to cast his light into the darkness of our lives and remind us of the gift of life and of its hidden promise.

God understands and knows us. With Mary, he says, "Do not be afraid, you have won God’s favour. Listen you are to conceive and bear a Son."

We must take these words to heart. They are the words of God who comes to join us in our lives and wishes to conceive within each one of us the Son of God who will lead us to joy. Even when we are suffering and in sorrow we can become like Mary, the mother of God.
This is the work of the Holy Spirit. God said to Mary, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the most high will cover you with his power."

All the sick must also look forward each day to be covered with the power of the Holy Spirit. Through sickness and illness we can offer a vulnerable life to God, in which the Son of God may be manifest.
Through the Anointing of the Sick the Holy Spirit comes upon those who are in need to be with them and help them in their needs.

Through the Anointing of the Sick the "power of the most high" touches those in need. No one who is anointed goes away empty handed but rather like Mary each person is given the grace to conceive within themselves the healing and loving Son of God.