Sick and disabled people are the ‘precious treasure of the Church’

Sick and disabled people are the ‘precious treasure of the Church’

Pope Francis called for a Church that is “poor in means and rich in love” as he canonised two shepherd children who had witnessed apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Fátima a century ago, writes Christopher Lamb.

In front of a half million-strong crowd at the shrine in Portugal last Saturday morning, Francis said devotion to Mary should make Catholicism “missionary, welcoming, free, faithful” while emphasising that the message of Our Lady of Fátima was one of hope for those on the margins of society. “Under her mantle they are not lost; from her embrace will come the hope and the peace that they require, and that I implore for all my brothers and sisters in baptism and in our human family, especially the sick and the disabled, prisoners and the unemployed, the poor and the abandoned,” the Pope said.

Straight after the canonisation Mass, which many people had slept out overnight to attend, Francis greeted a group of sick and disabled pilgrims telling them they were “an asset to every Christian community”. He told them: “Your silent presence, which is more eloquent than a flood of words, your prayers, the daily offering of your sufferings in union with those of Jesus crucified for the salvation of the world, the patient and even joyful acceptance of your condition – all these are a spiritual resource, an asset to every Christian community. Do not be ashamed of being a precious treasure of the Church.”

The Pope likened them to the shepherd children, Jacinta and Francisco Marto, whom he had earlier declared saints: they witnessed the apparitions aged seven and nine, but then died a year later from the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. “Like the shepherd children, tell Our Lady that you want to offer yourselves to God with all your heart,” the Pope said.

During the first day of his pilgrimage to the Portuguese shrine on the Friday, Francis said the Virgin Mary is not a remote “plaster statue” figure restraining a vengeful God but someone who shows the “revolutionary nature” of love and tenderness.
During an earlier prayer service at the Chapel of the Apparitions, Francis made reference to the third secret of Fátima which was not revealed until 2000.

It talked about a “bishop dressed in white”, assumed to be the Pope, who is killed after coming under fire from bullets and arrows. “I gaze at your robe of light and, as a bishop robed in white, I call to mind all those who, robed in the splendour of their baptism, desire to live in God and tell the mysteries of Christ in order to obtain peace,” he prayed.

(For comprehensive coverage go to bit.do/tablet-fatima)