“And Jesus said to them, ‘I ask you, is it lawful on the sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?’” (Luke 6:11).
I recently came across a story about the origin of the hospices of Saint Cottolengo.
Saint Giuseppe Benedetto Cottolengo was an Italian priest who lived in the 19th century. One day – in September 1827 – a poor French woman, who was pregnant, was travelling from Milan to Lyon with her family when she became very sick. In her weakened state, the woman knocked on the door of the parish for which Saint Giuseppe was the priest. Knowing that she was gravely ill, Saint Giuseppe immediately took the woman to the hospital. However, because the woman was French and the hospital was in Italy, the hospital refused to admit or treat the woman. The Saint travelled to other hospitals and hospices in the region seeking care for the woman, but one after the other, they turned her away because she was a foreigner. Finally, after a long and painful death, the woman died in Saint Giuseppe’s arms.
It was in that moment – as that woman died – that the Saint decided to devote his life to caring for the helpless, the destitute, orphans and those people who experience physical and mental illnesses. And today, the hospices of Saint Cottolengo are operational around the entire world.
And I have been reflecting on that story of that Saint as I have been reflecting on the actions of my Beloved… “On another sabbath, when He entered the synagogue and taught, a man was there whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and the Pharisees watched Him, to see whether He would heal on the sabbath, so that they might find an accusation against Him. But He knew their thoughts, and He said to the man who had the withered hand, ‘Come and stand here.’ And he rose and stood there. And Jesus said to them, ‘I ask you, is it lawful on the sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?’” (Luke 6:6-11).
You see, though the man did not ask for a miracle because perhaps he had given up hope of a cure, and yet – even despite that – Christ came to that man and cured him anyway... And I have been thinking about that miracle today because in my own life there are some areas where I have lost hope of a cure. There are the problems that are so entrenched in my mind that they are part of my life and I do not even bother trying to pray about them.
And as I reflect on this today, it occurs to me how wrong I am. For in this way, I have placed LIMITS on God who is LIMITLESS… There is no problem that God cannot solve and no illness that He cannot use for my greater good.
And thinking of that today, I have simply got to marvel. For God came to earth twenty centuries ago to perform that miracle for the man who did not ask, just so that I could understand today, that He is always there – HELPING…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.