Divine Mercy: The Heart of the Gospel

138 Divine Mercy: The Heart Of The Gospel Church’s continuing praise and proclamation o f the Savior’s love, but they have a particular power to enliven and to inspire the Church’s preaching o f the Gospel o f Life to the world of the sick and suffering, the world o f healthcare providers and healers. Healthcare and medicine have become increasingly technologized at the expense o f healing, and the services o f medical professionals have come to be seen as com­ modities whose value is to be estimated in terms o f the “bottom line” and “cost analysis.” Christ the King of Mercy, Christ our Savior, has reminded us that mercy does not modify killing, and suffering does not deny significance. The world of medicine has witnessed and, in spite of its origins and its high ideals, has participated in the depersonalization of the patient and the consequent dehumanization o f the caregiver. Furthermore, the rapid approval of various new therapies, protocols, and methodologies, without sufficient moral-ethical reflection has often aggravated the complex moral dilemmas faced by caregivers and fami­ lies every day. It is in this context that our Church is being challenged to translate the truths o f the Gospel o f Life, the good news o f Mercy, into the language and the experience of those who dedicate themselves to the care o f the sick and suffering. Now, this mission is neither new nor recently discovered. The physical and spiritual care o f the sick has always been seen as an integral part o f the Church’s mission; it express­ es corporally the works o f mercy. Indeed, our theological reflection on service to the suffering, as the most perfect realization o f the command­ ment o f Christ to love, looks immediately to the example of Christ Himself and to the experience of the apostolic Church. And in our world today, at last count, over twenty-one-thousand, seven-hundred and fifty- seven Catholic healthcare institutions, hospitals, clinics and allied ser­ vices continue this ministry. This is a fact that very few Catholics rec­ ognize. The Catholic Church is the largest single provider of healthcare services in the entire world. This is the way in which the Mercy o f Christ is poured out through His Body Mystical, through the Church, into the bodies and the souls o f the living and the dying. In our century, in this age, the Lord o f Mercy has made two great gifts. In the hierarchical order of the Church our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, has presented the realities and implications o f a culture o f death, which is the only alternative to the Gospel o f Life. In the charismatic order, Sister Faustina o f the Most Blessed Sacrament was a woman whose profound experience o f the open Heart o f Christ committed her