World Day of the Sick Celebration
Photo Gallery of Event
Dublin Diocese Celebration of "World Day of the Sick"
St. Gabriel’s will have the honour of hosting the 25th annual World Day of the Sick Celebration for the Dublin Diocese.
Concelebrated Mass and blessing of the Sick with Archbishop Diarmuid Martin will be at 3pm.
The parish looks forward to welcoming those who are sick and those who care for them to celebrate this special Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Mass of World Day of the Sick 2017.
This welcome is extended to the sick, those who care for them, parishioners from our own parish, our Cluster parishes of St. John the Baptist and St. Anthony’s and the care institutions in our local area. We especially look forward to welcoming the sick and their carers, from all over the Archdiocese who will attend this very special Twenty-Fifth Diocesan celebration of World Day of the Sick.
The World Day of the Sick Candle
The Icon which is an interpretation of the Resurrection of Jairus’ daughter, inspired by Fr. Peter Murphy of the Diocesan World Day of the Sick Committee and written by an iconographer by the name of Fabrizio Diomedi.
The Icon representing the love and care for the sick and carers of the sick draws on Biblical passages from Saint Mark, Saint Matthew and Saint Luke and on the symbol for Dublin Diocesan World Day of the Sick celebrations of a Biblical scene of Jesus reaching out and being reached out to. It was also inspired by the Scenes of Healing displayed in the Tallaght Hospital Chapel, Dublin.
There is a movement of mercy, love, care, response, attention, respect, reaching out and a seeking of mercy and help in the Icon.
Jairus, the leader of the synagogue approached and fell at the feet of Jesus and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death, Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live” and Jesus went with him to his home with Peter, James, and John and joined and gathered with Jairus and his wife and their daughter in the family home, - taking the child’s hand and restoring her to life.
The World Day of the Sick, inaugurated by Saint John Paul II, was first celebrated on 11 February 1993, (link to message Pope John Paul II, First Annual World Day of the Sick) the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. It is an occasion during which the Church throughout the world is invited to focus on her mission to give witness to the love of God towards all who suffer and to those who care for them. Pope Francis in his message for World Day of the Sick use the link already on the website for the full message given on 8th December,2016 the feast of The Immaculate Conception. In his message, Pope Francis announced the theme of this year’s celebration as:
Pope Francis in his message also mentioned specifically the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary:
“On this Twenty-fifth World Day of the Sick, I once more offer my prayerful support and encouragement to physicians, nurses, volunteers and all those consecrated men and women committed to serving the sick and those in need. I also embrace the ecclesial and civil institutions working to this end, and the families who take loving care of their sick. I pray that all may be ever joyous signs of the presence of God’s love and imitate the luminous testimony of so many friends of God, including Saint John of God and Saint Camillus de’ Lellis, the patrons of hospitals and healthcare workers, and Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta, missionary of God’s love.
Dear brothers and sisters – the sick, healthcare workers and volunteers – I ask you to join me in praying to Mary. May her maternal intercession sustain and accompany our faith, and obtain for us from Christ her Son hope along our journey of healing and of health, a sense of fraternity and responsibility, a commitment to integral human development and the joy of feeling gratitude whenever God amazes us by his fidelity and his mercy.”
Pope Francis ended his message:
Mary, our Mother,
in Christ you welcome each of us as a son or daughter.
Sustain the trusting expectation of our hearts,
succour us in our infirmities and sufferings,
and guide us to Christ, your Son and our brother.
Help us to entrust ourselves to the Father who accomplishes great things.
Papal Quotes from Saint John Paul II, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Pope Francis
“The annual celebration of the “World Day of the Sick”, therefore, has the manifest purpose of making the People of God and, as a consequence, the many Catholic health care institutions and civil society itself, more aware of the necessity of ensuring the best possible care for the infirm, of helping the sick person to make the most of suffering, on the human level, but most of all on the supernatural one, of especially helping the Dioceses, Christian communities and religious families to be involved in the health care apostolate, of enhancing the ever more valuable commitment of volunteers, of reminding people of the importance of the spiritual and moral training of health care workers and, last of all, of creating a better understanding of the importance of religious care for the sick among diocesan and religious priests, as well as among those who live and work at the side of the person in pain.” (Saint John Paul II, 13th May, 1992 establishing World day of the Sick)
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It is not surprising that Mary, Mother and model of the Church, is invoked and venerated as ‘Salus infirmorum, Health of the sick’. As the first and perfect disciple of her Son, in guiding the Church on her journey she has always shown special solicitude for the suffering. … On the Memorial of the apparitions in Lourdes, where Mary chose to manifest her maternal solicitude for the sick, the Liturgy appropriately echoes the Magnificat…which is not the canticle of one upon whom fortune smiles, rather it is the thanksgiving of one who knows the hardships of life but trusts in God's redemptive work…. The Church, like Mary, preserves within her the tragedies of humankind and the
consolation of God, she keeps them together on the pilgrimage through history…. Suffering, when accepted and offered up, and solidarity, when sincere and selfless: are these not perhaps miracles of love?” (Benedict XVI, 11th February 2010)
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The Magnificat, it is the song of hope, it is the song of the People of God walking through history. […] The Church too sings this in every part of the world. This song is particularly strong in places where the Body of Christ is suffering the Passion. For us Christians, wherever the Cross is, there is hope, always. If there is no hope, we are not Christian. That is why I like to say: do not allow yourselves to be robbed of hope. May we not be robbed of hope, because this strength is a grace, a gift from God which carries us forward with our eyes fixed on heaven. And Mary is always there, near those communities, our brothers and sisters, she accompanies them, suffers with them, and sings the Magnificat of hope with them.” (Pope Francis, Homily 15th August 2013)