Apr 27 Thu
St Josemaría was seriously ill. He, faithful to God's grace, rose to the occasion cultivating an abandonment into the hands of God. “Night would come, and I used to say: ‘Lord, I don't know whether I'll get up tomorrow. I thank you for whatever remaining span of life you may want to give me, and I am happy to die in your arms; I hope in your mercy.’ In the morning, upon awakening, the first thought would be the same.”

Then, on a feast of the Blessed Virgin of Montserrat, our Lord took away a large part of that cross from his shoulders, as if to make known that his most holy Mother had again been an efficacious intercessor.

The teaching is clear. We should never lose our joy in the face of illness. Rather, these situations must lead us to increase our trust in our Father God, to abandon ourselves in his hands in the certainty that, come what may in our lives, our Lord wants, or permits, it for our spiritual and eternal good: Omnia in bonum! As St Josemaría wrote: “Christian optimism is not a sugary optimism; nor is it a mere human confidence that everything will turn out all right.”

It is an optimism that sinks its roots in an awareness of our freedom, and in the sure knowledge of the power of grace. It is an optimism which leads us to make demands on ourselves, to struggle to respond at every moment to God's calls.

Ask the Blessed Virgin, Salus infirmorum - Health of the sick and Consolatrix afflictorum - Comfort of the afflicted, for all the persons in our family who are suffering in body or soul, so that she may console them and obtain for them the grace to love those sufferings, which identify us so much with Christ.
Image: Mare de Déu de Montserrat, 12th century.