Meeting with the Elderly and Sick of Gabon (18 February 1982)

On Thursday, 18 February 1982, the Holy Father met with the elderly and sick people of Gabon at the Episcopal Residence of Libreville, asked that they pray for vocations.   

I must address the categories of people who are present in this house: the first category, it is you, because I see you at this moment. You were introduced by the Archbishop. I see with you the communities of priests, of men and women religious; I see with you the family of Gabon, the African family that has preserved this profound value everywhere. I see in you the sequence of generations: elders, old people, adults, then parents, young people and also... the little ones in the arms of their parents. I will give you my blessing. And I want to add a word to this second community that is found in this house: they are the sick. Perhaps your neighbours, who know, members of your family, are here, assisted by the religious, the men and priests, and the Archbishop. I passed between them and met one who showed a note: in this note it is written: "I am blind. I do not see you with my eyes, but with my heart.” I am moved by these words and I say: my dear blind brother, you have given me a profound lesson of the Gospel, because it is so; we see Our Lord with our faith, with our heart, and the Lord himself has told us that the pure heart sees God in his divinity and, above all, he sees God in his neighbor, sees God in the world, although he is blind.

What can I wish you in this meeting, especially you, my dear sick, blind and others who suffer from any disease? I wish you precisely what, this evening, my blind brother expressed in his note: I hope that you can see with your neighbour your neighbour, your brothers and sisters, those who suffer and also those who are together to see with the same heart, with a pure heart, with the heart of faith, to see Jesus, to see God. And whoever can see God with his heart, with the inner eyes of faith, is happy, though he is blind and also sick.

My dear brothers and sisters, the Archbishop also stressed that we must pray for vocations. Everywhere I see this problem. I will say that I see above all the problem of vocations. It is the urgent problem of your Church. For this reason, you must pray for vocations, all of you: families, priests, religious, bishops and especially you who are sick, because you also pray without saying prayers. You pray with your sufferings and your prayer has great strength. This prayer can also impe to you difficult, spiritual goods; priestly-religious vocations are such a good, especially in weak societies in their external life, in the life of success and permissiveness. Then I prayed for this.

To you, my dear sick people, I leave my heart, so that the heart of a Bishop, of the Bishop of Rome, may always be a believer, deeply believing, and continue to bring the faith to all his brothers and sisters, to confirm them in faith as Jesus once said to St. Peter.

Pray for you, for the Church and for the world: pray with your words and with your sufferings. Receive my blessing and also that of your bishops.

Copyright  Dicastero per la Comunicazione - Libreria Editrice Vaticana