I WAS SICK AND YOU VISITED ME

ARTICLE 5 from the Catechism of the Catholic Church
1503 – 1506 Christ’s compassion toward the sick and suffering moved Him to accept our infirmities as His own. His preferential love has not ceased through the centuries and He continues to draw the very special attention of Christians toward all who suffer in body and soul. He invites His disciples to share in His ministry of compassion and healing.

Ministry to the Sick

Jesus spent much of his time on Earth ministering to and comforting people struggling with illness or injury. Here at St. Maximilian Kolbe, we follow in his footsteps by reaching out to the sick and injured in two ways, anointing those who are ill and bringing the Eucharist to people who are homebound, in nursing homes, or in the hospital.

Anointing of the Sick
Anointing of the sick is a sacrament that is offered to those undergoing serious illness or people who have grown weak under the burden of years. In our parish, if you wish to be anointed, please call the parish office and Fr. David will arrange a convenient time to visit you in your home, nursing home or hospital.

Eucharistic Ministry to the Sick
Celebrating the Eucharist is at the very heart of our faith. However, because of illness or injury, many of our fellow Catholics cannot join in the celebration. To ensure that these community members stay connected to us and can receive the Eucharist, St. Max Eucharistic Ministers to the Sick will bring communion to your home, nursing home, or hospital.
If you or a loved one would like to have a Eucharistic Minister to the Sick visit, contact Kathy McGuinness, Pastoral Care Advocate, at 407-455-3404

Ministers to the Sick are trained and commissioned to represent our Church community by visiting and bringing the Holy Eucharist to those of our parish family who are sick, elderly or homebound and unable to be present at Mass. If interested in performing this ministry, please call Kathy McGuiness at 407-455-3404.

Prayer for the Sick
Dear Jesus, Divine Physician and Healer of the sick, we turn to you in this time of illness. O dearest comforter of the troubled, alleviate our worry and sorrow with your gentle love, and grant us the grace and strength to accept this burden. Dear God, we place our worries in your hands. We place our sick under your care and humbly ask that you restore your servant to health again. Above all, grant us the grace to acknowledge your will and know that whatever you do, you do for the love of us. Amen.

Prayer in Time of Sickness or Trial
O good Jesus, I accept willingly this sickness [or trial] which it has pleased you to lay upon me. I confide all my pains to your Sacred Heart, and beg you to unite them with your bitter sufferings, and thus perfect them by making them your own.

Since I cannot render you the praise due to you because of the multitude of my sorrows and afflictions, I ask you to praise God the Father for all I suffer, with the same tribute of praise you offered him when your agony on the Cross was at its height.

As you thanked him with all the powers of your soul for all the sufferings and injustice which he willed you should endure, so, I pray you, give him thanks for my trials also. Offer my sufferings, physical and spiritual, to him together with your most holy pains to his eternal honor and glory. Amen.

Psalm for the Sick
O Lord, in your anger punish me not; in your wrath chastise me not. For your arrows have sunk deep in me; your hand has come down upon me. There is no health in my flesh because of your indignation; there is no wholeness in my bones because of my sin. For my iniquities have overwhelmed me; they are like a heavy burden, beyond my strength. Noisome and festering are my sores, because of my folly. I am stooped and bowed down profoundly; all the day I go in mourning. For my loins are filled with burning pains; there is no health in my flesh. I am numbed and severely crushed; I roar with anguish of heart. O Lord, all my desire is before you; from you my groaning is not hid. My heart throbs, my strength forsakes me; the very light of my eyes has failed me. For I am very near to falling; and my grief is with me always. Indeed, I acknowledge my guilt; I grieve over my sins. Forsake me not, O Lord,; my God be not far from me! Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation. Let me know, O Lord, my end and what is the number of my days, that I may learn how frail I am. A short span you have made my days, and my life is as nought before you; only a breath is any human existence. Hear my prayer, O Lord, to my cry give ear; to my weeping be not deaf! For I am but a wayfarer before you, a pilgrim like all my fathers. Turn you gaze from me that I may find respite, ere I depart and be no more.

Taken from Psalms 37 and 38