The compassion of Jesus toward the sick and his many healings of the infirm were a clear sign that with him had come the Kingdom of God and therefore victory over sin, over suffering, and over death. By his own passion and death he gave new meaning to our suffering which, when united with his own, can become a means of purification and of salvation for us and for others.
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1503. Christ's compassion toward the sick and his many healings of every kind of infirmity are a resplendent sign that "God has visited his people"103and that the Kingdom of God is close at hand. Jesus has the power not only to heal, but also to forgive sins;104he has come to heal the whole man, soul and body; he is the physician the sick have need of.105His compassion toward all who suffer goes so far that he identifies himself with them: "I was sick and you visited me."106His preferential love for the sick has not ceased through the centuries to draw the very special attention of Christians toward all those who suffer in body and soul. It is the source of tireless efforts to comfort them.
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1504. Often Jesus asks the sick to believe.107He makes use of signs to heal: spittle and the laying on of hands,108mud and washing.109The sick try to touch him, "for power came forth from him and healed them all."110and so in the sacraments Christ continues to "touch" us in order to heal us.
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1505. Moved by so much suffering Christ not only allows himself to be touched by the sick, but he makes their miseries his own: "He took our infirmities and bore our diseases."111But he did not heal all the sick. His healings were signs of the coming of the Kingdom of God. They announced a more radical healing: the victory over sin and death through his Passover. On the cross Christ took upon himself the whole weight of evil and took away the "sin of the world,"112of which illness is only a consequence. By his passion and death on the cross Christ has given a new meaning to suffering: it can henceforth configure us to him and unite us with his redemptive Passion.
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