Meditation on Our Beloved Malades as Burden-Bearers

I have been thinking about our beloved Malades lately. I have been thinking about them a lot, actually. The cause of this is that I am at the moment experiencing what our beloved doctors like to call “a little discomfort”. You know that means: it’s going to hurt like …..! Along with this discomfort has come a string of medical tests, each more drastic than the last, and each inconclusive. So many have asked me how I am and if they can do anything, and that is a blessing and a comfort. But here is the harsh truth: no one – no matter how much they love you – can carry the burden of your pain and suffering. Illness is an entirely personal journey. And that brings me to those whom we as Members of the Order of Malta serve – our Malades.

When we travel to Lourdes each year with the sick in our company, we are organized in the best military fashion.  We are assigned to a sick person; we know our duties for that day toward that person. The assignments are clear. And being good soldiers, we rush to the task. We have the checklist of where to be and what to wear. We know what is next on the agenda for the day. Many of us have done this year after year, and so it is almost routine to us. As anyone will testify, we do our task very efficiently. We work hard at it!

But there is one thing none of us can do: we cannot put ourselves in the shoes of that sick person and the intense and personal journey through sickness. Only they can walk that path. In this moment of my own small testing (it is minor, I assure you!) I think of those Malades and know that being efficient in our work with them is important, but first in importance is realizing the stark loneliness of their current journey. Only then do we stand next to those carts and efficiently and humbly pull and push our sick ones to the baths, and to the Mass of Anointing and to the Grotto of Lourdes. We fall silent before their profound experience and we listen to them speak. We give the cool cup of water. And in them we know Christ is near: Jesus – the only one who actually did take our burden upon himself and suffered in our place.