“A beautiful smile”, Showing God’s “tender love” among Ways to Foster Hope in Patients: Vicar General in Kenyan Diocese

Today, the Kenyan Vicar General said, “We are being reminded by the Pope that we must become a true gift to the sick. Spend your time being a gift; spend your resources being a gift; spend your energy being a gift; give them a beautiful smile.”

He emphasized, “We are called to give patients a healing smile. Don’t scare the sick; the more we scare them, the more we become like witches.”

Fr. Okinyo reflected on the creation story in the book of Genesis and urged medical practitioners to always see the image and likeness of God in the sick.

“When a patient comes to you that is the image and likeness of God coming to you. In other words, God is coming to you as a patient—to be cared for and to feel love from you—because you know you are ministering to God,” he said.

He continued, “When I take food to the sick, I am feeding God because men and women are made in the image and likeness of God. The suffering gives us a special gift. Yet, some of us, instead of being a gift, become an embarrassment or a disappointment.”

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The Vicar General in Homa Bay Diocese emphasized God’s closeness to the suffering, adding that medical practitioners can serve as His representatives by sharing, living with the sick, engaging in conversation, offering counsel, and providing for their needs to foster hope.

By attending to the sick with love, he said, medical practitioners will be faithfully responding to the Gospel of Matthew 25: “When I was sick, you visited me; when I was hungry, you gave me food; when I was thirsty, you gave me water…”

“Sharing even our time is important,” Fr. Okinyo said and lamented, “The problem we have is that many of us have become self-centred; we go for what pleases us; we go for our joy, not the joy of the suffering.”

The occasion of the 33rd World Day of the Sick, he said, is not for medical practitioners and others involved in the care for the sick to “celebrate sickness but to celebrate our response to the needs of the sick so that we can respond accurately to the needs of our suffering brothers.”

“We are called to enable the sick to feel the tender love of God through our unworthy hands”, the Vicar General in Homa Bay Diocese reiterated in his February 11 homily.

He went on to urge medical practitioners and those attending to the sick to have a meaningful encounter with their patients to give them hope.

Meaningful encounters, the Kenyan Catholic Priest said, are manifested in visiting the sick, praying with them, sharing with them words of encouragement, addressing the concerns of the sick, and giving them medicine so that they remain hopeful.

“We have so much going on in our society,” he said, adding, “People are dying; people are fighting’ people are killing one another, not because they hate them, but because of hopelessness.”

“This is why I want to encourage each one of us to accompany them by giving them hope. People respond to the tender love of God depending on how we treat them,” the Vicar General of Homa Bay Diocese said on February 11, the World Day of the Sick. 

St. John Paul II instituted the World Day of the Sick in 1992 “to encourage the people of God, Catholic health institutions and civil society to be increasingly attentive to the sick and to those who care for them.”

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Silas Mwale Isenjia is a Kenyan journalist with a great zeal and interest for Catholic Church related communication. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Linguistics, Media and Communication from Moi University in Kenya. Silas has vast experience in the Media production industry. He currently works as a Journalist for ACI Africa.