Digital Continent Digital Continent Easter 2017 | Page 50

Suffering in this world is meant to lead God’s people to Him, “in my flesh I complete what is
lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his Body, that is, the Church.” 126 The perfected
taught that all manner of sin and suffering was due to the malign god, the god of all that is evil in
the world, escapable only through practicing the tenants of the Cathar church. God’s people who
suffer a physical illness unite themselves with the suffering servant, “He was oppressed, and he
was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a
sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth” (RSV, Is 53:7). To bear one’s
cross, is to bear the cross of Christ, “he who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life
for my sake will find it” (RSV, Mt 10:39). The sick, through the reception of this sacrament are
relieved and strengthened through the love of Christ, “arousing in him a great confidence in the
divine mercy, whereby being thus sustained he more easily bears the trials and the labors of his
sickness, more easily resists the temptations of the devil ‘lying in wait’ (Gen 3:15).” 127 This
healing sacrament, a gift of the holy Spirit, through the laying on of hands, prayers, anointed
126
St.Pius V, The Catechism of the Council of Trent, Trans., John A. McHugh, OP, Charles J. Callan, OP, (IL: Tan Books
and Publishers, Inc., 1982), no. 1508.
127
Pope Paul VI, Apostolic Constitution, Sacram Unctione Infirmorum: On The Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick,
November 30, 1972. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/apost_constitions/document, accessed February
19, 2012.