Vatican City, Feb 12, 2006 / 22:00 pm
During his weekly Angelus prayer Sunday, given from his balcony above St. Peter‘s Square, Pope Benedict’s thoughts focused on Saturday’s 14th annual World Day of the Sick. He said that physical illness reminds humanity of its need for spiritual healing from Christ, whom he called the ‘true doctor of humanity.’
Before praying the Marian prayer, together with thousands of gathered pilgrims, the Holy Father said that "Sickness is such a typical characteristic of the human condition that it can even become a realistic metaphor thereof.”
He quoted St. Augustine, who, the Pope said, “expresses this well in one of his prayers: 'Have mercy on me, Lord! See, I do not hide my wounds from You. You are my doctor, I am the sick man.' …”
“Christ”, the Pope stressed, “is the true 'doctor' of humanity, Whom the heavenly Father sent into the world to cure mankind, marked in body and spirit by sin and the consequences of sin."