Welcoming Christ the Physician

Have mercy on me, O God, in your great kindness.

Let us imagine a man seriously injured and gasping for his last draughts of life-giving air.  Lying naked on a rubbish heap, he points to his still unbandaged wounds; he longs for a doctor to come, and in his distress begs for pity.  Sin is the soul's wound.  You who are wounded, recognize in your hearts who your physician is and uncover to him the wounds of your sins.  May he who knows every secret thought hear the groaning of your hearts.  Let your suffering reach him, so that to you also it may be said:  The Lord has taken away your sin.  Cry out with David - see how he speaks:  Have mercy on me, O God, in your great kindness.  It is as if he were saying:  I am in peril from a great wound which no physician can heal, unless the omnipotent physician comes to my aid.  No wound is beyond his power of healing; he heals without asking a fee, he restores health by a mere word.  I should despair of my wound did I not rely on the Almighty.  Have mercy on me, O God, in your great kindness.

Saint Gregory the Great

-Saint Gregory of the Great (604) was one of the most important popes and influential writers of the Middle Ages.