The New Zealand Tablet WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1925. CATHOLIC HOSPITALS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 37, 30 September 1925, Page 33

The New Zealand Tablet WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1925. CATHOLIC HOSPITALS

THE strenuous efforts to establish a Lewisham Hospital in Wellington, which are being put forward by a hand of earnest Catholics to whom charity is more than a name, must command the wholehearted support of their co-religionists generally throughout the Dominion. Those who assist will be helping the Church to carry on a work which she herself originated, a work which cannot be carried out completely under any influence other than hers. The fact that the Hierarchy, led by our beloved Metropolitan, Archbishop Redwood, have identified themselves with the project should be a sufficient guarantee that the need for it is urgent and that its direction is in capable and trustworthy hands.- It only remains, therefore, for Catholics to do their part and shoulder .their burden of charity.

When Our Lord was on earth He exercised His divine charity by giving health to sinstricken souls, and frequently He manifested it by healing afflicted bodies. He forgave sins and cleansed the lepers He cast out devils and gave sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf He worked a miracle to feed the hungry on the mountain and He forgave the public sinner Magdalen because she had loved much. Hence, charity was his text and good works the manifestation of it. He left an example which the Church He founded could not ignore; and she, true to her trust, has always manifested her charity towards God’s creatures by relieving suffering to the extent of her power. When she first looked upon the world there was no such tiring as public beneficence. The spirit of the age may be judged from the regulation of the Council of Vaison in the year 442, which decreed ecclesiastical censure against those who disturbed by importunate reproaches charitable persons who had received children, “for,” adds the canon, “these children were exposed to be eaten by dogs.” The Church laid the foundation of organised.

public beneficence by attacking. the harsh ideas . which existed in men’s minds and thus bringing about a general softening of manners. But she did not allow the matter to rest there: she took the lead in the practical work of organising the community to the end that the alleviation of hardship was to a great extent carried out by social effort. The care of the sick is a duty which she always has undertaken with the greatest of zeal, considering it as one of her own peculiar duties to assist the unfortunate. At one time her bishops were looked upon as the protectors and natural inspectors of beneficent establishments, and a law existed which placed hospitals under their charge. Thence it comes that that class ,of charitable institution has always occupied a distinguished place in canonical legislation. In all her corporal works of mercy, however, her first concern is for the spiritual welfare of the afflicted. To her mind the care of the body is as nothing if it does not include the care of the soul. At the Reformation her establishments were destroyed and her systems of mercy abolished by law, and when they reappeared in a Jater day it was merely as State departments established and maintained for secular purposes only. Now if there is one place more than another where religion should he the predominating influe nee it is at the bedside of a sick Christian. \ cry often it is only when he is brought near to death that man begins to realise his utter dependence upon a good and merciful God. The Church has always realised that during tin? time of suffering he is more apt to be properly disposed to pray and receive the strengthening graces that come through the sincere reception of the Sacraments. It is fitting, therefore, that not only should sick persons be given every opportunity of putting themselves right with God in the first place, hut their obligations in this respect should be urged upon them and their spiritual progress tactfully directed by those who attend them. It is just hero that the essential nature of the Catholic hospital is most apparent. The secular hospitals are well-ordered institutions with tv horn the care of the body is the first and only concern. In tire Catholic hospital the same skillful attention is given the body as would bo given in the secular institution by those who are servants of Christ before they are qapable nurses or learned doctors. This placing of the spiritual before the material, tlie eternal before the temporal, exercises a beneficent effect upon the physical condition of the patient, for when he makes his peace with God his mind is at rest, and his body, therefore, will respond more easily to the treatment of the physician.

From every point of view the project of a Catholic hospital for Wellington should be supported with enthusiasm. The institutions at present controlled by the Lewisham Sisters have won golden opinions from people of all classes and creeds, and many doctors have testified to the efficient manner in which they are conducted. The Sisters are rare nurses, as indeed well might they be, for have they not given up everything which human beings hold dear in order to become co-workers with Christ, the Divine Healer.