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| For Bon Secours "healing" is understood it its broadest sense; it is not confined to healing in traditional areas in health care. To heal means to "make whole" - physically, spiritually, psychologically, socially, materially and intellectually. This broad meaning is found first of all in the word "salvation", the root of which is "healing". Salvation and healing are one. |
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"The original
constitutions of the Sisters of Bon Secours (1824) simply and forthrightly state these to
be the primary aims the congregation: "to care for and tend the sick; to introduce
religion and salvation into the houses of the rich and the poor especially in their last
moments" (1824 Article 1). They state else-where: "Charity formed the
congregation to procure the relief of the body and as far as possible the salvation of
souls. And the last is the extreme and principle end". (1825, Articles 4 & 5). In
today's language, the extreme and principle end of Bon Secours is to bring to those who
suffer an awareness of a God who loves them and who sent a "Savior" to free them
from whatever or whomever would deny them "wholeness". Hence, healing and spreading the Gospel is the responsibility of all Sisters of Bon Secours in their various ministries. These key facets of our Charism are not limited to a particular ministry. The Bon Secours charism requires us to practice these two aspects of the mission of Jesus which were courageously assumed by the first sisters of Bon Secours in their mission of healing/"making whole"; compassion/justice - to make right relationships; liberation - to make free . |
| We cannot simply understand this meaning of healing intellectually.
Healing which brings liberation and justice requires that what we do conforms with what we
believe and proclaim. If Jesus had proclaimed with his lips that God had sent him to heal,
while ignoring those most wounded in society, He would have been deprived of credibility
and power. Jesus' healing extended to justice. He saw social systems perpetrating all
kinds of sickness in people and Jesus sought to liberate them from such oppression. He
taught, by word and deed, a counter-thrust against prac-tices of His time which were
expressions of the power of darkness and which hindered the coming of God's Kingdom." (cf "Bon Secours' Justice is Compassion", May 1986) |
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