On the 2019 World Day of the Sick we share a short reflection by Chiara Lubich on illness and the Focolare Movement’s communities where sick people are living. You know that the whole of our Christian life is revolutionary. It completely changes our way of thinking and goes against the flow. Now, looking at how sick people are considered in the world, we see that in some ways they are considered differently from healthy people, as if they were a separate category, especially if their illness is long term or incurable. Today’s society does not understand the value of suffering. It wants to forget about both suffering and death and so it marginalises the sick. This is something seriously anti-Christian because, of all marginalised people, Jesus Christ on the cross would really be number one. So these particular communities where sick people are living are of course like the others, but they are also special because of the fruit they bear and the witness they give to the world of what suffering means to a Christian. Suffering is a gift God gives to a person. These are not only words said to console ourselves or console the sick. All those who are not well are truly loved by God in a special way, because they are more like his Son. (Chiara Lubich, Perchè mi hai abbandonato?, 1997, pp.108-109)