Jesus came in order to show God’s love. He often did this in places where we feel especially threatened: in the weakening of our life through sickness. God wants us to become well in body and soul and, therefore, to believe and to acknowledge the coming of God’s kingdom.
Sometimes a person has to become sick in order to recognise what we all – healthy or sick – need more than anything else: God. We have no life except in him. That is why sick people and sinners can have a special instinct for the essential things. Already in the New Testament it was precisely the sick people who sought the presence of Jesus: they tried “to touch him, for power came forth from him and healed them all” (Lk 6:19). The Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick can be received by any Catholic whose health is in a critical state.