Old Testament
Job 29:15-16
15 I was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame.
16 I was a father to the needy. I researched the cause of him whom I didn’t know.
Common Good
Research for Rare and Neglected Diseases
Scripture References
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Mark 1:40-42
40 A leper came to him, begging him, kneeling down to him, and saying to him, “If you want to, you can make me clean.”
41 Being moved with compassion, he stretched out his hand, and touched him, and said to him, “I want to. Be made clean.”
42 When he had said this, immediately the leprosy departed from him and he was made clean.
Thought for the Day
Job remembers the shape of a just life in public: “I was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame.” He sought out the cause of those he did not know. He did not wait for need to become loud enough to demand attention. He went looking.
Mark gives us a man who has become a kind of untouchable. A leper kneels and begs: “If you will, you can make me clean.” And Jesus answers with a word that is both simple and astonishing: “I will.” He touches the man. Willingness becomes healing.
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Rare and neglected diseases often live in the shadows: hard to diagnose, expensive to research, easy for systems to overlook. Families can feel they are shouting into fog. Scripture teaches us to seek out what is hidden and to ask the Lord for willingness: to see, to fund, to study, to care.
Lord Jesus, make us willing. Give researchers insight and perseverance, and give decision-makers courage to prioritise those who are few in number but precious in worth. Comfort those living with rare illness, and those who love them. And teach your Church to seek out the forgotten, as those whom you are glad to touch.
Prayer Points
Respond- Give breakthroughs in research for rare and neglected diseases; grant insight, funding, and collaboration.
- Comfort patients and families living with long uncertainty; provide good diagnosis, support, and community.
- Strengthen clinicians to listen carefully and persist when answers are hard to find.
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- Give policymakers courage to value small populations and long timelines without neglect.
- Make the Church attentive to hidden suffering, quick to visit, pray, and accompany.