On Wednes­day, we will ob­serve In­ter­na­tion­al Well­ness Day, which aims to pro­mote aware­ness and ac­tion for holis­tic well-be­ing. The UN re­minds us that the 2030 Agen­da for Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment em­pha­sis­es “health and well-be­ing as cen­tral to achiev­ing sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment. Goal 3, Good Health and Well-Be­ing, aims to en­sure healthy lives and pro­mote well-be­ing for all at all ages, ad­dress­ing key chal­lenges such as ma­ter­nal and child health, com­mu­ni­ca­ble and non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases, and ac­cess to es­sen­tial med­i­cines and vac­cines. This tar­get al­so high­lights the im­por­tance of men­tal health, uni­ver­sal health cov­er­age, and the re­duc­tion of health in­equities to build re­silient and in­clu­sive so­ci­eties.”

The phrase: “The great­est wealth is health” is at­trib­uted to the po­et Vir­gil. Well­ness mat­ters! It is mul­ti­di­men­sion­al. The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) de­fines well­ness as “the op­ti­mal state of health of in­di­vid­u­als and groups.”

Ac­cord­ing to the WHO, well­ness has two car­di­nal con­cerns—the achieve­ment of in­di­vid­u­als’ fullest po­ten­tials phys­i­cal­ly, psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly, so­cial­ly, spir­i­tu­al­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly, and car­ry­ing out in­di­vid­u­als’ ex­pec­ta­tion in the fam­i­ly, com­mu­ni­ty, place of wor­ship, work­place and oth­er set­tings. Link this to the WHO’s de­f­i­n­i­tion of “health: “a state of com­plete phys­i­cal, men­tal and so­cial well-be­ing and not mere­ly the pres­ence of dis­ease or in­fir­mi­ty.”

For Catholics, the con­cept of “well­ness” is in­ex­tri­ca­bly linked to our vi­sion of the hu­man per­son. 1 Corinthi­ans 6:19 states: “Do you not know that your body is a tem­ple of the Holy Spir­it?”

While we have a moral re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to look af­ter our bod­ies, our Cat­e­chism (CCC362) tells us: “The hu­man per­son, cre­at­ed in the im­age of God, is a be­ing at once cor­po­re­al and spir­i­tu­al.”

The writer, Paula Rose Parish, a for­mer athe­ist of 21 years, Protes­tant pas­tor for over 40 years, and now a Catholic con­vert, writes: “From a the­o­log­i­cal per­spec­tive, we might de­fine well­ness this way: Well­ness is the har­mo­nious in­te­gra­tion of body, mind, and soul, lived in right re­la­tion­ship with God, oth­ers, and one­self, and or­dered to­ward ho­li­ness and love...

“Catholic the­ol­o­gy of­fers some­thing deep­er and more in­te­grat­ed—a vi­sion of well­ness root­ed not mere­ly in self-care, but in com­mu­nion with God, oth­ers, and one­self...no amount of phys­i­cal or men­tal well­ness can sub­sti­tute for spir­i­tu­al health. The soul is nour­ished through: Prayer...,The Sacra­ments—es­pe­cial­ly the Eu­charist and Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, Scrip­ture..., and Virtue—habits that or­der our de­sires to­ward love...

“Catholic well­ness is not about per­fec­tion or pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. It is about whole­ness, heal­ing, and ho­li­ness...Catholic the­ol­o­gy does not equate well­ness with the ab­sence of suf­fer­ing. Catholic well­ness holds that suf­fer­ing, when unit­ed to Christ, can be­come a place of grace, trans­for­ma­tion, and com­pas­sion.”

In a world in which self­ish­ness and in­di­vid­u­al­ism are ob­sta­cles to build­ing com­mu­ni­ty, re­mem­ber—we were cre­at­ed to live in com­mu­ni­ty. We must be con­cerned about the well­ness of our neigh­bours, as well as of all God’s cre­ation. In his en­cycli­cal, Lauda­to Si’, on care for our com­mon home, Pope Fran­cis called for an in­te­gral ecol­o­gy, since every­thing is in­ter­con­nect­ed. Glob­al en­vi­ron­men­tal de­te­ri­o­ra­tion ad­verse­ly im­pacts our well­ness.

Je­sus com­mand­ed us to love God, love our neigh­bours, in­clud­ing our en­e­mies. Our Cat­e­chism 1766 states: “To love is to will the good of an­oth­er.”

Since we are called to see the “oth­er” as an­oth­er self, we have a du­ty to pro­mote the well­ness of oth­ers al­so. We can­not sit in our com­fort zones and ig­nore the plight of those whose “well­ness” is af­fect­ed by the rav­ages of con­flict and war.

An ar­ti­cle in the Jour­nal of Pre­ven­tive Med­i­cine and Hy­giene, en­ti­tled: War and Health: the dev­as­tat­ing im­pact of con­flict on Well-be­ing and Hu­man­i­tar­i­an Crises, makes dis­turb­ing read­ing. In­ter alia, it states: “The wars that have af­fect­ed var­i­ous parts of the world in re­cent years have had a detri­men­tal im­pact on health, lead­ing to mal­nu­tri­tion and an in­creased vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to epi­dem­ic dis­eases among the pop­u­la­tion, es­pe­cial­ly the poor­est.

Hos­pi­tals and health­care fa­cil­i­ties them­selves have be­come pri­ma­ry strate­gic tar­gets in many war zones. The de­struc­tion of in­fra­struc­ture and hos­pi­tals, along with chal­lenges in ob­tain­ing clean wa­ter and ac­cess to med­i­cines, has con­tributed to the resur­gence of epi­dem­ic dis­eases in coun­tries where they had been erad­i­cat­ed...Mas­sive dis­place­ments of peo­ple have un­der­mined san­i­ta­tion and waste man­age­ment sys­tems.”

As we re­flect on this im­por­tant is­sue, re­mem­ber that “well­ness is as­so­ci­at­ed with an ac­tive process of be­ing aware and mak­ing choic­es that lead to­ward an out­come of op­ti­mal holis­tic health and well-be­ing” (The Glob­al Well­ness In­sti­tute).

Let’s be proac­tive and re­view our own at­ti­tudes, be­hav­iours and lifestyles and en­cour­age each oth­er to em­brace pos­i­tive well­ness prac­tices.