Rare Disease Day is an annual event to raise awareness for the 300 million people worldwide living with a rare condition. In our family, two of our young adult children deal daily with the challenges of an ultra-rare disease. Today’s gospel passage may seem far removed from the focus on rare diseases, but it resonates deeply for us.

People living with rare diseases—and their families—often encounter isolation, misunderstanding, and invisibility. Their lives are marked by delayed diagnoses, scarce treatments, insurance barriers, and social isolation. These are not personal enemies but are structural forces and indifference that wound and exclude.

Jesus challenges us to expand our love beyond reciprocity: “If you love those who love you, what reward will you have?” Likewise, Rare Disease Day challenges us to see, listen to, and advocate for people who may never be able to “give back” in conventional ways. We have been so blessed to experience this kind of love.

Throughout the years, many people, including strangers, have touched our hearts deeply by the way they see our children for the people they are and not the disease that they have. They have shown us a love that mirrors God’s own: attentive, faithful, and unconditional. A love without expectation of reward.

Jesus’ call to “be perfect” can feel impossible. But we can strive towards this perfection through concrete acts: funding research that benefits small populations, accompanying families through long medical journeys, spending time with a medically fragile person to give caregivers a break, or seeing a child dealing with the challenges of a rare disease and listening to them without hurry.

Rare Disease Day reminds us that holiness is not abstract. It is found in choosing empathy over convenience, advocacy over silence, and steadfast love in the face of diseases that the world too often overlooks.