Yesterday, as I was proclaiming the Gospel at 6:30 am Mass, I was left wondering. The Gospel was about Jesus healing a man, both of his sin and of his physical illness, and how the people accused him of blasphemy because they couldn’t believe the man’s sins could be forgiven. I thought, “Why is it that people in Jesus’ time had such a hard time accepting that sins could be forgiven but seemed to have no difficulty accepting that miraculous physical healings could occur?”
It seems that in today’s world we have the opposite problem: we expect our sins forgiven readily and we have lost in many ways our sense of sin, but we have a tremendous problem accepting that God can physically heal us, that miracles of that sort can and do occur.
I think we should be praying often for physical healing along with healing of our souls. We are body/soul creatures. To be separated from the body is to die. Perhaps we need to more fully appreciate the holiness of our physicality. Perhaps we should realize our faith encompasses health of both soul and body.
Why do you think the Church speaks so eloquently of the need to care for the physical needs of the people? Why do you suppose the Church teaches so prophetically that the physical and the mind/spirit must all be given to the one we have married, and that the unitive and procreative aspects of sexuality must be respected when a man and his wife are united in body? Why is it, in the prayer of the Church when I minister the Eucharist to the homebound that the prayer reads, “May the body of Christ, which our brother/sister has received, bring him/her lasting health of both mind and body.”?
Let us not be hesitant to pray for the intercession of all the saints to bring us healing when we are ill. Of course, there are no guarantees except that God will respond as he wills to each and every request we make.
I would ask all my readers to say a prayer this day to Papa Luciani asking him to intercede before the throne of God that we be healed of all that afflicts us. I believe his prayer in our behalf will be heard.
