healing

Model of courage and faith

In today’s encounter between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman, we can observe again the crossing of societal norms by both the woman and Jesus. She, very much like the woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years, was desperate and approached Jesus. She was willing to not only risk breaking the social taboo of speaking with Jesus, but she was also willing to do so by walking into the home where Jesus was staying and fall at his feet.

Jesus’ response to her begging sounded more like he was possessed himself rather than the healer she sought out: “Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs” (Mk 7:27). This woman was not fazed by Jesus calling her a dog, she wasn’t leaving without receiving healing for her daughter, even if that meant she was putting her life in danger. Her retort, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps”, emphasized this point. It was also the key that opened the door for the disciples and us to witness a consistent pattern with Jesus.

We saw the same situation with the woman who was experiencing the hemorrhage (cf. Mk 5:25-34). Both women had the faith and courage to approach Jesus and both received the healings they sought and were affirmed by Jesus. The outcome of this encounter was also like the one Jesus had with another gentile, the Roman centurion, who said that he was not worthy for Jesus to enter under his roof (cf. Matthew 8:8). In both accounts, Jesus healed solely by his word from afar. What is important to Jesus is not whether they are male or female, Jew or Gentile. What matters if the person’s faith! Do they trust in him or not?

Do we have the courage, faith, and trust in Jesus as shown by the Syrophoenician woman in today’s Gospel? When we let nothing hinder us from drawing closer to Jesus, including relinquishing the reigns of being our own masters, acknowledging that God is God and we are not, believing that Jesus is truly the Son of God, that he is still present and active in our lives, and we have no reason to be anxious or afraid, miracles still do happen! Jesus said that if we have faith, even the size of the mustard seed, we can move mountains (cf. Mt 17:20).

We don’t need a lot of faith, a mustard seed is tiny. Just that little amount of trust in Jesus is enough for God to happen! Remember the feeding of the five thousand with just a loaf of bread and a few fish! When we believe with childlike trust that Jesus will provide, he will. It may not be as immediate as with the Syrophoenician woman or it may. What is important is that we can mature and grow in our faith such that we know Jesus, trust that he loves us, wants the best for us, and that he will always be there for us. It is also important to renounce any of the mind noise that may arise to counter these truths.

No matter what we might be dealing with today, let us be inspired by the Syrophoenician woman, and bring our petitions or intentions to him. Bring any anxieties, fears, trials, and/or tribulations to him, lay our burdens at his feet, and take his hand. With Jesus all things are possible. Jesus has not nor will he ever abandon us. He cares for and loves us. Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God is our Savior and Redeemer, is present, is the kingdom of God at hand, and will see us through step by faithful step.

Photo: Icon of Syrophoenician Woman by Br. Robert Lentz, OFM

Link for the Mass reading for Thursday, February 8, 2024

Are we willing to come close as Jesus does for us?

“Whatever villages or towns or countryside he entered, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak; and as many as touched it were healed” (Mk 6:56).

The people of Jesus’ time were in need of healing, hungry to draw closer to God, often searching, wandering, and wounded, like sheep without at shepherd. This is just as true for us today. Though Jesus is not as visible to us as he was to those in the land of Gennesaret, he is just as present if not closer. We who receive Jesus in his Word proclaimed and through his Body and Blood, in the sacraments, prayer, healing, mercy, and grace are sent forth to bring Jesus to others.

We are not to go home as if nothing of any significance just happened in our gathering as the Mystical Body of Christ at Mass. Jesus does not send us to walk around with an air of superiority over others, to judge and condemn people, to refuse to help those in need because we feel they deserve the condition they are in, that they are “illegal” (people may do illegal actions but no person is illegal), that they chose their lifestyle, that they are lazy and just need to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Jesus was and is not indifferent to the plight of others. Jesus met people and continues to meet us where we are and as we are, and then he leads us with his “gentle chords of love” (cf. Hosea 11:4) to the truth of who his Father has created us to be.

Pope Francis was asked in an interview by Fr. Antonio Spadaro, S.J., in 2013, “What does the church need most at this historic moment?” And Pope Francis answered, “that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle.” We need to be “near”, in the same “proximity”, to bear Christ to one another: “The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you. And the ministers of the church must be ministers of mercy above all.”

Jesus, please help us to be present and willing to come near. Lead us to experience your love, mercy, forgiveness, and like you, be willing to enter into the chaos of one another. Help us to resist the temptation to keep others at a distance and refuse to be indifferent to the needs of those you bring to us in their time of need. May we too, in the words of Pope Francis, go out to “heal the wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful” by being willing to accompany others in their sorrows, anxiety, trials, and tribulations.

People are really hurting all around us. Help us to let go of the need to fix them or fix their problems. Jesus, help us to be present, to listen, to hear, understand, and be open to allow the Holy Spirit to speak through us at the appropriate time, so that, in the end, we do not prevent people from encountering you, but become a means for them to encounter you, the divine physician, and be healed.

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Photo: Are we willing to grow together like these three trees? Rosary walk, St. Vincent De Paul Regional Seminary, Boynton Beach, FL.

Spadaro, S.J., Antonio. “A Big Heart Open to God: An interview with Pope Francis”. America Magazine. September 30, 2013 Issue: https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2013/09/30/big-heart-open-god-interview-pope-francis

Link for Mass readings for Monday, February 5, 2024

Confession – Intimate and healing encounter with Jesus.

“So they went off and preached repentance” (Mark 6:12).

They, being the Twelve Apostles, preached repentance. There is a pattern. John the Baptist called people to a baptism of repentance. The first words of Jesus’ public ministry were, “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15). And now in today’s Gospel, the Twelve are going off two by two preaching repentance.

What does repentance have to do with us almost two thousand years later? What repentance had to do then. We all have in the deepest part of us a yearning to belong, to be part of, to be loved. We want to be seen, heard, and understood. We want our lives to have meaning, fulfillment, and a sense of worth and dignity. This deepest longing has been placed in us to be filled by God and as we receive and abide in God’s love, we are better able to encounter and share his love with each other.

The problem is that since the Fall, we all fall short of the glory of God. The good news is that we have not been totally corrupted. We are still good. Even though we have intentionally and consciously chosen to turn away from God and seek to feed our deepest longings with something or someone other than God. We can change. We can come to realize that who and whatever we place before the Father separates us from a deeper and more intimate communion with him.

We can realize that when we sin, we turn away from God, isolate ourselves from God, and feel the loneliness of that choice. This worsens when we decide that we don’t need God, that we are self-sufficient, and can take care of ourselves. Our hunger grows and is unsatisfied by the finite ways we try to fill our infinite hunger. The answer then is to slow down, be still, and listen to the invitation of God that he constantly offers and then to decide to repent, to turn back to him, to change our heart and mind.

What we see in the path blazed by John the Baptist, Jesus, and then his Apostles are the seeds of the Sacrament of Confession which Jesus will institute with the Twelve in the upper room after his Resurrection. Jesus has experienced the loneliness of the separation that we all feel in our sinful state. Only he felt it much more intimately and profoundly as he received the full assault of the weight of all our sin on the Cross. And what did Jesus do when he met the same Twelve who betrayed him? He forgave them and called them to forgive others in his name.

Jesus instituted the Sacrament of Confession to help provide the healing we need to repent and to turn back to the Father. He gave this gift to the Apostles who then passed it on to their followers, and who then successively passed this gift on through each generation of priests to our present day. Confession is a grace, a bridge that leads back to the Father that keeps on giving for those who come to receive this miracle of healing. “Confession is the personal gift of redemption, always unique, to each person, just as each person can accept and apply it” (Confession, Adrienne von Speyr, p. 93).

God the Father loves us more than we can imagine, and he wants us to experience his love. Confession is one of the most intimate ways we can experience his love. We are only as sick as our secrets. In Confession, we can bring forth the deepest and darkest of what we have done and what we have failed to do. We don’t need to buy into the lie that we will be abandoned if anyone knew. Instead, Jesus, who was abandoned, does not abandon us. Jesus forgives, loves, heals, frees, and restores us so that we can experience what we have been created for, to be loved by God and to love him and each other in return.

Photo: Rosary walk St. Vincent De Paul Regional Seminary, Boynton Beach, FL.

Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, February 1, 2024

Have courage, have faith, trust in Jesus.

“Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, ‘Who has touched my clothes'” (Mk 5:30)? The woman could have slipped away, she could have stood still and said nothing. Had anyone seen her touch his clothes. Jesus’ disciples were bewildered that Jesus even asked such a question with so many pressing about him. No matter, the woman approached with “fear and trembling” and told him the truth.

In coming forward and telling the truth, this woman was showing tremendous courage. She had just broken a serious, social taboo. She touched Jesus in public as a woman and having been hemorrhaging for twelve years, would have been considered ritually unclean. Her touch would have rendered Jesus unclean. The opposite happened. Both Jesus and the woman knew she was healed the moment she touched his garment. Jesus did not admonish her but publicly recognized her faith.

All the while as this scene transpired, Jairus must have been in agony, knowing how close his daughter was to death, and Jesus actually, stopped and took precious time to even engage with this woman. Finally, they were about to resume their journey when the terrible news came that his daughter had passed away. What might have flashed through his mind in that moment? The time Jesus took to talk with her, could that have made the difference?

Other details surely crossed his mind. As a synagogue official he would have known the taboos she crossed as a woman who was the lowest of low. She would have also been frail and pallid from her condition, at death’s door herself, yet she had mustered such courage and faith. As these and other thoughts raced through his mind, Jesus said to the man, “Do not be afraid, just have faith” (Mk 5:36).

Jairus had just experienced a powerful expression of just such faith with this woman, probably someone until this very moment who he would have shown disdain for. Maybe just maybe, if he could muster the same faith as her, Jesus could bring his daughter back to life. Could his and the woman’s eyes met at that moment? Could a light have then shone in the darkness of his despair? Jesus would heal his daughter, by taking her hand and commanding her to rise and walk.

How many of us have been or have known someone who has experienced the anguish Jairus, whose daughter was near death, was going through, or the woman who had been suffering for twelve years with hemorrhages and receiving no help and all but lost hope? How many of us know of such healings that still happen today? How many of us have though experienced the opposite? Where we experienced no healing, we wondered where Jesus was, and why did he allow this to happen, or did not step in to help?

The best we can do in times of trial and dire need is to summon the courage of the woman suffering from hemorrhages and trust in Jesus. He may or may not bring the outcome we seek. But I assure you that he is present with us through our pain and suffering, whether we feel his presence or not. Sometimes he allows the unthinkable to happen, of which we cannot even comprehend at the time, to bring about a greater good. Often, we are not able to see that until a later date when we are able to look back.

Remember also, that even death does not have the final say. Jesus does because he has conquered death. Jesus and we who participate in his life are victorious. Healings do still happen. Ultimately, faith is placing our trust in our God and Father who loves us, who is present with us no matter what, and carries us in our darkest hour. He sent his Son to walk with us and encourage us as he did with Jairus: “Do not be afraid, just have faith” (Mk 5:36). Let us place our hand in his, face what is before us, and be on our way together.

Photo: The light of Jesus shines even when the sun doesn’t. Rosary walk as storm clouds gathered a few weeks ago, St. Vincent De Paul Regional Seminary, Boynton Beach, FL.

Link for the Mass readings for Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Any part of our hearts in need of healing?

The hypocrisy scale is over the top in today’s Gospel. Each day this week these particular Pharisees have been not only seeing the glass regarding Jesus, half empty, but in today’s account, they are no longer seeing the glass! There is some validity in keeping the Sabbath day holy as I shared yesterday, but today they have thrown that out as well.

The issue today is that when Jesus entered the synagogue he saw a man “who had a withered hand” (Mark 3:1). Of course, Jesus is going to heal the man and on cue, the Pharisees are crouched to see if he is going to do so as well, on the sabbath. Jesus then asks a revealing question: “Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than destroy it” (Mark 3:4). Crickets… not a peep from the Pharisees.

Jesus gave them an opportunity to see not only their hypocrisy but revealed to them the darkness of their own hearts. Jesus is about to heal this man, “to do good on the sabbath” and the Pharisees, not only don’t see the gift of this man’s healing and so allow themselves to find healing from their own hardened hearts, but they leave to plan to destroy Jesus’ life. They choose to do evil on the sabbath and justify it by condemning Jesus for healing a man’s hand.

Why such hardness of heart? We aren’t given that insight. In some way they may be threatened by Jesus as King Herod was when he heard of the announcement of Jesus from the Magi from the east. An encounter with Jesus demands a choice, because he is the truth, he is the light that reveals the darkness. It can be easy to see the darkness in others like the Pharisees today.

The man’s hand is restored, and the Pharisees have just left seething with steam coming out of their ears. Each of us are now are invited to step into the scene. Are we willing to step into the synagogue with Jesus? He is facing you right now. His eyes have softened, they are inviting and loving you right in this moment. Is there a healing that you need? Is there a part of your heart that is hardened or wounded that you are willing to share? Is there any unforgiveness, sadness, anxiety that may be constricting your heart?

If you are willing, take that step, open your heart to your Lord and Savior this morning in your own unique way and trust him to reveal to you where we could use a healing or if you know, ask him.

Photo: My view each morning before as I start my day. I have been blessed with a lot of healing heart to heart time with the Divine Physician over the past year and a half.

Link for the Mass readings for Wednesday, January 17, 2024