“He has done all things well.”
These are the words of those who witnessed Jesus’ miraculous healing of the deaf mute in Mk 7:31-37. They said this because they realized two things about divine healing from this episode.
Firstly, Jesus desires to give complete and thorough healing to everyone, including strangers. He does not simply lay His hands on the man as they had asked Him to do. He goes into an elaborate ritual to show that He is after restoring the man to complete wholeness.
Secondly, everything about Jesus Christ is healing and leads to healing. His person, touch, look, spittle, words, groans, presence, etc., all exude healing power, “He took him off by Himself…He put His finger into the man’s ears…He touched His tongue…He looked up to heaven…He groaned…He spoke.”
If Christ desires to heal us all completely and thoroughly and if everything about Him has healing power, then why are we not experiencing His healing in our lives today? Why do we still experience physical, emotional, spiritual illnesses even as disciples of Jesus Christ?
One possible reason why we do not experience this healing power of Christ in our lives is that we are not properly disposed to receive Christ’s healing. We fail to place ourselves in a position to experience and respond to this healing. This is one humbling and honest reason for our lack of divine healing.
We lack this proper disposition to receive and respond to divine healing in five concrete ways.
Firstly, we lack consistent prayer. We are told that the crowd “begged Jesus to lay His hands on the man.” We experience healing from our continuous and constant prayer. We should continue to pray for healing even if we do not experience healing because such persistent prayer places us in a position to receive the healing that God wants to give to us when He wants to give it. How unfortunate when we pray only when we and our loved ones are sick and then give up praying when the sickness ends in good health or death claims our loved ones. Healing occurs when we show by our persistent prayer that we have no alternative to Jesus for our healing.
Secondly, we lack faithful discipleship. We are told that the crowd “brought the man to Jesus.” This means that they knew exactly where Jesus was at that moment. Do we really know where Jesus is in our lives now? Do we realize that He is with us and within us? We show that we know where Jesus is by the good examples of our lives. We bring souls to Jesus for healing not only by our prayers but also by the examples of our lives. Nothing diminishes the healing power of Jesus and drives souls from His healing touch than our scandalous behavior. We must also witness to others about the healing power of Jesus by our good examples.
Thirdly, we lack complete trust and surrender to Jesus in all things. Reflect on the trust that the deaf mute had in letting Jesus lead him away from his companions and bring him to a place of healing. Imagine the complete surrender that he had in letting Jesus place His fingers in his ears, spit and touch his tongue. Jesus does not seem to care much for health protocols! This man responds by being completely open and trusting to receive whatever healing that Jesus would offer to him and whatever means He would use to do so. We too should be open and trusting if we ever going to experience divine healing.
Are we ready to allow Christ lead us out of our familiar comfort zones to the place of divine healing? Are we ready to allow Him touch any aspect of our lives for the sake of bringing about a thorough and complete healing? Are we not more prone to fixatedly seek physical and emotional healing while ignoring spiritual healing? Do we trust in God completely to surrender to Him our sins and selfishness through the Sacrament of Reconciliation that He has instituted without making that spurious claim that we only confess to God directly? Don’t we usually approach Him with distrust in His love for us because of our past sins and painful experiences in life? How can He heal us when we do not completely trust in His love, power, and wisdom? We cannot experience healing without this unbounded trust in Jesus and openness to the mysterious means that He uses to heal us.
Fourthly, we lack readiness to give greater praise to God. Those who witnessed this miracle did not keep quiet as Jesus demanded but proclaimed it more, “But the more He ordered then not to, the more they proclaimed it.” God’s healing should make us His more faithful disciples. As we beg for healing, we must also ask ourselves, “If God heals me or my loved one(s), how would I give Him greater praise and make Him better known and loved by all?” We are better disposed for divine heal when we are ready to be more devoted to Him, even in the face of our sicknesses.
Fifthly, we lack the willingness to bring healing to all persons. Because Jesus offers healing to all, our healing depends on our readiness to be channels of divine healing to all persons. For us to actually expect God’s healing, we must not “show partiality as we adhere to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.” Thus, we cannot discriminate “with evil designs,”(Jas 2:1,4) and expect any healing from God. For example, how can we expect divine healing when we are unaffected by the gruesome slaughter of the our unborn brethren in their mothers’ wombs? Like Jesus Christ, everything about us – our thoughts, words, actions – must be a source of healing to all persons, without exemption or conditions.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we live now with great fears about death from this Covid pandemic. We mourn the death of loved ones and we sometimes feel overwhelmed with fear of the future. We must never be overcome by fears because of our illnesses and those of our loved ones because God always desires to heal us and, through us, heal our lands, countries and nations. This is God’s message to His exiled people, “Be strong, fear not…The eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared…Streams will burst forth in the desert, and the rivers in the steepe.”(Is 35:4-6) The only question is this: Are we properly disposed to receive this healing?
Lastly, we must remember that healing is God’s business. God heals who He wills, how He wills, and when He wills. Just as we have no right to be created and to be alive today, so also we have no right to divine healing. His healing and His grace that sustains us until we are healed are all His gifts to us. We can only dispose ourselves to receive and respond to His healing and grace.
Our Eucharist is a living encounter with the God who wants to heal us. The Eucharist makes present to us today everything that Christ possesses for our healing – His divinity, words, power, groans, body, blood, soul, etc. He offers us both healing and sustaining grace in this blessed sacrament. All He asks of us is to become properly disposed and remain properly disposed whether we or our loved ones are healed or not. This is how we receive His complete and thorough healing and know for sure that “He indeed does all things well.”
Glory to Jesus!!! Honor to Mary!!!
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Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash