Dear Brothers and Sisters, one of the most important priestly duties is to celebrate sacraments.
Priests can be seen ministering the sacraments not only to their parishioners in local churches.
They go to the hospitals as well. They offer the sacrament of Reconciliation,
the Anointing of the Sick and Holy Communion to those who are unwell.
Priests visit their ill and elderly parishioners in their homes praying for healing but also often
preparing them for death. There are many people around us who are chronically sick.
They are in our neighbourhoods and maybe even in our homes.
My grandmother was paralysed for a few years before she passed away.
According to the doctors, there was no cure for her.
There are many healings happening in Church communities around the world.
Unfortunately, the mainstream media will not inform us about them.
Three weeks ago, I talked about the physical healing of a Brazilian boy called Mattheus.
Please, watch my homily for Corpus Christi if you wish to know more about his case.
It is a mystery that some people are healed, when someone prays for them,
while others carry their crosses for many years, and they die in great pain.
In today’s Gospel we read about a woman who suffered from a haemorrhage for twelve years.
Many of us can associate with her as probably,
in some stage of our lives, we went through a very similar experience. Let me quote Saint Mark:
“After long and painful treatment under various doctors, she spent all she had without being any better.
In fact, she was getting worse” (Mk 5:26).
Does it sound familiar?
She was getting worse until the moment of her encounter with Jesus.
She had heard the stories how he healed the other people. That’s why, she came to him.
She approached Jesus from behind and “touched his cloak” (Mk 5:27) truly believing that she could be healed.
She was feeling unwell not only because of her physical illness. She felt unworthy because,
according to the Jewish Law, she was an outcast. A woman with such an illness would have been
ritually unclean. That was the reason why she couldn’t approach Jesus in a normal fashion.
After touching the Lord’s garment, she was instantly liberated from the haemorrhage that made
her life miserable. Jesus healed her and restored her to society. Now she could enjoy a new life.
Then, Jesus brought to life the daughter of Jairus. It was a foreshadow of Christ’s gift of
eternal life to all who believe in Him.
Brothers and Sisters, nothing is impossible for God.
Both, the elderly woman and the young girl, returned to normal life. God is a God of life,
not of death. He is a God of abundant life! In the Book of Wisdom, we read beautiful words,
“Death was not God’s doing” (Wis 1:13) and “God did make man imperishable,
he made him in the image of his own nature” (Wis 2:23). God’s nature is eternal. He lives beyond
temporal limits. There is not a past or future for Him. He simply is.
In Saint John’s Gospel Jesus said about himself, “Before Abraham was, I am” (Jn 8:58).
“Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever” (Hebr 13:8) – as we read in the letter to the Hebrews.
Dear friends, we are invited to participate in that everlasting life! Jesus came to earth
in order to draw us into God’s eternity. Saint Paul wrote, “He was rich, but
he became poor for your sake” (2 Cor 8:9). He came to be similar to you and me in everything but sin,
and to set us free from any bondage to sin.
He came to offer us salvation and healing.
What do you have to be healed from at this moment?
Let us present to Jesus all our sufferings. They might be spiritual, psychological or physical.
“Do not be afraid; only have faith” (Mk 5:36) - the Lord reminds us. Let us not pretend that we don’t
need Jesus’ healing presence. No one is totally healthy. We live in constant need of God’s grace.
Let us humbly come to the Lord with strong faith in his healing power.