( Benedict XVI 2007)įor sure, physical health is a great good and to be desired. Furthermore, Jesus here, as in other circumstances, says the words: “Your faith has made you whole.” It is faith that saves human beings, re-establishing them in their profound relationship with God, themselves and others and faith is expressed in gratitude. 1 An operation can cure the superficial wounds, but to heal the deeper wounds, surely the help and grace of Jesus the Good Doctor is needed.Ĭomplete and radical healing is “salvation.” By making a distinction between “health” and “salvation”, even ordinary language helps us to understand that salvation is far more than health: indeed, it is new, full and definitive life. The young man I saw was in “good” health but he lacked the essential - the desire to live. We fixed your hand.” He replied “You fixed my hand but who is going to fix my life?” I asked him “Why are you crying? The worst part is over. I told the boy that we had fixed his hand. After a long operation to reconstruct various tendons and nerves I visited the boy the next morning. I remember during my plastics and reconstructive surgery fellowship training in Sydney, Australia, I saw a young man who slashed his wrist with a desire to commit suicide. The other deeper level touches the innermost depths of the person, what the Bible calls “the heart”, and from there spreads to the whole of a person’s life. It first evokes two levels of healing: one, more superficial, concerns the body. This Gospel passage invites us to a twofold reflection. The Lord said to him: “Rise and go your way your faith has made you well” (Lk 17:19). This Sunday’s Gospel presents Jesus healing ten lepers, of whom only one, a Samaritan and therefore a foreigner, returned to thank him (see Lk 17:11–19). How can we deepen our understanding of the need for faith in the healings of Jesus? Pope Benedict XVI explained it well in an Angelus address on the healing of the ten lepers. In his preaching, Jesus refers twice to doctors: “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do” (Mt 9:12), and “Surely you will quote me this proverb, ‘Physician, cure yourself’” (Lk 4:23). As for specialties, we could say his healing work encompassed ophthalmology (opening the eyes of the blind), ENT (curing the deaf), dermatology (healing leprosy), rehabilitation (curing paralysis), hand surgery (healing a withered hand), plastics and reconstruction (repairing a severed ear), neurology (treating a boy with convulsions), critical care (saving the slave of a centurion who was about to die), to name but a few. He laid his hands on each of them and cured them” (Lk 4:40). Jesus exercised the ministry of healing, and the gospels are littered with examples of him curing the sick: “At sunset, all who had people sick with various diseases brought them to him. How to live with sickness? Is there a connection between sin and sickness? What reasons can maintain our hope? The following article is adapted from this talk. I focused on various aspects of Christ as the Divine Physician and posed various interactive questions to the audience: what did the healing work of Jesus consist of? What is the role of faith in healing? Is it wrong to desire good health? Participants included healthcare workers as well as breast cancer patients, survivors, and their relatives and friends. I was asked recently to give a talk at the “Forum for Breast Cancer,” held at Makati Medical Center, Manila.
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