Healing

When Christ extends his hand to cure the leper, the Lord is proclaiming that God's Kingdom has shattered the darkness in our world. The Lord has come to wage spiritual warfare through his healing ministry against the Devil. Making physical contact with a leper, though, was taboo because touching a leper rendered one unclean. Reading Leviticus, for example, God commanded Moses to tell the people that anyone with leprosy was to dwell apart from others. Furthermore, if a leper would come into proximity with others, then the leper must cry out “Unclean, Unclean!” so that people would get out of his way and not become infected. The Lord touched the leper, anyway. Couldn't the Lord, though, have simply spoken a word to heal the leper? Absolutely, however, Christ wants to show us that he’s not subject to the Law given to Moses. Instead, Christ establishes the law, so he’s not controlled by its rules. Touching the leper then won't harm him because he’s the SOURCE of the Law, so he has the AUTHORITY to establish how nature is governed. Everything the Lord touches then is made whole. The Lord then is doing more than performing an act of charity towards the leper. At a deeper level, Christ is revealing his divinity through his healing ministry.

However, we can be healed in two ways—spiritual or physical—since being made in the image and likeness of God we're composed both of a soul as well as a body. After all, we're not angels who are pure spirits. Instead, we're composed of both a body and soul, which is what makes us human. Yet, God is Spirit, so SPIRITUAL healing always takes precedence over PHYSICAL healing. Miracles do occur, but we should keep in mind that the greatest miracles often go UNSEEN because they occur in the spiritual realm (i.e. conversion of the heart). Even if we're not physically healed, we've then received the Lord's mercy by the healing of our soul. Certainly, the Lord may physically heal someone if he believes that the cured person will derive some spiritual benefit. Even so, we must leave to God’s wisdom whether or not someone should PHYSICALLY recover. The Lord’s principal concern then is to deepen our faith since everything he does is always geared to leading us to eternal life. After all, we can easily forget about God once we’re healed. We find an example of this forgetfulness, in the Gospel story about the ten lepers being healed, but only one returned to give thanks to the Lord.

Suffering then can be an impetus to transforming our view of the world, which will draw us closer to the Lord. Some, for instance, would have never transformed their lives had they never suffered. Whatever our condition may be, though, the Lord wants us to direct our infirmities to experience his MERCY. We'll then become a means in doing “everything for the glory of God,” as St. Paul tells us. Subsequently, the leper in the Gospel represents us. The Lord wants to stretch out his hands to touch and heal us to manifest his glory, just as he did for the leper. Christ then wills that his Church on earth continues his ministry of healing through the guidance of the Holy Spirit for the SALVATION of souls. The Lord, therefore, has given us the Church that we may live in hope as we await the day our corruptible bodies will become incorruptible and joined to our immortal soul, whereby we’ll dwell in God’s love in eternity. (Mk 1:40-5)