When friends and family members are suffering due to illness we will pray for a physical healing. But perhaps focusing on a return to health, we forget that God may be healing them in another way.
We read in today’s Gospel how Jesus healed the man in the synagogue who had dropsy. As a side note, that diagnosis often puzzled me. I learned that dropsy refers to swelling of tissues due to heart or kidney problems. Today we use the word “edema”. In front of him, there was a man suffering from dropsy. “Jesus spoke to the scholars of the law and Pharisees in reply, asking, ‘Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath or not?’ But they kept silent; so, he took the man and, after he had healed him, dismissed him.”
On my first reading of this passage, I focused on Jesus pointing out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees in the synagogue. He questioned whether in their insistence on the Law they would overlook helping someone who was suffering. But I begin to think more about the stories of Jesus healing others such as the man with the withered hand, the paralytic or the woman struggling with years of bleeding with no known cause.
For a Life to be changed
The Gospels relate the physical healing which occurred with Jesus’ touch, but do we know how these individuals’ lives were changed spiritually? Imagine how they struggled with their faith as their infirmities limited their abilities to earn a living or ostracized them within their communities. At the time they were living, these were seen as marks of them having committed some type of grave sin. Suddenly, this rabbi touches them and removes those infirmities. They are healed, alleluia! I believe their physical healing was only the beginning of a new life for those Jesus touched. He changed them externally, but I believe this healing opened their hearts to Jesus and this radically changed their lives.
Experiencing the touch of Our Lord
When people are suffering with what appears to be an incurable illness and the illness is cured, we refer to it as a miracle. Less obvious is, like those in the Gospels, a fundamental change, or metanoia, occurs which is equally a miracle. So, as we pray for our friends and family members to be healed, our prayers should also be for that they open their hearts up to Jesus during their time of suffering. The external infirmity might not be healed in a desired time, but the Great Physician is there to touch them in another way. Let us pray as well for a faith to be strengthened and a heart to be opened to God.
