Juntos en el camino: Palabras semanales del Arzobispo Hebda
In today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew at Mass, we heard of Jesus performing two extraordinary healings—one of a woman who had experienced hemorrhages for many years and the other of an official’s daughter. The stories should have sounded familiar.
It was just last Sunday, eight days ago, that we heard a similar account from the Gospel of Mark, presumably of those same healings. We all know these stories by heart: on Jesus’ way to the home of the official to pray with his seriously ill daughter, he encounters a woman who had experienced hemorrhages for many years. In Jesus’ time and culture, a blood flow was deemed to render a person unclean, as well as any person or object that they touched. Imagine having to live in that situation for many years, effectively an outcast from society. The woman’s faith, however, drives her to approach Jesus, the Divine Physician. After a simple act of faith – the touching of the tassel of Jesus’ cloak – the woman is healed, and Jesus praises her faith: “Courage, Daughter, your faith has saved you.”
When Jesus arrives to see the little girl, in contrast, he is told that the child had already died. Jesus rejects this, saying she is only sleeping. He then bids the little girl to rise, and she does. In this case, it’s not her faith, but rather the faith of her father, that is instrumental in the healing.
Sometimes when we hear stories of Jesus’ healings, we can conclude that miracles only took place during Biblical times. We wouldn’t be alone in thinking that. Even the great Doctor of the Church, St. Augustine, reasoned that miracles must have been simply a phenomenon of the apostolic age, when Christianity was first taking root. But his opinion quickly turned when he saw the transformative effect that “modern” miracles had on witnesses.
I see that as well. One of the great privileges of being a bishop is that people share with me every day how God has miraculously worked in their lives. How blessed we are that the same Holy Spirit that Jesus sent to the first apostles, enabling them to perform extraordinary miracles, is still active today—within us and within the Church.
I suspect that you would agree with me that our world is deeply in need of the Divine Physician today – for those directly in need of healing as well as for those whose lives would be transformed when they have the opportunity to witness the healing of others.
This week, we are blessed in the Archdiocese by the School of Healing which will be held on July 12-13 at the NET Center in West Saint Paul. The School will be led by Encounter Ministries, a Catholic apostolate based in Michigan. You might remember Dr. Mary Healy, who led our Synod Evangelization Teams in our powerful experience at the Williams Arena; Encounter is blessed to have her as their curriculum advisor. The program promises to be a wonderful opportunity to learn how to pray for healing and to deepen one’s familiarity and experience in healing ministry.
In addition to the registered participants, all would be welcome to come to experience healing the evening of July 13 at a Healing Service at the NET Center.
While I myself will be on a pilgrimage outside of Minnesota and unable to attend, I invite you to consider opening yourself to these opportunities, and entrusting yourself to the Divine Physician who continues to heal us today. Please be assured of my prayers while I’m on my little pilgrimage—may the Lord who healed the hemorrhaging woman and raised the official’s daughter from the dead, now bless our Church with healing and a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
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