Peace! Kalilintad! Shalom!

Tag: God of Healing

  • Musta na? Howdy?

    Musta na? Howdy?

    June 27, 2021 – 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062721.cfm)

    “O, Kamusta na? How are You? Are You Ok?”

    Usually whenever we meet each other, we greet one another with these words. Through these words, we commonly express our concern for each other’s health and wellbeing. We acknowledge as well that human as we are, we are all prone to hurts, diseases, and sicknesses. Even the healthiest of us live with fear of accidents and diseases that can suddenly render us limited on the sidelines. Nobody likes to get sick. But nobody can claim that he/she has never got sick before. Easy for us to say “Bawal magkasakit? (It is not allowed to get sick), but tayo ay nagkakasakit (we do get sick). Sickness cannot be denied. To get sick is part of our human nature. So, since we are subject to sickness, it is natural for us to ask about the health and wellbeing of others, especially those we have not seen for awhile.

    But what does it mean to be sick? Based from our experience, to be sick is more than just an experience of physical illness but a wide range of emotional, mental, psychological, and spiritual diseases and discomforts. Whenever we get sick, we become incapacitated. Normal for us to feel limited, dependent, depressed, irritable, helpless, and sometimes alienated or outcasted from God and others whenever we are sick. We know that it is not easy to get sick, especially when we are used to live our life independently and always in-control. Sickness is indeed a dreadful experience, as what was also described in our Gospel today.

    Our gospel today shows us as well that to be sick may be a horrible human experience but could also be opportunities for growth and a chance for life anew.

    First, sickness can be the opportunity to be converted. Jairus and the woman with hemorrhage came to Jesus. Coming to Jesus is an experience of conversion – a humble turning toward instead of turning away from Jesus. Whenever we get sick, we usually cease from our usual routine, go home and take a rest. It is in sickness that we break from our selfish ways and turn back towards God’s love and concern. Others would say that when we are sick, we desire and come to acknowledge God’s presence and appreciate God’s love in our lives. When we are healthy, we say, “Disco, Disco” but when sick, we say, “Dios ko, Dios ko”.

    Sickness can also be the opportunity to have faith and trust in God and others. Jairus begged to Jesus, “Please come lay your hands on her, that she may get well and live”. The woman aspired “If only I could touch his cloak, I shall be cured”.  To be helpless and dependent of others are not normal for us. We rather be in-control and not needing others. But to be sick is humbling for you really need and have to trust on others. In sickness, we surrender ourselves and humbly ask for God’s mercy and rely on God’s providence, and the help of others.

    Sickness can also be the opportunity to be cleansed and be healed by God. In sickness, we witness God’s mercy, love, goodness, and miracles working in us. That through our faith and Jesus’ concern for us, God’s power and love is made known to all. In our weakness and sickness, God’s power and glory is revealed to you & to all.

    Sickness can be also opportunity to hear once again & anew our vocation and mission life. When the woman was healed, Jesus calls her to “go in peace and be cured of your affliction” which means to be reconciled with herself and others who may have caused her afflictions. The girl is called to “arise” which mean to stand up from despair and have hope in life. Being healed from your sickness is a reminder that you are given another life – another new chance in life to make things right and better than before.

    And lastly sickness can be an opportunity to proclaim our faith. Just like the cured woman and girl, our healing from sickness makes us express and share our faith to others, and through our healing, others will see and witness God’s love revealed through us and come to believe more in Him. 

    To be sick then can be the opportunity to be converted, to have faith and trust in God, to be cleansed and be healed, to renew life-commitments and mission, and to proclaim our faith for others to believe.

    Yes, no one wants to get sick. But whenever you got sick, take it not as disgrace but opportunity for God’s glory to be revealed in You. In other words, “A blessing in disguise”. So, Kamusta na? How are you coping? Perhaps God is healing us & through us, God is revealing something better for all of us in life.

    During these pandemic times, in times of sickness, discomforts, & distress, let our prayer be like that of Jesus, saying: “Father, take this cup of suffering away from me, However, not my will, but Your will be Done.” Always & Forever.

    Siya Nawa. Hinaut pa unta. So be it. Amen.

  • The Lord Heals the Broken-hearted

    The Lord Heals the Broken-hearted

    February 7, 2021 – Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/020721.cfm)

    Who among us here who experienced pain and suffering? Or a failure or a heartbreak? I am certain each of us has these experiences in one way or another. There might be some of us here who have also experienced being humiliated, oppressed or abused. Perhaps there are those who are ill at the moment, or in trouble at work, have lost a job, failed in a business or in a relationship or who are in great sorrow for losing a loved one.

    It has been a year when the first report of death from Covid-19 has been revealed. Since then, the outbreak of the virus brought so much difficulty to many of us particularly those who have health issues and those whose source of income are already unstable even before the pandemic. Aside from these, there are also others who suffered very much because of the surrounding circumstances in their life.

    This happened to Joy (not her real name). She was working in a big hospital and when Covid-19 Pandemic made the first infection in the City, the hospital became busier. All medical staff felt the pressure as well as the fear and anxiety in working in a very toxic environment.

    Joy has a boyfriend. She was happy with him and he too was happy with her. They have been together for several years and thought that the relationship was going to the stage of a life-long commitment. One day, Joy found that she was pregnant. At first, she was surprised and at the same time felt afraid. Though she was happy with her boyfriend, but, she felt not sure after all. Few weeks later, when she was ready to inform her boyfriend, the relationship suddenly became unstable. As she expected it, the relationship was broken and Joy was not able to tell her boyfriend that she was pregnant. Her boyfriend broke-up with her and left her. And she kept her pregnancy to herself.

    But, the New Corona Virus came, and the national government declared lockdown in major cities. People were advised to stay home. Hospitals became busier. Herself and her colleagues felt not only the pressure of work but also the emotional burden. With this, the more Joy decided to keep her pregnancy a secret.

    For Joy, the situations surrounding her pregnancy, the recent break-up, the pandemic, the pressures at work, the emotional stress brought so much confusion to her. Her heart and mind now filled with darkness. She could not understand herself and her situation anymore. She felt not ready too to become a mother. She was afraid. She was terrified of raising the child alone and bringing the child in the midst of this pandemic and broken-relationship.

    With so much emotional/psychological stress from all aspects of her life, Joy aborted the baby after her third month of pregnancy. She thought it would solve the problem, end her troubles, her fears and anxieties, her pain and anguish. However, that was just the beginning of more pain and guilt, of shame and deep sorrow in the heart of Joy.

    She could not sleep anymore. Her colleagues began to notice changes in her attitude. She would break-down and sob even at work and even in public places. Joy was lost. She has been carrying a truck of guilt in her heart. She was searching for forgiveness, looking for God, yet, she could not forgive herself. Yet, deep within, Joy desired to find comfort and peace, light and hope in her heart.

    Joy has been keeping all those painful experiences in her heart alone. Joy needed a listening ear and heart that will only keep listening to her story without judgment and without any biases.  Joy needed a big amount of understanding and it can only be given to her by listening fully to her story, to her anxieties and fears, to her broken-relationship and pregnancy, to her struggles at work and to her sins. And at some point of her life, she began to open up and allowed herself to be touched by the presence of those around her. She took the risk and let herself be embraced by her friends

    As Joy was assisted to recognize all of those circumstances that have happened in her life, this paved the way to forgiveness, to the road of healing and freedom.

    A reality such as this reminds me of today’s readings. So, allow me to bring you a bit deeper into our readings and let us discover how God unfolds His invitations for us today.

    Our first reading tells us about the misery and hopelessness of Job who lost everything, not just his material possessions but especially his family and health. But what was intriguing was that Job seemed to be a good and righteous man. He never oppressed anybody. He had been honest to God. However, being good and righteous did not make him immune to human pain and suffering, to misery and hopelessness. With that horrible experience of Job, he said, “I shall not see happinness again.” This is Job’s testimony of that bitterness in a life filled with so much pain and darkness.

    Nevertheless, Job’s story did not end there. He actually saw and experienced joy again in his life because God showed mercy to him. This mercy is what we find in the Gospel of Mark. Jesus, as he began his public ministry, went from one town to another in order to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal the diseases that plagued the people of his time and freed those who were possessed by demons. Jesus came in order to let the people know that God has come and is not blind to our suffering and difficulties. God wants to free us from those that enslaved us, that make us suffer and hopeless.

    This is what Jesus did to the mother-in-law of Peter and to those people who have been brought to Jesus. Jesus healed and freed them by touching them. This is what our Psalm proclaimed to us, “The Lord heals the broken-hearted.” Our Psalm testifies that God is a healer. God brings completeness, wholeness and healing to the broken-hearted, to the wounded and to the miserable. God brings hope and light to us who find life hopeless, bitter and dark.

    Indeed, it is when we allow God to touch us that God also brings healing into our life. God’s touch is showed to us in many ways. And this is what I realized in the life of Joy. God touched her through her friends who showed concern to her. God also touched her through the sacraments that Joy received. Peter’s mother-in-law was touched by Jesus through Peter himself who brought Jesus to their home. The sick and the possessed were touched by Jesus and were healed through the people who brought them to Jesus.

    It is in this way that God works wonders in us and also through us. This is the invitation for us today which I summed in two points.

    First, God wants to heal us, to make us complete and joyful. Jesus is letting us know that our God is for us the wounded, for the broken, for the sick and for the hopeless. We might be like Job who find life miserable – come closer to the Lord, then, do not lose hope but rather seek healing and ask what you need from God because our God is, indeed, a God of healing.

    Second, each of us can be an instrument of healing too. We can be a friend who will be able to bring healing to others by bringing them closer to God. We can show it by being generous of ourselves to others, that is, by offering a helping hand to those in need, by making our ears available to a person who wants to be heard, by assuring a sick friend of our prayers and company, by letting a person know that you are there to support and give comfort. Yes, we don’t have to look far, just be aware of those people around us because he or she might just be one of our friends who has been hiding his/her suffering from a smiling façade, or could just be a family member who has been making himself/herself  busy with work or worst indulging themselves in their own rooms with their gadgets or with chemical substances. Let us be instruments of God’s healing presence today. Hinaut pa.

  • God’s offer of Life than just health to us

    God’s offer of Life than just health to us

    February 7, 2021 – 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/020721.cfm)

    A group of barangay leaders once went to attend a week-long seminar on leadership and public service. Since they have heard a lot about the speaker of their seminar, they looked forward meeting him hoping that they could learn some new wisdom about leadership and service. As they arrived at the venue, they happen to see a simple man around, and ordered him to bring their luggage to their respective rooms. The man obligingly obeyed their order. And off they went visiting other sites since they still have more time to spend before the seminar. As the seminar begins, much to their dismay, they were all ashamed of themselves because the man whom they asked to bring their luggage to their rooms is the very guest speaker himself.

    We hear from our gospel today Jesus responding to the immediate needs of the people. As he arrived in Peter’s house, Jesus healed the fever of Peter’s mother-in-law, and until nighttime he cured all the sick people of the community. Yes, Jesus is indeed a compassionate healer, who reaches out and responds to the needs of the people. But we must also know that in responding to people’s need, Jesus also have to stop and leave them, so that he can continue his mission. Though he is a frontline healer, for Jesus, His main mission is to preach and spread the Good News and to build God’s Kingdom, rather than just responding to the immediate needs of the people.

    Jesus is more than just a healer of life but he is The Giver of life. He is more than just trouble-shooter or mechanics but he is the engineer or builder. He is more than just our “kargador” but he is the guest speaker himself. Jesus is the Life-giver Himself, more than just our frontline healer. He is God’s offer of Life than mere health to us.

    Like the people of his time, sometimes we only recognize Jesus as he heals and responds to our immediate need. So that we may be happy, we only want Jesus to satisfy our urgent needs. We want Jesus to create miracles or magics, to ease our pain and free us from our life’s loads and burdens. Like those baranggay leaders, at times we may have considered Jesus only as our “Kargador” baggage-carrier to lighten our loads, serve our needs and ease our pains. Sometime in life, we see Jesus as a mere gasoline station – we recognize Him only whenever we need Him, when we run out of gas.  Sometimes, we need Jesus to be just our caregiver who should readily respond to our immediate needs – without caring about the message He preached, story to tell, role to play in our lives as well as His life and mission to partake & live with us.

    Well, surely Jesus will respond hands-on and on-hand to our needs and hope, for He do know what we need & what we are going through in life. But Jesus can offer us more than just carrying our burden. He is the guest speaker who offers us more than just lightening our loads, cure our sicknesses, free us from our problems or filling-up our gasoline tank. Jesus comes to us to renew our lives and offer us God’s kingdom. His mission is to preach the Good News of Salvation. He came not only to respond to our immediate petty needs but to heal and recreate our land and the world now. He comes so that we may have life – life to its fullness, and not just life to our satisfaction.

    Be reminded then of what Jesus say to us  in our gospel today, “Let us move on to the neighboring villages so that I may proclaim the good there also. That is what I have come to do.”

    In this Eucharist, we pray that our faith in Jesus moves us not to limit & abuse God’s graces for us, but rather move us to be more open & trusting to God’s plans & will for us now during these pandemic times, and thus participate fully in the Mission of Jesus of sharing God’s offer of Life & Salvation to all in our world now & always. Amen.