The WORD in other words (2018) by Fr Melchor Bernal SVD – Christ the King Seminary, Quezon City
Monday 14th Week in Ordinary Time
Years back, many foreigners were coming to the Philippines seeking help from Filipino faith healers. Local broadsheets would cover their experiences, both good and bad.
Now, many locals attend Healing Masses due to one or several of their physical, emotional, and spiritual health issues. Faith healing and Healing Masses can be described as people seeking solace from the burden of sickness afflicting them.
In today’s Gospel, we have two people seeking help from Jesus; the father for his dying child and a woman suffering hemorrhages for twelve years. Both have strong faith that Jesus can help them. And indeed, miraculously so!
Those who have been gravely ill or who have a close relative or friend on the verge of dying and has recovered, can easily identify with these two and understand their plight.
In any healing relationship that has a safe and strong “container” of our “fragmenting self” due to sickness is very important. Paramount is faith in the healer and trust in his/her capacity to help the sick. For a believer, faith in Jesus or in God, is the strongest container one could ever experience.
Part of our human condition is sickness and death; a big part of our Christian tradition is faith and hope. While we can choose not to believe or trust, we can never avoid sickness and death.
In the first reading (Hosea 2,16-18.21-22), Yahweh invites us, “He will allure us, will lead us into the wilderness and speak to us persuasively betrothing us to him with justice and with judgment, with loyalty and with compassion, forever.”
The father of the young child and the hemorrhaging woman chose well.
