Whenever I read a gospel like today’s (Mark 5:21) with healings I always have to wonder if we (meaning my family and I) are doing something wrong. As many of you know, my wife Joni and my youngest son Eric have a condition called Ehlers Danlos Syndrome or EDS which is a connective tissue disorder and both Joni and Eric are in pain 24/7, and we’ve prayed a lot for their healing, and many of you have also prayed a lot for which we are extremely grateful. In fact I, will tell you that for several months prior to Eric’s recent hospital stay, he was in a very dark place spiritually and for the past several weeks, beginning with the hospital stay, a lot of that darkness has lifted and we are convinced it’s from all the prayers – so thank you.

But, I still have to wonder – there are many gospel passages of healing like todays and in the gospel, every time someone asks Jesus for healing, he heals them. Just yesterday morning, the gospel said,  

When it was evening, they brought him many
who were possessed by demons,
and he drove out the spirits by a word and cured all the sick,

All the sick. So, on the one hand, Jesus, God, wants to heal. On the other hand, many Christians continue to suffer although many prayers have been said. So, what gives?

The faith healers will say well it’s because you don’t have enough faith. If your faith was stronger, you would be healed. That might be true for me and maybe Eric and Joni, although Joni does have a very strong faith. But, there’s no way they can say that about the saints. Many of the saints suffered. My go-to saint is St. Teresa of Avila and she suffered a lot and yet she had a tremendous faith. In fact, with St. Teresa, near the end of her autobiography, chapter 39 of the book of her Life, she says that Jesus appeared to her one time and told her that “there wasn’t anything I might ask Him that He wouldn’t do;” and she relates how people she prayed for were healed. But she goes on to say that sometimes she wanted to pray for someone, and she was unable. She says it’s like someone whose tongue is tied. At other times she doesn’t feel much desire to pray for someone; but she finds herself praying for the person often and with great insistence. The point here is that sometimes, for some reason, God doesn’t heal.

So, probably more often than we realize, God wants to heal, and we have certainly seen that on a spiritual level in the Unbound prayer ministry that Joni and I have. But, when it comes to physical healing, it seems there are sometimes when he asks people to offer their suffering as a sacrifice.  

At least that’s our experience. One time, early in her illness, Joni was deep in prayer at Mass, and she was ready to be healed. Up until that time, she wasn’t quite ready but this time she was ready, she was convinced the time had come and Jesus wanted to heal her. She was begging, she was believing, she was trusting, and then after some time she felt him respond ‘the weaker you are, the more I can work through you.” She came home and shared it with me, and I said, yeah, that’s basically the same thing the Lord said to St. Paul. And she was ticked. Because she was ready, and she really believed He wanted to heal her.  

So, I don’t have a complete answer on healing.

But, there are a couple points in the gospel that really struck me that I want to share. The first is that very often, the people who are healed in the gospels, really put themselves out. In the first story today, the man who came to Jesus, Jairus, is a synagogue official. A synagogue official is like the manager of the synagogue. He handles all the finances and coordinates everything that goes on. It was a very high position and he’s a very important person in the community. And he comes to Jesus and falls at his feet. That’s quite an act of humility for him. In the 2^nd story, the woman with the hemorrhage is unclean. Because of her bleeding, by Jewish law, she is ritually unclean. She isn’t permitted in the Temple and people would avoid her to avoid becoming unclean themselves. But she is determined to touch Jesus, at least his cloak. Her faith has convinced her that if she just touches his cloak, she will be healed, even though touching his cloak would make Him unclean. That might be part of the reason she was so afraid when He turned and asked who touched me; but Jesus wasn’t upset, he actually commended her.

Another example is Bartimeaus, the blind beggar who calls out, Jesus, son of David, have pity on me. And the people start shooshing him, but he cries out all the louder, and Jesus rewards him. Over and over, we see this in the gospel that the people who are healed are audacious, they’re bold, they go for it. They want to be healed, or they want someone they love to be healed, they know Jesus can heal, and they’re going to do whatever it takes. And Jesus loves that.

The second point is how encouraging Jesus is. When they approach the synagogue official’s home, the people come out and say, your daughter has died, why trouble the teacher any longer? He had come to Jesus believing that he could heal his daughter but now she has died and everyone’s thinking – it’s too late. But Jesus says to him, “Do not be afraid, just have faith.” It’s like the time when the apostles said to Jesus “Increase our faith”, and He responded, if you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree ‘Be uprooted and transplanted into the sea’ and it would obey you. The point is that even a little faith can do the impossible; act on the little faith you have just like the synagogue official and God will do wonderful things. That’s very encouraging. It’s also a key to growing in faith – act on what we have and Jesus will reward us.

Testimony can also be tremendously helpful. As scripture says, faith comes through hearing. We live in a very secular world that wants us to believe there is no God, there is nothing supernatural; but when we hear that God worked through someone, our faith will grow. The more we hear real instances where God did this and God did that, the more we will believe He really is alive and active and involved in our life.

Some years ago, Joni started on a new medication and late at night she had a severe allergic reaction. She went into the bathroom, looked terrible and felt horrible, but also felt something like a wall of prayer holding back evil. She called her doctor and was saying I feel like my body wants to throw itself up and my throat is burning. And the doctor was freaking out and saying you need to go to ER and Joni said, no I can feel someone praying for me and I’m going to be okay. The next day we found out that my dad woke up in the middle of the night and felt he needed to pray for Joni and he spent the next hour on his knees praying for her at the same time she was having the reaction. My dad will be the first to tell you he is an ordinary guy, he was a Navy guy, ended up a Ship Design Manager at Navsea, a regular guy, but he felt this call to pray and he acted on it and God intervened.

I know that many of you have had similar experiences where God has intervened in your life.

So brothers and sisters, instead of beating ourselves up for our weak faith let’s act on what we have and trust Him to do great things. It’s like Dallas Jenkins, the Director of the series, The Chosen, which is a great series on Jesus. He keeps saying just bring the loaves and fish; God will do the rest.

So, let’s do that, and when God does act, let’s share it with as many people as we can. Let it multiply so many people can be blessed.

God bless you all!