“Stretch out your hand,”[i] He commanded. As the man stretched, the shriveled hand became tone and supple. Where there was only weakness and deformity a moment before, now there was restored health.[ii] Jesus had cured many and, as a result, those who had diseases were pressing upon him to touch him as he stood on the shore of the sea.[iii] In this story from St. Mark’s Gospel (chapter 3), we have a sense of the crowds coming to Jesus, perhaps hurrying toward him. They are trying to touch him, longing to receive the healing they had seen occur for others. Many were coming to him to be healed and find relief from their suffering.[iv]
His Kind of Healing
In the Gospels, there are many instances of Jesus providing physical cures and healing, but he often does so that he may touch the life of a person and give them the deeper healing that comes from the forgiveness of sin and relationship with himself. Jesus wanted to give His kind of healing, healing that leads to eternal life. He wants to give us this kind of healing too. But do we seek the Lord of healing or the healing of the Lord? To be healed by the Lord means a relationship, a profound and demanding relationship. It means conversion and transformation. He is not satisfied with half… In his all-consuming love, he wants complete restoration for each of us. It is why He died on the cross.
Jesus’ invitation into the boat
He orders a boat to be readied because of the crowd, that they may not crush him, for all were pressing upon him. Jesus got into a boat. Now Jesus’ “boat” could refer to an actual boat. On another level, however, it could refer to His sacred humanity, His human nature, body and soul. On yet another level it could refer to his Body, the Church. Through his incarnation, he has prepared a boat, a vessel, and he has taken us into it. By wedding our humanity to himself, he has become the means of our salvation, and we are healed from the inside out.
The Shelter from the Storm
Jesus teaches and invites people to receive, offering more than only physical healing. His presence with them shows that something new is happening, what He calls in the parables, “the Kingdom of God.” This Kingdom which He offers is the Ark of salvation, a place where we too may dwell and not be crushed. He offers himself as a vessel to reveal the Father, so that everyone might know the Father and love Him as Jesus does. He remains with us, perpetually present among us in Word and Sacrament and as an instrument of Grace.
Encountering Jesus in Illness and Suffering
February 11 is the commemoration the Feast of our Lady of Lourdes and the World Day of the Sick. Our Holy Father’s message for this 33rd world day of the sick is “Hope does not disappoint” (Rom 5:5), but strengthens us in times of trial.” In the excerpt below the Holy Father writes of encountering Jesus in the midst of our suffering:
When Jesus sent the seventy-two disciples out on mission (cf. Lk 10:1-9), he told them to proclaim to the sick: “The kingdom of God has come near to you” (v. 9). He asks them, in other words, to help the sick to see their infirmity, however painful and incomprehensible it may be, as an opportunity to encounter the Lord. In times of illness, we sense our human frailty on the physical, psychological and spiritual levels. Yet we also experience the closeness and compassion of God, who, in Jesus, shared in our human suffering. God does not abandon us and often amazes us by granting us a strength that we never expected, and would never have found on our own.
Sickness, then, becomes an occasion for a transformative encounter, the discovery of a solid rock to which we can hold fast amid the tempests of life, an experience that, even at great cost, makes us all the stronger because it teaches us that we are not alone. Suffering always brings with it a mysterious promise of salvation, for it makes us experience the closeness and reality of God’s consoling presence. In this way, we come to know “the fullness of the Gospel with all its promise and life” (SAINT JOHN PAUL II, Address to Young People, New Orleans, 12 September 1987).[v]
Message of the Holy Father for 33rd World Day of the Sick
Encountering Jesus in the sacraments
The Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick or the time of blessing will be held at Sacred Heart Mercy Health Care Clinic on February 11 from 2 PM to 4 PM. This Anointing of the Sick will be available at 2 PM and 3 PM for Catholic patients. There will be times of blessing at 2:30 and 3:30 PM for non-Catholic patients.
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Image Credit: Colombel, Nicolas. Christ Healing the Blind. February 11, 2019. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nicolas_Colombel_-_Christ_Healing_the_Blind.jpg.
[i] Mark 3:5
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Mark 3:7-10
[iv] Ibid.
[v] His Holiness Pope francis. “Message of the Holy Father for 33rd World Day of the Sick (11 February 2025): ‘Hope Does Not Disappoint’ (Rom 5:5), but Strengthens Us in Times of Trial.” Message of the Holy Father for 33rd World Day of the Sick (11 February 2025), January 27, 2025. https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2025/01/27/250127f.html.
Posted for 33 World Day of the Sick
Frebruary 11, 2025
