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HEALING
IN THE CONTEXT OF THE RESURRECTION
17 MARCH, 2019,
Sunday, 2nd Week of Lent
Readings at Mass
Liturgical Colour:
Violet.
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First reading
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Genesis 15:5-12,17-18 ©
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God enters into a Covenant with Abraham,
the man of faith
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Taking Abram outside, the Lord said, ‘Look
up to heaven and count the stars if you can.’ ‘Such will be your descendants,’
he told him. Abram put his faith in the Lord, who counted this as making him
justified.
‘I
am the Lord’ he said to him ‘who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldaeans to
make you heir to this land.’ ‘My Lord,’ Abram replied ‘how am I to know that I
shall inherit it?’ He said to him, ‘Get me a three-year-old heifer, a
three-year-old goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove and a young pigeon.’ He
brought him all these, cut them in half and put half on one side and half
facing it on the other; but the birds he did not cut in half. Birds of prey
came down on the carcases but Abram drove them off.
When
the sun had set and darkness had fallen, there appeared a smoking furnace and a
firebrand that went between the halves. That day the Lord made a Covenant with
Abram in these terms:
‘To your descendants I give this land,
from the wadi of Egypt to the Great
River.’
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Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm
26(27):1,7-9,13-14 ©
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The Lord is my light and
my help.
The Lord is my light and my help;
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
before whom shall I shrink?
The Lord is my light and
my help.
O Lord, hear my voice when I call;
have mercy and answer.
Of you my heart has spoken:
‘Seek his face.’
The Lord is my light and
my help.
It is your face, O Lord, that I seek;
hide not your face.
Dismiss not your servant in anger;
you have been my help.
The Lord is my light and
my help.
I am sure I shall see the Lord’s goodness
in the land of the living.
Hope in him, hold firm and take heart.
Hope in the Lord!
The Lord is my light and
my help.
EITHER:
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Second reading
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Philippians 3:17-4:1 ©
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Our homeland is in heaven, and from heaven comes
Christ to transfigure us
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My brothers, be united in following my
rule of life. Take as your models everybody who is already doing this and study
them as you used to study us. I have told you often, and I repeat it today with
tears, there are many who are behaving as the enemies of the cross of Christ.
They are destined to be lost. They make foods into their god and they are
proudest of something they ought to think shameful; the things they think
important are earthly things. For us, our homeland is in heaven, and from
heaven comes the saviour we are waiting for, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he will
transfigure these wretched bodies of ours into copies of his glorious body. He
will do that by the same power with which he can subdue the whole universe.
So
then, my brothers and dear friends, do not give way but remain faithful in the
Lord. I miss you very much, dear friends; you are my joy and my crown.
OR:
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Alternative Second reading
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Philippians 3:20-4:1 ©
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Christ will transfigure our bodies into copies of
his glorious body
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For us, our homeland is in heaven, and
from heaven comes the saviour we are waiting for, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he
will transfigure these wretched bodies of ours into copies of his glorious
body. He will do that by the same power with which he can subdue the whole
universe.
So
then, my brothers and dear friends, do not give way but remain faithful in the
Lord. I miss you very much, dear friends; you are my joy and my crown.
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Gospel Acclamation
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Mt17:5
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Glory and praise to you, O Christ!
From the bright cloud the Father’s voice
was heard:
‘This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to
him.’
Glory and praise to you, O Christ!
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Gospel
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Luke 9:28-36 ©
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Jesus is transfigured before them
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Jesus took with him Peter and John and
James and went up the mountain to pray. As he prayed, the aspect of his face
was changed and his clothing became brilliant as lightning. Suddenly there were
two men there talking to him; they were Moses and Elijah appearing in glory,
and they were speaking of his passing which he was to accomplish in Jerusalem.
Peter and his companions were heavy with sleep, but they kept awake and saw his
glory and the two men standing with him. As these were leaving him, Peter said
to Jesus, ‘Master, it is wonderful for us to be here; so let us make three
tents, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’ – He did not know
what he was saying. As he spoke, a cloud came and covered them with shadow; and
when they went into the cloud the disciples were afraid. And a voice came from
the cloud saying, ‘This is my Son, the Chosen One. Listen to him.’ And after
the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. The disciples kept silence and, at
that time, told no one what they had seen.
HEALING IN THE
CONTEXT OF THE RESURRECTION
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [GEN 15: 5-12, 17-18; PHIL 3:17-4:1; LK 9:28-36 ]
Nothing is more feared
in this life than illness, suffering and death. If the world tries to remove
suffering through euthanasia or seeks to suppress the reality of death, it is
because they do not know how to handle these realities. Instead of
confronting pain, suffering and death, they reduce man to a mere material
creature. We must hold that because life is a gift from God, even when it is
marked by sufferings, it is always precious to us.
It is only human and natural for us to seek
a cure or a healing when faced with illnesses in life. No one wants
to suffer for the sake of suffering. It would not be human if we desire
to suffer for the joy of it. On the contrary, man fears pain and
therefore would find all ways to relieve himself of pain. This is
especially so when one suffers from a terminal illness. So we must seek
to alleviate sufferings in all its forms in this world.
Of course, when such suffering
becomes intolerable, especially psychological and emotional suffering, then
both the sufferer and the caregivers might prefer death. After all, the
scripture speaks of the fact that our homeland is in heaven. As St Paul writes,
“For us, our homeland is in heaven, and from heaven comes the saviour we are
waiting for, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he will transfigure these wretched
bodies of ours into copies of his glorious body.”
So which attitude
towards suffering is correct?
God does not want us to suffer in this life. He wants us to be free from
sufferings. It is the desire of God that we be happy in this life.
God is not a joy killer. We must positively believe that God wants
us to be well. Although scriptures tell us that whilst sickness and
suffering could produce positive consequences such as reinforcing the fidelity
of the just person, restoration of justice violated by selfishness or cause a
sinner to repent from his evil ways, it still remains essentially an evil
brought about by sin. Thus, the prophets always envisaged a time would
become when there would be no more diseases, infirmities, famine, division,
pain and especially death (cf. Is 35:5-6; 65: 19-20).
In the gospel, Jesus gives us the
reason for illness in our lives. His healing miracles are signs of
His messianic powers that demonstrate victory over the kingdom over sin and
evil. The restoration of health, body and soul, manifest the in-breaking
of the reign of God in our lives. They reveal to us the messianic
identity of Jesus and of what life for us in the future would be like.
Suffering and healing therefore are anticipation of the fullness of life given
to us in Christ. This explains why healing is one of the most important
aspects of Jesus’ public ministry. He was certainly not reluctant to heal
and nothing in the gospels contains even a hint of reproach for these prayers.
His only regret was that they lacked faith. To the man who requested
Jesus’ help to deliver his son from epileptic, Jesus said, “If you can!
Everything is possible to one who has faith” (Mk 9:23; cf. Mk 6:5-6; Jn 4:48).
However, we must also not adopt an
attitude that focuses only on this earth. Whilst we should pray for
healing and for earthly blessings and divine protection, we must remember that
the blessings in this life are only a foretaste of the blessings in heaven.
Blessings in this life on earth are to remind us of the fullness of joy in
heaven. The truth is that heaven is our final goal and the resurrection
of the body is the final state. The fear of death is the consequence of
our failure to integrate death as a necessary path to life. What we must do is
to live as fully as we can on this earth whilst keeping an eye on heaven,
recognizing the transient state of this life. We must remember our real
destiny even whilst we enjoy this life. Whatever joys we have in this
life are only a foretaste of life hereafter. In this way we do not become
attached to this earth, not even health.
Forgetfulness of our
ultimate goal is the cause for fear. The danger of the prosperity gospel
preached by some Christians is that it only focuses on the blessings of the
gospel, whilst negating the dimension of suffering as part of the Christian
truth. When that happens, we begin to cling on to earthly things as if
they are everything. Attachment is the beginning of sin and the worship
of idols. Then we begin to fear death. This was what St Paul
warned the Christians. “I have told you often, and I repeat it today with
tears, there are many who are behaving as the enemies of the cross of Christ.
They are destined to be lost. They make foods into their god and they are
proudest of something they ought to think shameful; the things they think
important are earthly things.”
This truth is conveyed
in the story of the Transfiguration. It clearly reminds us that to be
a follower of Jesus would entail the cross at some point in our lives.
It is good to take note that just before the Transfiguration scene, Jesus
reminded His disciples that “whoever wishes to be My follower must deny his
very self, take up his cross each day, and follow in My steps.” (Lk 9:23) By bringing them up to the
Mountain, Jesus was preparing His disciples to be ready for the eventual
outcome of His ministry. Of course they forgot that encounter in the face
of the passion of Christ. As a consequence, they abandoned Jesus as well.
Christ, by suffering on
the cross, took upon Himself our sufferings and redeemed us. Christ Himself, though without sin,
suffered in His passion pains and torments of every type, and made His own the
sorrows of all men thereby bringing to fulfilment what had been written of Him
by the prophet Isaiah (cf. Is 53:4-5). Because He suffered with and
for us, we can now share our pain with Him. When suffering and pain is
united to the suffering of Christ, suffering becomes redemptive and a means to
salvation. Through His suffering, Christ redeemed human suffering as well
for He has raised human suffering to the level of redemption by enjoining His
suffering with ours so that we in turn in our suffering become sharers in the
redemptive suffering of Christ.
Thus, Christ’s victory
over illness and other human sufferings is not overcome merely through
miraculous healings but also through the voluntary and innocent suffering of
Christ in His passion.
It is through identification with His passion that the sufferer can unite
himself to the sufferings of the Lord. When sickness is understood
as an occasion for us to be in union with Christ for our spiritual purification
and also an opportunity for the healthy to exercise charity and patience,
suffering can truly become redemptive in our lives. Most of all, sickness
as in all other forms of suffering, leads us to turn to God in fervent prayer,
be it asking for deliverance or the grace to accept sickness in a spirit of
faith and conformity to God’s will.
But do we find strength
in suffering? We
must also find strength from Jesus’ transfiguration. The Transfiguration
experience was not just to prepare the apostles for the passion but it was for
Jesus as well. The Father knew that Jesus needed to be affirmed in the
direction He was taking. It would be foolish of us to think that Jesus
was a stoic and did not fear death. He too was afraid of suffering, for
all of us fear pain. Not just the physical pain but the emotional and
psychological pain that came with it, the loss of dignity.
It was at the
Transfiguration that Jesus found strength to do what He was required to do. This strength came from His
Father’s assurance of love. The vision of Moses and Elijah was to
confirm Him in His mission as the fulfillment of the Law and the
prophets. By allowing Him to have this unique experience of being
transfigured, Jesus knew for certain that this was what the Father wanted as
well. What is important for us too in our suffering especially in
moments of darkness, is to enter into prayer. If Jesus were transfigured
at prayer, we too will experience some form of transformation at prayer as
well. It will be at prayer that the Lord speaks to us about His plans for
us. Indeed, this was what the Father told the apostles, “This is my Son,
my Chosen, listen to him”. Yes, when heaven has spoken, then we know that
we can follow Jesus even in suffering and death, for regardless what happens,
we know that victory over sin and death is certain. Yes, when we are
assured of His love, we can suffer with greater conviction and union.
Truly, we must go to Mount Tabor in times of confusion, suffering and pain.
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All
Rights Reserved
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