The Gospel accounts narrate many miraculous actions of Jesus: he gives sight to the blind; he makes the crippled walk; he restores speech to the mute; he makes the deaf hear; he cleanses lepers; he feeds multitudes; he relieves bodily pains of all kinds; and he raises the dead.
Today’s Gospel passage concludes with the statement: “They were all amazed and said, ‘How well he does everything! He makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.'”
That was the exclamation of the people when they saw how Jesus had healed a deaf man who had a stammer, restoring his hearing and speech.
“Everyone was amazed and said, ‘How well he does everything! He makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.'”
A frequent question is: why do the ministers of the Church, who are continuators of the mission of Jesus, no longer perform healings as He did?
Is it possible to have healing assemblies attended by the sick and troubled, so that, through a minister, God brings relief and health to each and every one of those who attend?
From the beginning, as we can see in the Acts of the Apostles and in the letters of St. Paul, the preaching of the Church was centered on announcing the forgiveness of sins thanks to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross and the resurrection of the dead, thanks to the fact that Christ himself had conquered death with his resurrection.
Christ came to save us from sin and death, both of which are realities that undermine the meaning, value and meaning of our life here on earth.
However, the book of the Acts of the Apostles still narrates that, in a subsidiary way and as a support to the preaching, the apostles performed some healings.
But they did not understand the purpose of their mission as that of healing the sick in the name of Christ, but their mission was to announce the forgiveness of sins after sincere repentance, which led to baptism, and to announce eternal life with the celebration of the Eucharist, the food of eternity to overcome death.
Miracles of healing are performed in the Church.
Typically, shrines are filled with small plaques attesting to people who have received a healing from an illness or disease, which they attribute to divine intervention and favor.
In some places, such as at the shrine of Fatima in Portugal, medical teams examine some of these healings to certify that they were medically unexplainable and thus declare them a miracle.
But the mission of Jesus or of the Church is not to solve the problems and discomforts caused by bodily illness, but to offer God’s forgiveness for the ravings of freedom and to pierce the wall of death that overshadows temporal life, so that the light of eternity, which gives value to all that we do, may enter our time.
Miracles, when they happen, have the purpose of confirming this message.
Does the Church, then, have no answer or relief for the sickness and infirmities of this mortal body?
It does.
But it is not the instantaneous healing of all diseases, of all people, repeatedly until we all die of old age and not from untimely diseases; that is not God’s way.
The mission of Jesus or of the Church is not to solve the problems and discomforts caused by bodily illness, but to offer God’s forgiveness for the ravings of freedom and to pierce the wall of death that overshadows temporal life, so that the light of eternity, which gives value to everything we do, may enter our time.
The Church’s teaching on sickness, pain and bodily affliction is threefold.
On the one hand, to the extent that the economic means are sufficient and the health services offer it, the remedy to the illness and ailment should be sought through medicine.
Sometimes the means are not enough because the cure is very expensive.
Sometimes, the health services still do not have a cure for that illness.
For this reason, too, the Church teaches that it is necessary to accept the fact that the illness from which we suffer is a manifestation of our mortal condition.
To the extent that it is a chronic or incurable illness, we must accept it as a participation in the sufferings of Christ.
But, thirdly, we should pray to place ourselves in God’s hands in sickness, that he may heal us, if the recovery of temporary health is expedient for our salvation and spiritual growth.
The Lord can give us the health that human science is not able to offer; but we should not think that we are the chosen ones for God to perform the miracle.
We should not pretend to force God to perform the miracle in the terms and times that we desire.
Our prayer for health and the solution of other temporal problems should be a prayer that makes it clear that God’s will comes first.
Give me health, if it is your will; I accept sickness, if it is your will.
The health we ask for from God may come as healing from sickness or as prolongation of life in spite of illness considered mortal.
“No temporal difficulty jeopardizes the attainment of the full and eternal life we hope to receive from God.”
The Church also teaches that, in the face of sickness and suffering, we should avoid superstition.
We often hear that, in the face of temporary problems such as sickness, lack of work, family disagreements or other forms of various deprivations, some turn to people with supposedly special powers to seek a solution through spirits or occult forces.
No one has occult or special powers.
Only God and Jesus Christ have the government and power.
Neither the dead nor spirits act apart from the power of God.
Our God is Lord of all.
We offend Him if we seek to call upon persons who claim to be mediators of spirits or occult powers to bring about the ends requested.
To seek such persons instead of having recourse to God is tantamount to saying that there are some powers or spirits that are not subject to God and that, therefore, our God is not all-powerful.
That is equivalent to saying that God is petty and does not want to give us the answer we seek, and that other spirits apart from God can give us.
If that were true, our God would be a half-hearted God.
The only powers that are not yet fully submitted to God are the demons.
But to turn to demons for health and peace is a contradiction.
In the face of temporal problems such as sickness, lack and difficulties, only God can help us; there are no spirits that can help us, for God is Lord of heaven, earth and the abyss.
In these needs, we ask God to give us the light to solve our problems, to give us health if it is convenient for us, and we should think that this temporal life is only the way to eternal life.
The difficulties and adversities that we cannot solve are part of the arduous road that we must travel in this world because of our sinful condition.
No temporal difficulty jeopardizes the attainment of the full and eternal life that we hope to receive from God.