In St. Clare’s time these was much need of healing. Testimonies after her death provide a portrait of those with bodily and mental afflictions coming to the Monastery seeking cures through Clare. Her medicine was the Sign of the Cross and beyond that was the life she lived.
Today, our world needs healing. There are so many wars, so many in prisons, and so much abuse. Examples of why are legion and so are examples of healing. Healing could be physical or spiritual. Could mean reconciling, reuniting, bringing back to harmony, renewal, recovery of a loss etc. To heal means to restore to life, to settle differences, to become well or sound.
Our world needs healers-men and women who know they are loved and pass that love onto others. Love is so powerful, transforming and forceful. Did you ever have a down day when someone gives you a warm smile or gives you a loving affirmation for something you accomplished? Isn’t that powerful when it comes from love? Think about it.
To heal means to restore to life, to settle differences, to become well or sound .
The Trappist monk Thomas Keating sees a connection between repentance and healing. Repentance is “that fundamental call in the Gospel to begin the healing process”. No matter how healthy we are physically we are all ill or suffer from maladies of the soul. We may be crippled by guilt, paralyzed by fear, blind to the truth, deaf to the cry of the poor, imprisoned by addictive behaviors, or living with a broken heart. Our Advent cal is to pay attention to this. Be alert.
We hold a treasure in earthen vessels and in our weakness is glory. We pray to God for healing. Thus it is not something we do but something the Spirit of God at the center of our being does through us. Praying for healing is a manifestation of the power of God, because God alone can heal. In our prayer for healing we are demonstrating our own faith in God’s promise. We pray for the sick, those in trouble financially, family members in need of reconciliation and I’m sure you can name others. We anoint with the blessed oil all that need to be made whole.
We gather in holy hope and give thanks with expectations that lives be made new. We speak and act in the Name of Jesus who has come and is coming daily into our world, our lives.
One of the main threads running through the public ministry of Jesus was his great desire to heal. This is one of the key ways he demonstrated his reign. Jesus worked through the power of the Holy Spirit and that ministry Jesus now shares with us.
What are we about? We are to seek the Kingdom of God, to live for the Kingdom, to work at building that kingdom and everything else will take care of itself. Karl Rahner’s theology of healing begins with SURRENDER TO THE DEEP AND MYSTERIOUS NATURE OF GOD. We do not need to go out to find love, rather we need to be still and let love discover us.”
Jesus seldom took the initiative in curing others. He did not cure everyone in sight. Ordinarily the sick came to him and specifically asked for a cure. Jesus knew there was something far more important than physical healings. Namely faith. He emphasized this link on numerous occasions.
The healing begins when we turn to Jesus and repent. That is, turn to Jesus and hear him ask us, as he asked so many sick people in the Gospels, “What would you like me to do for you? And we may simply say “heal me, please heal me, make me whole.” The power of prayer has an effect on healing and it also shows how we are all connected.
For me Advent means waiting in stillness. We wait for God’s healing love to take hold of us.