Christ Brings Us Healing and Life
(see Mk 5:21-43)
Sisters and
Brothers in Christ,
This
Sunday’s Gospel tells us how Christ cured the sick and raised the dead to life.
We all want
our life to be happy. For this reason we
try to work hard and save money to buy a house, to provide our family with food
and cloth, and to pay for our healthcare.
However, it
seems that our life has very little chance to be one hundred percent
satisfactory. Most of our days are
marked with different forms of suffering, both physical and mental. Sacred Scripture says about man’s frailty:
Seventy is the sum of our years,
Or eighty, if we are strong;
Most of them are sorrow and toil;
They pass quickly, we are all but
gone.[1]
It sounds pessimistic but true. Man was born into this life not laughing but
crying. One day, they will leave it in
weeping.
One could not help but ask this question: “Is it true that
God made man to suffer and finally to die?”
The First Reading, as we have listened to it, says: “No! God
did not make death.”[2] The Lord God is the Source of life and the
Master of the living. God created human
persons to give them happy and lasting life in union with Him in His Kingdom of
love and peace.
Regarding the question on death, the Book of Wisdom says: “by
the envy of the devil, death entered the world, and they who belong to his
company experience it.”[3]
Saint Paul in his Letter to the Romans explains further:
“just as through one person sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and
thus death came to all, inasmuch as all sinned.”[4]
So, it becomes clear enough, according to the Holy Bible,
that all forms of suffering, including death, are evil consequences of sin.
For this reason, healing of the sick and restoring the dead
to life, as reported by the Gospel story which we have listened to, are
included in the mission of Christ.
We need but to put our trust in Him Who once for love of us,
sinners, laid down His life on the cross in order to save us from sin and
death.
By taking our poor and sinful human nature, as Saint Paul
teaches in the Second Reading,[5]
Christ shared with us the riches of His divine nature; and by so doing, He
lifted us up to the dignity of adoptive children of God, deserving the blessing
of crying out to Him “Abba—Daddy!”[6]
For such great honor, we could not help but burst into songs
of praise and thanksgiving: “for the kingdom, the power, and the glory are
yours, now and forever!”
Fr. Francis Nguyen, O.P.
