In our Gospel passage for Sunday (Mark 5:21-43) Jairus, a synagogue official whose “little daughter” is very ill—on the verge of death—searches out Jesus and asks Him to heal her. On His way to Jairus’s home, a woman with a hemorrhage for twelve years approaches Jesus in faith. She reaches out her hand to touch Jesus and His power flows out of Him to her. It’s striking, almost as if she is instrumental in her…
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:3 This time of winter is always a little “low” for me. Can you relate? The weather is often cold and dreary, although we’ve had some really nice days lately. Illnesses, stress, and grief seem to weigh on our hearts a little harder in February. It leaves me wondering what happened to all that Christmas joy from just a few weeks ago? It seems to…
…he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva, and smeared the clay on his eyes, and said to him, “Go wash in the Pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed, and came back able to see. – John 9:6-7 This Laetare Sunday we rejoice that Easter is quickly approaching. We also rejoice in the fact that Jesus can heal our wounds if we allow Him to, just as…
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” – John 20:27 We each have wounds—wounds that have healed, wounds that are still healing, wounds that are still fresh and sore. In a mysterious way, being wounded is part of the human condition (CCC 405). Jesus became man precisely so He could enter into…
“And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him.” – Mark 7:32 In our Gospel passage today, Jesus heals a man who cannot hear or speak. He is essentially cut off from communicating with others. But Jesus is able to communicate His healing touch to the man. Notice that Jesus takes the man aside privately. Healing is one-on-one work. Then Jesus touches…
“Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” John 2:19 Wow! Jesus made quite a mess when He cleansed the temple. Take a moment and place yourself at the scene of this Gospel passage. Imagine the chaos as Jesus flipped over tables, brandished a whip, and angrily ordered the money changers to leave. People and animals scattered. As the tables turned over, coins rolled to the ground and people climbed over…
Then I acknowledged my sin to you, my guilt I covered not. I said, “I confess my faults to the Lord,” and you took away the guilt of my sin. Psalm 32:5 This is the last Sunday before Lent, which begins this Wednesday. Lent is a time to prepare ourselves to celebrate Easter. It is an especially good time to examine our lives and bring the Lord anything that is “unclean” in our hearts and…
Praise the Lord, for he is good…He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. – Psalm 147:1, 3 I am the Divine Physician. I can heal you from your every wound, if you want to be healed (John 5:6). The wounds and illnesses of your body, the faults and deficiencies of your mind, the brokenness or hardness of your heart, and even the sins of your soul (Matthew 9:6). Come to Me with trust…
In today’s Gospel reading, we hear how Jesus restored the sight of the man born blind. Just as David was anointed with oil and received the spirit of the Lord in our first reading (1 Samuel 16:13), Jesus anointed the blind man with clay, a combination of the earth and Jesus’s spit: “…he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva, and smeared the clay on his eyes…(John 9:6). Recall that God formed…
Here in the desert of Lent, the Lord brings us to the oasis of Jacob’s well. The Samaritan woman came at noon to fill her water jar. Had she been without water all morning? Perhaps she came at noon to avoid people who gossiped about her and her five husbands. We can use our Gospel imagination and suppose that she came to the well dry, thirsty, and ashamed. But something amazing happened: she had an…