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JESUS MASTER HEALER
Sr. Veritas Grau, FSP

The Philippines has acquired a certain fame as the land of faith-healers. Filipinos who fear and distrust scientific medical means, or who are too poor to avail themselves of the services of doctors and hospitals, flock to persons who can heal them with the laying on of hands, with massage, with rituals, accompanied perhaps by the requirement to take herbal concoctions and submit to dietary prescriptions. Stories of sudden and rationally unexplained cures worked by such healers abound and attract even persons outside the country, for whom the faith healer is the desperate recourse.

At times, faith healing is done in an explicitly religious context and linked to miraculous images: pictures and statues of the Virgin or of Christ that weep tears, oil, blood. Faith healers may present themselves as persons privileged with visions of the Divine, possessed of the power to work wondrous signs, and sent by God to heal. Charismatic healing groups that pray over the sick have become a ministry in the Church, following the injunction of James in his letter: Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name if the Lord. And the prayer if faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. (James 5:14-15)

Jesus' Greatest Fame

The desire for healing is as old as humanity and its ills. This was one of the reasons for innumerable multitudes to seek out Jesus everywhere he went, to press around him and trample one another in their eagerness to touch him and be healed (cf. Luke 12:1). People found his teaching fascinating, and his miracles over nature admirable and awesome, bur his healing power brought him the greatest fame. It was one of the clearest proofs of his being a Master.

It was a power that manifested itself on all levels: the physical, the psychological, the spiritual. Not only bodily illnesses and deformities were cured, nut also sicknesses that touched the psyche, and in a particular way the ravages of sin that separated the person from God and his fellow human beings. Jesus rescued people also from demoniac possessions, which shoed his power over the supernatural world. Even the power of death was under his sway.

He exercised this power effortlessly, almost matter-of-factly, with the surety of touch that shows total mastery of this art and skill. Though he usually healed persons directly with a touch, with a word, a gesture, and made use of material means like saliva and mud, physical distance was no obstacle; his power spanned time and space and effected relief from suffering. He was generous with the use of this power; the sight of suffering was enough to trigger a compassionate response that could not be denied, and he did not limit its expression only to his people: the whole multitude sought to touch Him, for power went out from Him and healed them all. (Luke 6:19).

Healing as Service

In the exercise of this power, he turned away absolutely from seeking his own glory; this is why many times he sternly enjoined those he had healed not to speak about the cure. He could not resist healing them; their need was too strong for his compassion to withstand. But he had come on earth to offer the world the image of a Messiah and Master that exercised a different power from the usual pattern of self-glorification, domination, oppression. His healing power was used according to the pattern of service and self-sacrificing love, even unto his own death.

Healing and Faith

It is true that for his power to work, he called on the person seeking healing to have faith in Him. The lack of that faith was what blocked him from working many cures in his own home town. The presence of it released the power, even when he was not immediately conscious of the appeal for help as in the case of the hemorrhagic woman. But faith in him meant faith in the One who had sent him, and who was the center of his life.

Jesus Master still heals in our midst. Perhaps, however, we sometimes forget that He is the Master Healer in the sacramental presence especially in the Eucharist and in Penance, and that His word can be powerful as of old, to those who have faith. He heals also through His presence in the community of believers when his followers follow his injunction to love one another and offer healing to one another. He heals also through medical science and the dedication of medical caregivers. Have we really enough faith to allow his power to be released for our healing through these "ordinary" channels of power?

Or do we look for healing rather in persons given the gift of healing? There is nothing wrong with this, in itself. Even during his lifetime, Jesus shared his power to cast out demons and heal the sick with his disciples. But perhaps what is to be corrected is the tendency to put our hopes almost exclusively on these instruments, forgetting that it is Christ alone who heals.

Complications arise also when the healer forgets he is only an instrument, that his power is never for his glory, never given to put him above his fellows but to serve them humbly and self-effacingly. A healer becomes suspect when he or she turns attention away from the Master and relies too much on personal power instead of sacrificial love.

All true healers are aware that they are wounded healers, for even the Master Healer, Christ, bears the wounds of love that emptied itself to save others.