The Healing is Close to Us. Get Close to Him | Word from the Shepherd No. 135 | 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time B

13^th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year B
Wis. 1:13-15, 2:23-24; 2 Cor.8:7-15; Mk.5:21-43

When Elizabeth Barret, a famous English poet, became the wife of Robert Browning, her parents disowned her. But Elizebeth wrote home almost every week, telling them that she loved them, that she longed for a reconciliation.
After 10 years, she received a huge box, and within, were all the notes that she had sent to her parents. They were returned unopened.
They were the greatest “love letters”. If they had opened just one, the broken relationship might have healed.
The healing was so close, yet it was not taken.

The scriptures remind us of this fact that healing is very close to us, closer than we ever realise.

1. The Wisdom writer grasped that the whole of creation and the world as healing and health giving. God had created them essentially good, with health properties. Even man was created in God’s image, imperishable, just to be, with God-life within. Of course, death, extinction and fatal poison were the consequences of the devil’s envy and his partners. The created world lost its healing and health-giving properties, when man estranged himself from God, began abuse and exploit his neighbours and the resources of the world. When man tampers with nature , nature never forgives.
2. The Gospel of Matthew presents Jesus healing and restoring the sick, the dying and even the dead. Healing has returned to the world. The woman with haemorrhage and the raising to life of Jairius’ daughter encountered Jesus, the Healing God in their midst. The victims and the witnesses were led to go beyond superstitions, beyond established customary beliefs, beyond scepticism to acknowledging God and awakened faith. In Jesus, healing reconciled, freed and restored the broken, estranged and distant to themselves, to the community and to God.
3. Paul reminded the Corinthians that the world is called to heal. Giving relief, living out the works of mercy was acknowledging the Lord’s generosity. A generosity that flowed from a balance, sharing our surplus against the present need, and believe that what one does comes around when we are in need. The world heals us when there is no excess, no short. Communities driven by compassion, give with gratitude for the riches received . (Even Buddha once said: “Our sorrows and wounds are healed when we touch them with compassion.”)

The healing is very close to us. If you are seeking to be healed, to be a healer or a healing world:

1. Get close to God . Be an ally of God and not an alien
2. Begin to see God. Come as a believer, and not as a mocker.
3. Live a balanced life. Give our surplus to charity. Give with gratitude.
4. Get closer to one another. Work together. “It’s when we are spilling our sweat together, and not our blood- real healing takes place.” (David Hume)

The healing is close to us. Get close to Him.