Reading
Mark 6:53-56
53 When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret and anchored there. 54 As soon as they got out of the boat, people recognized Jesus. 55 They ran throughout that whole region and carried the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. 56 And wherever he went—into villages, towns or countryside—they placed the sick in the marketplaces. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.
Meditation
Jesus arrives with his disciples in Gennesaret and immediately the people, who have reached his reputation as a great healer, try to approach him. In fact, the people recognized him (v. 54). The first step to benefit from the Lord's grace is to recognize him as such. We must therefore have faith in Christ's ability to put under his feet the evils that afflict humanity, just as he walked on the stormy waves of the sea, dominating the forces of nature.
The numerous healings that Jesus performed during his earthly life were primarily functional to the recognition of his divine sonship and his messianic role. Their purpose was to witness the advent of the kingdom of God and the entry into the last times of history.
The Lord does not always grant our requests for healing, but the gospel proclaims that all illness and death itself have been defeated and there will be no place for them in the new heavens and the new earth where we will dwell with Christ. We can and must, however, rush to him to bring him our needs and to intercede on behalf of our brothers and sisters who are sick in body and spirit.
We are called to do our part in the search for healing, using the remedies that science makes available. But there is something that science alone cannot offer: the warmth of compassion, medicine for the soul, an opportunity for an encounter with the grace that comforts and opens a glimpse of light in sickness.
We can become, for those who suffer, like the fringes of Jesus' mantle: an instrument for touching with the hand that healing power that springs from his person. Touching Jesus means experiencing that medicine of immortality that cures us of everything that separates us from God, the source of life and the source of all good.
Prayer
Heal, o Lord, the wounds that afflict us in the soul and in the body; so that we can be returned to your service, strengthened by grace. Amen.
- Rev. Dr. Luca Vona
