The article of the month

This Month… by Teresa Caldecott Cialini

Our Saints this month are those who were instruments of healing. The introduction makes an interesting point about this vocation: “After his Resurrection, Jesus also told his apostles that if they laid hands on the sick, that power of healing would continue (Mk 16:18). As he promised, some holy Christians have become known as wonderworkers during their own lifetimes. However, as the lives of many of this month’s saints demonstrate, being known as a healer can be a difficult cross to bear.”

If you have watched the TV show The Chosen—a recent multi-season drama of the life of Jesus—you may recall that some of the most moving scenes in the series are those in which Jesus heals people not merely of their physical ailments (though these healings are obviously the most dramatic), but of their psychological and spiritual wounds. It is a good reminder that there is a dynamic attaching to the teaching and mission of Christ that pulls people into a better alignment with God, and since he is the Incarnate Godhead, it is hardly surprising that this affects people physically.
There is a particularly moving, albeit fictional, moment with “Little James”—the Apostle often know as “James the Lesser”—in which he asks why Jesus does not heal him of a handicap in his gait. Through his dialogue with Jesus, James comes to understand that he will heal others more effectively if he himself remains wounded. After all, it is in our vulnerability that we allow others to get close to us and trust us. We are in this together.

Taking the form of a servant

Of course, this underlies the Passion. Our Lord came to share our human condition and all the suffering that it entails: first spiritually in the dread of what was to come, and then literally in the torture and death that he underwent 

for us on the Cross. He had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people (He 2:17).
The point is that for us to follow him, we must trust that he knows what he is doing and that he will lead us through to the other side. He has the authority to teach and heal because he is Divine, but we can approach this authority with openness because he has met us where we are and knows what we are up against in this “valley of tears”. As Blessed Concepción wrote (see page 92), “Jesus was not able to see suffering without his heart being touched and feeling sympathy, ever consoling the one who suffers and making the pain his own”.

In the first Sunday Gospel of this month for example, we see him observing the woman caught in adultery. He enters into her situation with far greater depth and acuity than her accusers: he knows what she is going through. Her sin is one thing, but the use that her accusers are making of it is another. Our Lord goes to the heart of the matter, firstly by reminding them they are all sinners and secondly, by freeing her from her sin. Not only does he have the authority to do this, but it is also personal: he sees her and loves her and wishes her to be saved.

Stumbling to the finish line

We need to have the humility to see our sins whilst at the same time having absolute confidence in Christ’s salvific influence on our lives. In short, we need very badly to be conscious of his love for us, in every moment. Sometimes our perspective can get muddied, and we can feel mired in our difficulties. We become like the images that are veiled during Passiontide: obscure to ourselves. Perhaps this marking of the liturgical moment by deep purple veils can serve 

as a spiritual exercise in itself. For a while here, we walk blind. We have to feel our way forward by hearing alone, by paying close attention to what Jesus is saying to us and putting one foot in front of the other.

We do not say the Gloria during Lent because we are not at the moment of Glory yet. We have to stumble along without glory, without certitude, as a way of learning to trust. If we stumble under our burdens, we get up again, as our Lord showed us on the way to Calvary. We train ourselves to keep going because the goal, the telos, is something utterly worthwhile: union with the Beloved. The collect for the first Sunday of this month, Passion Sunday, makes this prayer: “By your help, we beseech you, Lord our God, may we walk eagerly in that same charity with which, out of love for the world, your Son handed himself over to death.” We can echo this plea, even if the “eagerly” is aspirational.

What great deeds the Lord worked for us!

Psalm 126 declares in trust, Those who are sowing in tears/ will sing when they reap. As the disciples on the road to Emmaus (depicted on our cover) slowly realise, the journey looks very different this side of the Resurrection. That doesn’t mean life will be a picnic; the inability of the disciples to recognise Jesus, even when he has vanquished death, proves that we continue to miss opportunities to know and love him.

But the fact that they recognise him in the breaking of the bread (Lk 24:35) tells us one thing, at least: that by receiving the Sacraments we will be able to continue our journey at his side, even through our blind spots. This is why, after Easter, we meditate on the Via Lucis, or Paschal Way of Light (see page 216). In the same way we need to remember all the steps of the Passion, we also need to impress on our souls the unfolding of Christ’s victory over Death.