Our readings today are about healing. They are about the conditions in our lives that need healing. They are about the real possibility of healing and the source from which that healing comes. And they are about the common sense response that should happen once the healing takes place.
In the first reading, Elisha, the man of God, told Naaman to go and plunge into the Jordan River seven times; and when he did, his flesh became again like the flesh of a little child: he was cleansed of his leprosy. Two of the above elements are found in this opening sentence. The first is “what needs healing” and the second, “it was in the doing”, in the going, in the plunging that he was cleansed. The leprosy that was healed can be thought of both as a physical condition of disintegrating flesh; but also it can be seen as a spiritual condition of decaying morals and values! To be really cleansed, both have to be healed – and both have to be consciously prayed for and requested.
Again, it was in the activity of the one who had the condition that the healing took place – at the instruction of the man (the person) of God.
In the gospel passage we have Jesus himself telling ten lepers to “go and show themselves to the priests.” It was in the activity of going as they were instructed, by not only a man of God, but in this case by God himself, in the person of Jesus, that they were cleansed of their leprosy! Here too, Jesus was hoping that it would be for them both and interior as well as an exterior healing! For that is why Jesus performed miracles – to change the hearts and spirits of men on the inside – as well as to restore the outside of the body!
Only ONE out of the ten realized that he was cured and had the common sense to return to Jesus and to THANK HIM! Jesus, not unkindly, asked where the other nine were. Maybe he even did this parenthetically – or mostly to himself: as in a sigh! Then he told this grateful man to go in peace because his faith had healed and saved him- both on the outside and on the inside. Perhaps this is the answer to Jesus’ hope about the inner change that can also be imaged by leprosy: maybe “the other nine” only had a physical healing – and not an inner conversion. That is why they were not yet ready to return directly to Jesus to thank him. Who knows? Maybe later on they did – in their own way – in their own time - after an inner, spiritual conversion!
In both cases – from the Old Testament and the New Testament – it is very important to understand the real source of the total healing that is always available to us. And that is: the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ! The Old Testament pointed to this supreme act of love and regeneration; the New Testament is witnessing it as it occurs (even now)! The power which raised Jesus from the dead, the power which St. Paul speaks about today in the second reading – is the power of reconciliation and healing for every thing and for every one! And so it is true that – by our baptism – if we have died with him we shall also live with him. If we have “conditions” and “illnesses” and “diseases” and “distresses” and “chaos” (and who doesn’t!) of any kind in our lives: the antidote is in the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus! Faith in the power of the Cross and Resurrection can do amazing things: it can entirely cleanse, and renew and heal us both inside and out!
Do you believe this? And are you ready and willing to do your part in cooperating with your own healing process? – asking God for help, listening to “men and women of God” – be they doctors, nurses, priests, religious, family members or co-workers who give you God-sent instructions on how to get well? Can any of us afford to be skeptical about our own personal physical and spiritual health?
We must remember that if we deny him (and his help) he will deny us!
But, if we are unfaithful, or discourteous or ungrateful, he will still remain faithful to us and to his promises for he cannot deny himself! He cannot go against the presence of his Son (in our souls), in whose image we are baptized – and who he sees every time he looks at us!
The last point for today is this: Naaman, in the first reading was a foreigner; and it was Samaritan lepers (foreigners) whom Jesus cured – which purposely and perfectly underscores the idea that reconciliation, restoration and healing derived from the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus are for all people everywhere.
The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power!
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