Daily Mass Gospel Reflection - Embrace The Healing

Word on Fire Ministry ^ | 1-10-24 | Bishop Robert Barron

[MurphsLaw]

Mark 1:29-39

Friends, in today’s Gospel,
Jesus heals many of the townspeople of Capernaum.
His healing of physical ailments points to his spiritual healing—
to his being the doctor of the soul.

The Gospels are filled with accounts of Jesus’ healing encounters
with those whose spiritual energies are unable to flow.
Much of Jesus’ ministry consisted in teaching people how to see (the kingdom of God),
how to hear (the voice of the Spirit),
how to walk (overcoming the paralysis of the heart),
and how to be free of themselves so as to discover God.

Jesus was referred to in the early Church as the Savior (salvator in Latin).
The term speaks of the one who brings healing—
indeed, our word salve is closely related to salvus, meaning health.
When the soul is healthy, it is in a living relationship with God.
When the soul is sick, the entire person becomes ill,
because all flows from and depends upon the dynamic encounter
with the source of being and life who is God.

We heal the soul by bringing to bear the salvator,
the healer,
the one who in his person reconciled us with God
and opened the soul to the divine power.

[MurphsLaw]

+++Jesus came to Capernaum with his followers,
and on the sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught.
The people were astonished at his teaching,
for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.
In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit;
he cried out,
“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us?
I know who you are–the Holy One of God!”
Jesus rebuked him and said,
“Quiet! Come out of him!”
The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him.
All were amazed and asked one another,
“What is this?
A new teaching with authority.
He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.”
His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.+++

[Buttons12]

Two great books in our family library by Francis MacNutt: Healing, and The Power to Heal.