The miraculous healing of the crippled woman in the
synagogue is a story only found in Luke’s Gospel. While teaching in the
synagogue, the Lord notices this woman, hunched over, unable to stand upright.
St. Luke tells us that she was afflicted by an unclean spirit for 18 years. Her
physical affliction is certainly symbolic of the moral and spiritual state of
sinful humanity. We are crippled by sin. Sin cripples our minds, our bodies,
and our souls.
Well, the Lord, notices the crippled woman, goes to her, and
sets her free from her infirmity. Through this miracle she is immediately able
to stand erect and immediately glorifies God.
This healing, like so all the stories of the healing miracles
in the Gospels, is symbolic of the Lord’s entire mission. God has compassion
for the waywardness that is ours, humanity’s fallen state. We are crippled by
sin, unable to walk in the freedom for which we were created—our intellect is
darkened, our wills are weakened. And through Christ we are liberated, healed,
set free, able to walk upright again, and worship God in spirit and in truth.
St. Paul elaborates on this very point in our reading from
his letter to the ephesians today, explaining how what God has done for us in
Christ has changed everything. We have been set free, we have been liberated,
and so we must strive to be imitators of God, as beloved children, living in
love. Jesus did not die for us just so we can return to being crippled again by
immorality. We are liberated from sin so that we can be imitators of God.
Upon receiving this great healing, the woman in the Gospel, “stood
up straight and glorified God.” So too, our response to being healed by God is
to make our lives a sacrificial offering to God; patterned after the sacrifice
of Christ on the cross, we are to become a fragrant aroma to God, offering to
God all of our time, talent, and treasure in self-giving love.
We are to strive for holiness—uprightness—in our conduct,
not simply out of fear that we will be punished for breaking divine
commandments, but because we have been made to glorify God through the
imitation of Christ. “Behave like God” we said in our responsory today. “Behave
like God as his very dear children.”
This is our task and our calling in every conversation and
interaction, with family, friends, strangers or enemies. We are to behave like God in our speech, in
our decisions, in our attentiveness to those in need.
May we, who were once in darkness, as St. Paul says, live in
the light of the Lord, today and all days, for the glory of God and salvation
of souls.
That the effects of sin may continue to be healed in us,
that we may walk in the moral uprightness God desires for his children.
For spiritual healing and mercy upon all those who have fallen away from the Church, those who have fallen to mortal sin, for those who blaspheme, for the conversion of atheists and non-believers, we pray to the Lord.
For the healing of all those afflicted with physical,
mental, emotional illness, for those in hospitals, nursing homes, hospice care,
those struggling with addictions, for those who grieve the loss of a loved one,
and those who will die today.
For the repose of the souls of our beloved dead, for all of
the poor souls in purgatory, for the deceased members of our families, friends,
and parish, for deceased clergy and religious, for those who have fought and
died for our freedom, we pray to the Lord.
Heavenly Father, hear our prayers. May the grace of Christ
Your Son, the Divine Physician, bring healing of our sinfulness, and make us
worthy of the kingdom of heaven, through the same Christ our Lord.
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