30th Week in OT 2020 - Monday - Healing our crippled natures

 

The miraculous healing of the crippled woman in the synagogue is a passage 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 affliction was not just physical, but spiritual as well. Some spiritual evil was keeping her from the uprightness God desires for us all. 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, again, 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 understands this and explains to the ephesians 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 hunched over and crippled again by impurity and immorality. We are liberated from sin so that we can be imitators of God. Like the woman in the Gospel, 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 know and understand that we have been changed, recreated through Christ. Our natures—our bodies and souls have been remade, so much so  that we are now more like God than we were before the fall—we participate more fully in the communion of life and love and joy of the Blessed Trinity, even now, while still on earth. We don’t wait until we die to go to heaven—heaven, in a sense, begins now, for Christians.

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.

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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 the healing of all the wounds of division afflicting the Church, for an end to heresy and schism, for turning away from all doctrinal error and hardness of heart, we pray to the Lord.

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.

9th Week of OT 2018 - Monday - Sharers in Divine Nature

The second letter of Peter contains one of the highest, sublime and mysterious promises found in the whole New Testament. Peter says, fidelity to the Gospel leads to us sharing in the divine nature (II Pet 1:4). We find similar promises throughout the New Testament. Hebrews says that we are called to “share” in God’s own holiness (Heb 12:10); and that we are made “partakers” of the Holy Spirit. St. Paul writes that we have “communion” with the Spirit (2 Cor 13:13; Phil 2:1); and “communion” with Christ in the Eucharist (1 Cor 10:16).

Peter’s promise here is quite lofty. Yes, through Christ we have friendship with God, restored communion with God, and new openness to the gifts of the Spirit. But Peter alludes to something else, doesn’t her? That through Christ we become “sharers in the divine nature.”

I don’t think I’m making a big deal about an obscure line of scripture here, either. II Peter 1:4 is cited at least eight times in the catechism. Very early on, in CCC 51, we read that God’s overall purpose for us, all his activity through history, including his incarnation, is that we can become “sharers of the divine nature.”

And Christians do not have to wait until our earthly journey has come to an end. Though, in a sense, it does begin when we begin to die to ourselves at baptism. CCC 1265 says “Baptism not only purifies from all sins, but also makes the neophyte "a new creature," an adopted son of God, who has become a "partaker of the divine nature," member of Christ and coheir with him, and a temple of the Holy Spirit.”

This language has even made its way into the rituals of the Mass. As the priest prepares the chalice, he pours wine into the chalice, and then adds a few drops of water, saying: “Through the mystery of this water and wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”

Our “Sharing in the Divine nature” deepens as we receive the sacraments with well-disposed hearts, as we listen attentively to God’s word and become doers of the word, as we practice the virtues, as Peter says today, when you live the “faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with devotion, devotion with mutual affection, mutual affection with love.”

What a great vocation we have, what a great new identity. May we make “every effort” as Peter says, to cooperate with God’s work within us, that his power, his grace, his life, may be manifest in us and through us, drawing all men to Himself, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
 
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Let us pray, imploring the mercy of the Sacred Heart of Jesus..

For a deeper openness to the sanctifying grace of the Sacraments, for the return of all who have fallen away from the Church, and all those who lack faith. We pray to the Lord.

For our young people on summer vacation, that they may be kept safe from the errors of our culture and kept in close friendship with Jesus through prayer and acts of mercy.

That the protection for the unborn child may be enshrined in the laws of every nation and in every human heart.

For all the needs of the sick and the suffering, the homebound, those in nursing homes and hospitals, the underemployed and unemployed, immigrants and refugees, victims of natural disaster, war, and terrorism, for all those who grieve the loss of a loved one, and those who will die today, for their comfort, and the consolation of their families.

For all who have died, and for all the poor souls in purgatory, and for X. for whom this Mass is offered.

Incline your merciful ear to our prayers, we ask, O Lord, and listen in kindness to the supplications of those who call on you. Through Christ our Lord