The places where we encounter God are holy to us, aren’t they? Our childhood church, a holy shrine, the parish church where we attended with our family, the tomb of a patron saint, maybe a chapel in which important spiritual growth occurred during a particularly trying time.
For Jacob, in our first reading, the place of divine encounter was a mountain-top at a place which came to be known as Bethel: Beth-el, the house of God. At Bethel, Jacob had a particularly vivid dream in which heaven opened and he encountered the Divine, the God of Abraham and his father Isaac.
The encounter with God gave his life purpose; he knew that God would be with him always, that God was directing his life, and would direct his family for generations to come.
This sort of encounter with God is not unique to Jacob. Perhaps you have had a similar encounter with God. I have. An encounter, an experience with God that deepens faith—an encounter that helps you to know that God is with you—an encounter that gives you a sense that God is bigger than your trials and troubles and fears.
The daughter of the royal official and the woman with the hemorrhage in the Gospel today, had similar encounters with God, in the person of Jesus Christ. These encounters were healing and life-giving. Wounds, physical, emotional, and spiritual are healed when God is encountered.
In commemoration of his encounter with the Divine, Jacob constructed a stone pillar to thank God for the blessing he received—and in a sense to renew the experience of the Divine. Christians return to the stone table—the altar—week after week to do the same. At the stone table—we thank God for the blessings of our life—and we experience the Divine in the Eucharist—an encounter that brings healing and meaning to our life. The altar is an anchor as it is a window and a doorway.
And, it is where we receive our mission. Following our encounter with God here, we are sent out to gather others in—the lost souls, searching souls, saddened souls, wounded souls, that they may encounter Jesus here too, and experience his healing, his forgiveness, and his blessing, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
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That the wounded and lost may discover the love and life of Jesus Christ in Catholic Church.
For spiritual healing and mercy upon those who have fallen away from the Church. For the conversion of atheists and non-believers.
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 priests and religious, for those who have fought and died for our freedom.
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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