If You will it, You can make me clean

Today we have a guest blogger, Arlene B. Muller. Arlene B. Muller, OSF, is a Professed Secular Franciscan, lector & Extraordinary Minister at St. Pancras Church, Member of St. Margaret's Choir, and Itinerant Speech/language Therapist.

The scripture readings for this blog can be found at http://usccb.org/bible/readings/011620.cfm

Probably my favorite account of JESUS healing someone is the account in St. Mark's Gospel of the healing of the man with leprosy, both for what the man with leprosy said and for what JESUS did.

The man with leprosy approached JESUS and said "If You will it, You can make me clean." He expressed faith in Our LORD's power and ability to heal him of leprosy, while at the same time, he did not make demands and was not presumptuous to assume that he would receive an instant healing. He was definitely not of the "name it and claim it" mindset.

As much as it is my human desire that every person who is striving to live a good life of serving God (including myself) would be able to avoid all suffering or receive instant healing as soon as we made our first prayer request, God is still sovereign, and He exercises His right to say "yes", "no" or "wait" when we come to Him in prayer about our problems.  As the saying goes, "the Lord moves in mysterious ways". Sometimes He protects people from suffering (my favorite answer), sometimes He heals quickly (my next favorite answer), at other times He chooses to have our healing process take time, and sometimes He allows us to suffer until He takes us home to heaven and gives us sufficient grace to endure our suffering in HIS strength and not our own. He has His own reasons and purposes--sometimes He enlightens us about His purposes and sometimes we still don't understand but need to trust God that He is somehow working it all out together for our good, His glory, and the benefit of others.

In the Gospels we see examples of a variety of methods JESUS used to heal people. JESUS could have healed the man with leprosy with just a word, He could have sent him to the priests as He did with the ten lepers, or He could have employed some other method. Healing this man with a single word would have protected JESUS from the risk of ritual uncleanness, since lepers were not supposed to be touched and were instructed to cry out "unclean" if they were ever approached.  But JESUS not only healed this man. He TOUCHED him!  Although we cannot fully discern the LORD's mind and motivation, I can imagine that the LORD, in His compassion and wisdom, knew that this man with leprosy needed not only to be healed from his disease, but he also needed to be healed from the pain of his period of isolation from human contact, and he needed a special touch from the  LORD. The man not only needed to be healed physicality but he needed His healing touch emotionally, socially and spiritually.

Reflecting on this Gospel and the man with leprosy's need to be touched by the LORD reminded me that perhaps the greatest need of each of us--and my own greatest need--is to be touched by the LORD. I would imagine that (at least at times), judging by my own experience, most of us are very busy with our lives, and most of our prayers are expressions of concern about various situations in our lives and the lives of our loved ones. Our responsibilities, concerns, and worries can be all consuming and decrease our awareness of our need to experience the LORD's healing touch, since  most of the time we are focused on our various issues and our need for the LORD to fix them or to help us to fix them. In the Church we experience the touch of the LORD when we receive Him in the Eucharist and in the other sacraments, but much of the time we can be distracted by performing a particular ministry and/or our concern over a problem that we are not aware enough to experience the LORD touching us. The LORD desires to touch us but we fail to receive and experience His touch.  I know that at the present time my focus has been on issues surrounding the sale of my Mom's house, my work, my financial concerns and my desire to "get to the light at the end of the tunnel". Reflecting on this Gospel has reminded me that even more than a good outcome in this situation, as serious as it may be, I need the personal healing touch of the LORD and my relationship with Him.

So let us come to the LORD, acknowledging and trusting that He has the power to heal us in the way that He wills and let us be open to receive not only the solution to our problems but His personal healing touch, for that is the hidden and deepest desire of our hearts.