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Monday, Third Week of Lent B (March 8/2021)
Your Daily Blessing: May God grant you and make you complete healing of mind, body, and spirit. Amen.
Read: II Kgs 5:1-15; Lk 4:24-30; pray Ps 41[40].
NARRATION: At home last December, I was troubled at the death of young people (relations, townsfolks) for unclear sicknesses. In my funeral homily I warned the youths to make extra effort to go for annual medical checkups in any hospital. It will save us many untimely deaths, for “heaven helps those who help themselves.”
Often we take our good health for granted until we are diagnosed with a terminal illness. Those who have gone (going) through a major sickness will appreciate the desperation of Naaman the leper in today’s first reading. It is a terrible disease. Jesus reminds Israelites (and us) that while there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha, it was only Naaman the leper that got cured.
The implication is that God, in his wisdom, love or even justice, choses those to enjoy his healing mercy. Not all who pray or seek for healing will get cured.
However, he seeks above all, our inner healing – the healing of our souls. All who earnestly seek for this healing always find healing if they persevere.
Therefore, any physical healing that does not bring us closer to God is wasted suffering; and it may likely repeat itself in a different cycle, because we are not learning..
Just as every night we go to sleep reminds us to prepare for death; every time we get sick should remind us to take care of our souls. So, these days, as people are getting overly concerned about “what we eat” and “exercise,” it is time to do look deeper: do away with all ‘spiritual junk foods,’ and get down to serious ‘spiritual exercises’! Naaman was healed not just physically, he found God through his health ordeal because our EVERY encounter with life or death is a window to the divine.
PRAYER: Dear Lord, I am sick in body, but I now know that I am even sicker in my soul. Please heal me in body and soul that I may be whole. Amen.
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