GUEST POST – from The Catholic Hack – “The Gift of Healing”

The Gift of Healing!

I have often prayed for the gift of healing… on my knees asking the Holy Spirit for the charism to heal those most suffering around me.  To lay hands on the sick, the dying and to see God heal them… what could be better?  How proud I was of myself to have the desire to heal however, I was not being sincere with myself.  If I dig deep down, and am honest, I will have to admit that I want that gift, to heal by a miracle act of God’s will, because I have NOT embraced the Cross of Christ.

You see, if I’m honest,  I want those around me to be healed because their suffering makes me feel so uncomfortable and I don’t want to feel uncomfortable. I want to take away their pain so that I can feel ok again!  How cowardly of me!   When Pilot proclaimed “Ecce Homo” to the crowed gathered before him, they looked on with ghastly amazement at the sight of a brutalized victim held up before them.  We have all seen “The Passion of The Christ” and therefore we can conjure up an image, in our mind’s eye, of what our Lord might have looked like.  Beaten, flesh torn and hanging from his body, the blood soaked purple robe, the crown of thorns penetrating his skull… “Behold the Man”! How many in the crowd, who yelled out “Let his blood be upon us and upon our children” (a strikingly similar statement to the one found in Ex. 24 when Moses sprinkled the blood from the 12 Priests, on 12 alters, upon the people of Israel) also wanted to snap their fingers and have his pain taken away so that they might not feel so uncomfortable?

When St. Peter drew his sword to fend off the attack of the mob come to arrest his Lord in the garden… what did Jesus say… “shall I NOT drink from the cup that my Father has given me to drink?”  To dislike the pain and discomfort of suffering is natural… to embrace it… is divine!  Manly even!

When you think of the men who inspired you the most; what do they look like? How do they act? What moral character do theypossess?  For me… it’s the William Wallaces (the movie… not so much the real man), and the John Waynes of the world, but mostly… it’s Jesus Christ, and my patron saint, St. Peter.  The men who always do the right thing no matter what… even when faced with ultimate adversity.  Men of extreme integrity.  They inspire me the most…. but you say “why St. Peter?; did he not deny our Lord three times?” Why yes he did…. so how can he be included in this list? Because I can relate to him!  He was always the one who rushed head long into the wind without thinking first…. and then, when tested, was found weak.  I’m weak… I have lots of faults… I always want to the do the right thing and often act before thinking.  Yes, I wish I had the kind of courage to step out of the boat!  Do you?

Our Lord didn’t toss out St. Peter when he committed so grievous a crime and He does not toss us out either!  Another great lesson I learned from St. Peter was humility and the courage it takes to do the right thing even after you have monumentally screwed up.  If I had a dollar for every time I have monumentally screwed up I would be a wealthy man… thank God for His mercy and for His sacrament which I can seek and find Reconciliation!

St. Paul said in  Colossians 1:24 “I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of His body, that is, the church.”

Do you embrace your sufferings? How about the sufferings around you? I know I want to be the man Jesus is… to take up my cross daily and follow Him. Jesus marched on Calvary Hill like a King before his army… and when faced with extreme adversity, in a garden, He didn’t hide in a bush but rather starred it in the eye and said “I AM”… come and get me.  I don’t know about you but I’m sick and tired of being a coward… I want to be like Christ!  I want to see past earthly suffering and behold heaven.

This week has been tough, a good friend lost her five-year battle with cancer. Her husband had divorced her, and she has two small boys who will now be taken to the Philippines to live with their dad.  Her struggle both inspired me and made me feel extreme uneasiness… I prayed continually for God to heal her so that I would not have to feel this way.  Yet, unlike what I would do,  Kelley, actually offered up all her pain, and even her death, to God as a sacrifice so that her family might be reconciled and converted, and her boys to grow in faith.   Kelley has taught me how to be a better man… to embrace suffering as an opportunity to “fill up that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ”… namely me and my will to emulate our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now… my father-in-law, John, is also facing the last months of his life on earth in a battle with cancer.  I pray for him and fight my urge to be so selfish as to only think of myself in this process.  Instead I pray to embrace this suffering, for his sake, that through pain there is the gain of Heaven… the way our Lord laid down for us all.  I want the courage to be a saint and to stare adversity in the eye and proclaim that I WILL drink the cup my Father has given me to drink!

Pray for me!  God Bless You and I will see you on the Hill!

Sincerely,
The Donkey Jesus Rides today!
Joe McClane

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