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Seventh Sunday In Ordinary Time
| | Readings for February 19, 2012
Forgiveness as Healing
"Lord, heal my soul, for I have sinned against you."
Psalm 41:5b
Today's readings present a striking image of Christ as healer and the intimate connection between physical and spiritual healing. In the Gospel of Mark 2:1-12, Christ forgives and heals a paralyzed man. We can visualize the crowd clustered around Jesus, hoping he will heal their infirmities.
The ancient view of illness or disability is often connected to sinfulness, whether of an individual, their families, or the larger society. Religion and healing are closely associated in the world's religions. In a world without medicine as we know it, spiritual healers can induce trances and dismiss evil spirits; they can placate angry ancestors who punish individuals; yogis can achieve centeredness and great peace that is healing to the body.
Much of ancient Greek philosophy has been incorporated into Christian theology. Aeschylus writes in Agamemnon that
"Wisdom comes throughsuffering," and that
"He who learns must suffer
And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart,
And in our own despite, against our will,
Comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God."
In Mark's Gospel, Christ claims the divine power to forgive sin. Sinfulness is brokenness. If one is healed of sin, the implication is that one can become healed in a more wholistic way.
Christ may have performed this particular healing to show the scribes who he was, possessing a power that only God can have. Besides being powerful, Christ is caring, speaking tenderly to those who are ill:
"When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, 'Child, your sins are forgiven..."I say to you rise, pick up your mat, and go home."
In the Bible, forgiveness and a letting go of the past are viewed as good things. In the reading from Isaiah 43 it is written,
"Remember not the events of the past; the things of long ago consider not....It is I, I, who wipe out, for my own sake, your offenses; Your sins I remember no more."
In fact, forgiveness is hard for most people. Many holy people find it to be the area in their spiritual lives that is most difficult to surmount. So many books have been written about forgiveness. Yet, we are reminded that we have not yet been healed by a painful place in our hearts when recalling people or events where we have been deeply wounded. Perhaps we cannot will our own healing. God does the healing. God hears our prayer and if we are open to it, God's grace enters our lives and transforms us.
In my studies a number of years ago I used a book by Robert J. Schreiter, C.PP.S., The Ministry of Reconciliation: Spirituality & Strategies. It has been translated into many languages, and provides an excellent description of the process of forgiveness on both the individual and global scale. Its thesis is that forgiveness must begin with the one who has been hurt. This goes against our immediate feelings. Yet, the one who has caused the hurt might no longer be a part of one's life, or may never feel the remorse one would wish to see. The families of those missing or killed in wars and other atrocities will never have their loved ones returned to them. One needs inwardly to slowly begin to think and feel differently, and thereby rescue one's own psyche. By forgiving, one becomes more whole and perhaps-gradually-- relates to others in new ways.
I recommend a film I recently viewed, "Forgiving Dr. Mengele," directed by Bob Hercules. An Auschwitz survivor, Eva Mozes Kor, who was subjected to the Nazis cruel experiments on twins, and whose family was killed in the concentration camp, decides to forgive the perpetrators as a way of self-healing. Many people criticized her approach, believing that such atrocities are beyond forgiveness. But this remarkable woman states that her forgiveness is an interior quality, it is something that heals from within and makes it possible to continue with life in a productive and caring way.
We cannot heal ourselves. In the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd religious education process, we learn there is a divine pedagogy at work as the Good Shepherd walks with us through the experiences of our lives, teaching us wisdom. In asking for the healing grace of forgiveness, we know that the Good Shepherd is always faithful.
-Maryanne Rusinak
Ascension parishioner, catechist, mother of four and librarian and adjunct instructor at Concordia University Chicago |
| Lectio Divina... | | "Lectio divina is a slow, contemplative praying of the Scriptures. Time set aside in a special way for lectio divina enables us to discover in our daily life an underlying spiritual rhythm. Within this rhythm, we discover an increasing ability to offer more of ourselves and our relationships to the Father, and to accept the embrace that God is continuously extending to us in the person of his son, Jesus Christ."
Father Luke Dysinger, O.S.B
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| About Living the Word | |
LIVING THE WORD...opportunity, challenge, commitment
Opportunity: Living the Word is an opportunity for us to grow in our knowledge and love of God through the prayerful reading and study of the scriptures.
Challenge: Living the Word is a challenge to make more time for God in our daily lives. We challenge ourselves to come to Mass each week ready to hear God's Word proclaimed and to take that Word to the world!
Commitment: Living the Word invites us to commit ourselves to spending time with God's Word several times each week. As we read and reread these scriptures, think about the words we read, and bring these words to prayer, we encounter Christ, God's Living Word.
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| What is a Lectionary? | |
A lectionary is a list of scripture readings (also called "lections," from the Latin lectio) selected for reading at worship services; it is also the book containing the actual readings. The term is most commonly used in the Catholic Church for the Lectionary for Mass, which contains the readings prescribed for the Masses for Sundays, feast days, weekdays, sacramental celebrations, funerals, and Masses for special occasions or particular devotions-basically, any Mass.
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