It is the Lord who heals the brokenhearted. It is He who lifts up the lowly. And how does He do it? just as He healed Peter’s Mother-in-law in today’s Gospel. He does through the touch of His Healing Hand.

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time. February 4th, 2018

In our first reading today, we hear of the great trial of Job. Job who was the most faithful to the Lord, has now it seems, fallen out of favor with the Lord and even incurred His wrath. Job is experiencing almost every type of suffering there is. He has lost his great fortune and his home; he has lost his prestige and has become a mockery to his neighbors; he is enduring a horrible illness and is suffering on a bed of misery and pain. And even worse, He has lost loved ones—close family members. Job is at the brink of total despair: He says, “I will never see happiness again.”

There are many in our world today that are like modern day "Jobs." They have lost jobs, savings and homes. So many, like Job are facing or experiencing serious illness or declining health, and are facing death. In the last few years so many have faced unbelievable suffering, misery and loss through natural disasters and wars…How many there are who are in bondage and slavery, physical slavery yes, but even more so, how many are suffering of the bondage of the greatest of all slavery-sin and its effects. So many there are who are broken in spirit and are at the “end of their rope,” so to speak. They are at the verge of or have already fallen into despair. From where will come their deliverance, from where will come their hope—who will heal the brokenhearted in our world today. …

Our psalm today gives us the answer…It is the Lord who heals the brokenhearted. It is He who lifts up the lowly. And how does He do it? just as He healed Peter’s Mother-in-law in today’s Gospel. He does through the touch of His Healing Hand.

For those who humble themselves before the Lord, the Lord grasps them by the hand and helps them up, heals them and saves them. It can never be said enough that the Lord saves through healing, the healing of the spirit, the healing of the whole person, the healing of the soul and yes even the healing of the body, (if not in this world, certainly in the next).

This healing of the Lord is not just some quaint metaphor or analogy. His Healing Hand can take the form of a very tangible touch. It is still possible for the lowly, for those who humble themselves before the Lord to experience the touch of the human healing hand of Christ in ordered to be lifted up (for those who humble themselves shall be exalted…).

I remember a young woman, with whom I was very closed, who was suffering from a terminal illness--cancer. At her diagnoses, she was only 23. She was terrified, not only afraid to die, but afraid of the great physical suffering that would come along with her disease and eventual death. Her days, like Job’s, were truly “swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, they were coming to an end, and it seemed without hope.” It was then that I myself, experienced the Lord come to her and grasped her by the hand and lift her up and heal her.

How did the Lord come to her…how did He touch her? How did He heal her? It was through the great Sacraments of the Church known as Confession and the Anointing of the Sick and especially and substantially in the Holy Eucharist.

Like in all the Sacraments, it is truly the Lord who we are dealing with. In the person of priest, Jesus came to her, truly and really, lovingly and mercifully. For her part, this young woman lowered herself before the Lord, and placed her trust in His Divine mercy by humbly, truthfully and contritely confessing her sins to Jesus, through His priest. And through the hands of that same priest, Jesus forgave this dying young woman with His own hands in the absolution, laid His own hands upon her head to heal her, anointed her brow with the oil of His tenderness and compassion, grasped her trembling hands and anointed them as well, healing her broken heartedness and healing her soul.

From that moment on, I saw in this young woman an incredible change. She went from a fearful and hopeless “Job,” to a young woman strong in the Fear and Love of Lord. She began not only to embrace her sufferings but even to offer them joyfully for the sake of others, for the salvation of others, especially her family. Like St. Paul, in her weakness she became strong.

After, when friends would come to visit her in order to cheer her and lift her up, she instead would lift them up and give them hope…In the end, I am totally convinced she beat her cancer…maybe not physically but she most certainly beat it spiritually. It may have destroyed her body in this life, but it did not destroy her soul. And in her sufferings and even in her death, she became for others a way to the Healing Hands of Jesus by preaching the Gospel with her life and even with her death. Jesus lifted her up in soul to Himself, and on the last day, I have no doubt, He will also lift up her healed body as well at the resurrection of the dead…Praise the Lord!!!

Interestingly, has he did when he first visited this young girl, whenever this priest would visit her during her illness he would always grasp her hand and hold it has he talked to her about the Lord, the cross and redemptive suffering, and as he prayed with her and for her. And as he would go to leave, she would always say the same thing, “Thank you for coming Father, you go ahead and go, just leave me your hand!” After her death, I heard this same priest give the funeral homily for her…He mentioned this, about her wanting him to leave his hand with her when he left. And He said to all those present at this now 24-year old’s funeral…”it was not my hand she wanted me to leave, but it was the Lord’s Hand…It was Jesus hand—His healing hand!” Praise the Lord!!!

Now as a priest, whenever I have the great privilege to visit the sick here in the hospital and administer the Sacrament of the anointing…I am always well aware, and I always remind those present, that it is not my hand that is about to touch you, but it is the Healing Hand of the Lord that is about to touch you.

I have I seen, God be praised and not this sinner, I have seen the faith of the humble before the healing hand of the Lord, and I have seen Him lift them up and heal them, giving them hope, giving them health and giving them life. In the Sacraments, it is the Lord we are dealing with, the priest is merely His burro, unworthy, so many times not very faithful and himself beset with weakness and fear. But nonetheless, it is this burro that the Lord uses to come to the soul—the ways of the Lord are not our ways.

In confession, the Lord comes to the humble and contrite heart, to the brokenhearted and offers His healing hand—this is why confession is an integral and necessary part of the anointing of the sick (unless the person is physically unable to confess-only then does the anointing take away serious sin without confession)…. Do you know that more miraculous healings take place in the confessional than anywhere else, even more than occur at Lourdes or other religious shrines? Spiritual healings yes, but even sometimes miraculous physical healings—more in the confessional than anywhere else!!!—when the soul is healed sometimes the Body follows, if it be God’s Holy Will.

And at the Holy Mass the Lord comes in His resurrected and glorified—healed body, which once was dead but now lives again. He comes to each of us and if we humbly open our hearts to Him, He lifts us up as He is lifted up in the Holy Eucharist. He wishes to come to us, not only to heal us and save us, but He wishes to transform us, so that each of our hands can become his healing hands to others…

Yes, the Lords healing powers come through the priestly ministry, firstly and primarily. But from there, this Power can also work through you and through your hands as you go forth from this Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and strive with His help and His Blessed Mother’s help, to live the Gospel with your very life—with your life, whether in health or sickness, in suffering and even in your death.

He wishes through you, with you and in you, to come and "touch" to those who are brokenhearted, who may be in your own family, at your work or school, and even at your places of recreation and sport…Not all of the poor, that is the brokenhearted, are in the shape of the material poor (which is the error of secular humanism), some of the poorest of the poor may be very rich material speaking but very poor spiritually speaking (how many of the rich and famous commit suicide). The Lord may place some of the most brokenhearted in this world in your path this very day to offer them His healing touch so HE can begin to mend their brokenheart; He wants to use you to bring them into the fold of Holy Church so He can touch them in the Great Healing Sacraments of His Merciful Healing Sacred Heart.

But before you go to them, before we go to them, first we must come to Jesus, and we ourselves must receive His Healing Touch frequently, both in the confessional accepting His Divine Mercy through the confession of our sins. And then we must come to Him in the Holy Eucharist and ask the Virgin, by placing our heart in her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, to place our brokenheart into the Pierced Eucharistic Heart of Her Son. Before we can be used to console others, we must first be consoled by the Lord in the Sacraments and then we will be empowered to console others with the same consolation we have received from Him.

Let us pray: O God in Whom Mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion inexhaustible, look kindly upon us and increase Your Mercy in us, so that in difficult moments we might not despair nor become despondent, but with great confidence submit ourselves to Your Holy Will, which is Love and Mercy Itself. Jesus, I trust in You! Jesus, I trust in You! Jesus, I trust in You! Our Lady of Perpetual Help pray for us! Amen.