Effectiveness of divine healing

By Fr. ROY CIMAGALA, roycimagala@gmail.com
December 4, 2012

There’s no doubt that a lot of people urgently need some healing, if not in the area of physical health, then in their emotional, mental and spiritual health. Many have gone through traumatic experiences and are left scarred, if not irreversibly damaged.

We need to see this situation that is getting widespread, getting more open than hidden, from the point of view of our faith. We cannot and should not just see it by our lonesome, relying only on our feelings and estimations. We need to see it from the point of view of God.

That is where we can always find some healing that can come to us in many and mysterious forms. But it always comes, because God is a father, an omnipotent father full of love and compassion, who can never be indifferent to our predicaments.

In fact, he reads our mind and heart better than we do, knows exactly what we need before we can even articulate it, and takes the initiative to come to our help and rescue even before we can ask.

Thus, in the gospel we always see how Christ, just by seeing the needs, big or small, and the problems and miseries of the people, always came to the rescue. His heart cannot remain unmoved by this sight.

This is the case for example of the widow whose only son died, the crowd who was with Christ for three days to listen to him. Even the Samaritan woman who happened to coincide with him in the well received a gentle treatment that converted her.

But all this also depends on whether we have faith, a living and functional faith. Thus, in the gospel we see how our Lord commended those who were asking for cures and miracles for their faith in him.

A very moving story was that of the father of a possessed boy who in his great distress approached our Lord for a cure. When asked if he believed our Lord could cure his son, he immediately said, yes, “I believe,” and added, “but help my unbelief.”

Even when our faith is still weak, our Lord comes to supplement. Just show it, no matter how weak, and God will do the rest.

This is a point worth noting, because many of our problems today, and the continuing and harrowing drama they create, are due to our lack of faith. Typical of this mentality is the common thought, often unspoken but from time to time verbalized, that miracles don’t happen anymore these days.

So instead of faith, there is scepticism, as if God’s power is limited to the days of the gospel. It’s the same scepticism that was expressed by the townspeople of Christ himself who could not believe that their fellow townmate could speak so well and could do miracles. As a result, Christ left the place and refused to perform miracles there.

We have to be more keenly aware of this predicament because this is where we get blind and insensitive to the ever-ready and abundant compassion of Christ for us. It is this predicament that takes us down into a spiral of anguish and, sooner or later, despair, since we would not play God’s game but prefer to play our own.

We need humility and simplicity for this faith to grow in us and remove us from our self-inflicted predicament. It’s this humility and simplicity that will also make us persevere in our faith in God’s most compassionate omnipotence even when we don’t seem to get what we are asking for.

Let’s remember that God always sees the whole picture and that we often miss out many things in our perception of things, even with our best efforts. We have to always remain believing in God’s compassion.

In this regard, together with humility and simplicity, for our faith to prosper we also would need fortitude or toughness, as expressed in patience or in disregarding certain things that definitely are not working for our own good.

This can mean our feelings and passions and memory and the other expressions of our flesh that are still untouched by faith. Most of our problems stem from this – many people are unable to handle these wayward powers of ours and are in fact enslaved by them.