Healing is front and center in our Sunday Scriptures this week and next week. Today, in our first reading we hear the discouraged speech of Job, crushed by life’s reversals. In the Gospel, we hear how Jesus cured Peter’s mother-in-law and then went on to heal many other villagers. Next week, we will hear about leprosy in both the Hebrew Scripture reading and the Gospel. What does it mean to be saved? Most of the time, we are told that it means being saved from sin. Our Scriptures invite us to broaden our concept of salvation. For we are also saved when we are healed! Each of us has wounds that need healing — some wounds going back to our families of origin, and other wounds picked up during the events of our later lives. St. Augustine loved the image of Jesus as the divine physician. In today’s Gospel, we see Jesus readily responding to those asking for healing. Where in my life am I crying out like Job? What wound do I ask to have healed by our divine physician?
– Blog entry by Sister Mary Garascia