Things do not begin well in our first reading today. We hear about Job, a broken man. He has been assigned “months of misery” and “troubled nights,” and he laments that he “shall not see happiness again.” But Job is wrong, our responsorial psalm proclaims: Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted (Ps 147:3). And so, in the Gospel we meet Jesus, the young Jewish rabbi at the beginning of his preaching ministry, beginning to gather the men we call apostles. We see him heading for a dinner at Peter and Andrew’s house, and there is the tender scene when Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law. Then as evening falls, he heals many brought to him by “the whole town.” The fact that healing happens in us, in human history, in our earth and our climate, is a mark of divinity, a sign of a God’s guiding hand in all that is. Jesus of scripture was above all a healer; seeing his healing power, people began to recognize that he was the Lord. The spark of divinity in all of us means that we also can be healed ourselves, and we can help heal others. Is there a healing word or act asked of you by the Lord this week?
– Blog entry by Sister Mary Garascia