Your Faith Has Healed You
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
By: Jeff Smith
This issue of The Word Among Us focuses on the gift of healing. What’s your immediate reaction when you hear that? Some of us may be excited and filled with hope and anticipation of God working so powerfully in our lives. But others of us, including myself, might swallow a bit hard and wonder if anything comes from praying for God’s healing. As you might remember, my son, Pete, has been living with stage four cancer for the past four years. Many of our faith-filled friends have prayed with Pete for God’s healing. He has received the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick several times as well. But his cancer remains; in fact, it has spread.
This is sometimes hard for me to accept. Why would God let him continue to suffer? But while physical healing has eluded him, many other gifts have come to Pete. He doesn’t complain about his condition, and he doesn’t blame anyone for what he’s going through. Instead, Pete has come to a deeper faith in heaven and in God’s mercy. My wife, Jeannie, recently asked him if he was afraid of dying. His response? “Mom, I’m not afraid, but I’m not looking forward to the suffering that comes with it.”
So yes, Pete still has cancer. He is thin and pale. And he has times of fairly severe pain. Clearly, Jesus has not healed his body. But little by little, he has healed Pete’s spirit. He has deepened his faith. And for that I am so grateful!
Persistent, Expectant Faith. In this issue, we’ve invited Mary Healy, a professor of Scripture at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit and a member of the Vatican’s Pontifical Biblical Commission, to share with us her conviction that the Lord truly wants to heal his people, both physically and spiritually.
My hope is that these articles will spur you to seek the Lord’s healing touch with greater faith and expectancy. We may at times feel like the Canaanite woman, who had to keep begging Jesus to deliver her demon-possessed daughter (Matthew 15:21-28). It must have felt like Jesus was ignoring her! But here’s what Dr. Healy says: “This woman was not put off. How easy it would have been at that point for the woman to turn back in deep discouragement, concluding that it must not be the Lord’s will to free her beloved daughter from demonic oppression. But this woman simply would not take no for an answer. And Jesus found himself unable to resist such faith!”
Brothers and sisters, let’s entrust ourselves to the Lord. Let’s ask him with expectant faith to work miracles in situations that seem impossible. Let’s rely on Jesus’ promise: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7). Let’s keep praying, “Lord, fulfill your promises in every aspect of our lives, whether that be in our spirits, our minds, or our bodies!”
Jeff Smith
President
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