By Deborah Castellano Lubov
“In life there are moments of disappointment and discouragement, and there is also the experience of death. Let us learn from that woman, from that father: let us go to Jesus: He can heal us, He can revive us. Jesus is our hope!”
Pope Leo XIV made this invitation during his Wednesday General Audience in the Vatican, as he continued his catechesis series on the Jubilee theme of “Christ our Hope,” reflecting this week on two miracles that reveal the healing power of having faith in Jesus.
Two miracles born of full faith in Christ
The first miracle recounted in the Gospel according to St Mark involves a woman who, after suffering from an illness that had led her to be shunned by society as unclean, trusts that Jesus has the power to heal her. Thus, she reaches out to touch Him amid the crowd, and because of her faith, Jesus heals her and says to her, “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
In the second miracle, St Mark recounts, Jesus raises a young girl from the dead, responding to the faith-filled plea of a distressed father, who had received the news that his daughter had died. Jesus said to him: “Do not be afraid; only have faith,” goes to the man’s house and, seeing everyone crying and wailing, says: “The child is not dead but sleeping.”
The two episodes, Pope Leo XIV suggested, reveal that when we turn to the Lord with trust and faith, nothing is beyond His capabilities.
“Jesus’ act shows us that not only does He heal from every illness, but He also awakens from death,” Pope Leo stressed, noting, “For God, who is Eternal Life, death of the body is like sleep. True death is that of the soul: of this we must be afraid!”
Transforming our lives from within
Pope Leo also underlined that after bringing the girl back to life, Jesus tells her parents to give her something to eat, pointing this out as another very concrete sign of Jesus’ closeness to our humanity.
The Pope said it enables us to understand this in a deeper sense and makes us ask ourselves a question, “When our children are in crisis and need spiritual nourishment, do we know how to give it to them? And how can we, if we ourselves are not nourished by the Gospel?”
The Holy Father reflected on each miracle, underscoring how they did not allow anything to get in the way of their faith in God to resolve their dire situations.
“Sometimes,” the Pope marveled, “we are unaware of it, but in a secret and real way, grace reaches us and slowly transforms our lives from within.”
He will make us new
Often times, the Holy Father suggested, many are slow to catch on.
“Perhaps today too,” he said, “many people approach Jesus in a superficial way, without truly believing in his power. We walk the surfaces of our churches, but maybe our heart is elsewhere!”
These two Gospel accounts, the Holy Father marveled, show that nothing is too great for Jesus to heal, and that we are to go to Him, for He will make us new. – Vatican News
