The True Healer

Healing is at the heart of Jesus’ public ministry. He healed the blind, the lepers, the paralytic, the mute, the hemorrhagic, etc. But more than any other healer he alone can bring back the dead to life by his own power, by his own words. He is the healer par excellence, for he healed not just the body but also the spirit. He forgave sins.

In the book, Instruction on Prayers for Healing, published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, we read, “Christ’s meeting with the sick is one of the most human aspects we find in the Gospels. This meeting is for the total, global salvation of the person, and not only to bring bodily health alone, but to heal the person in his or her totality, and hence with a dimension of eternity.”

Pope Benedict XVI, in his book, Jesus of Nazareth, writes that “Healing is an essential dimension of the apostolic mission and of Christian faith in general. It can even be said that Christianity is a ‘therapeutic religion, a religion of healing.’”

Physicians have the unique opportunity to share Jesus’ healing ministry. Being in the medical/paramedical field is therefore an honor and privilege and also a big responsibility. Physicians are called to diagnose and treat diseases. But they are only God’s instruments. As a man plants but God is the one who makes the plant grow, a physician dresses the wound but it is God who heals it.