25 June 2016
Saturday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time
Jesus making people healthy, from the Centurion’s servant to the mother in law of Peter, provides the narrative of today’s Gospel. Health has become an immense concern in recent times with debates centering around health care, the consequences of an aging nation, allocation of health resources and the price of medications. Although all these questions deserve our attention, we need to give equal thought to what makes us sick. When we speak of sickness we presume there is a standard of health or wholeness and it is interesting to note the word health comes from the world whole. Health implies a sense of completeness, whereas being sick implies that something is either missing or not working properly. The role of God in our lives fits perfectly with this notion of health as wholeness. Can we be complete without God? Some have argued this to be the case while others have noted that an absence of God from our lives leads to a selfishness that results in a degradation of self and others, in short an unhealthy condition. Today’s gospel calls our attention to what we consider to be health, to be “whole.” Does this wholeness include a life of faith or is our relation with God an added but unnecessary feature. Our gospel today challenges us to reflect on what we consider to be whole and healthy.