27 June 2020
Saturday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time
In today’s gospel we read the account of how Jesus cured the centurion’s servant and the mother in law of Peter. A cure is in relation to what an individual or a society considers to be healthy or whole and therefore it is not surprising that Jesus cured people, an allegory and a reality of the work of Jesus in returning us to wholeness and specifically spiritual health. Much talk has been given over to the concept of “cure,” caused by the intersection of two events that have been identified as sicknesses in society today. We may note with pride that the Catholic Church has worked throughout its history to continue the work of Christ in returning individuals to health. One institution was its hospitals in which particularly the poor found comfort and care. We think of the great heroines of health care who founded countless religious congregations which in turn ran hospitals, orphanages, and centers for the neglected of the society. One example for many is St. Francis Xavier Cabrini. This one woman established 67 institutions of health care and schools throughout the world. Likewise, Catholic education at the time Francis Cabrini instilled in its students the sound teaching of the dignity of the human person, often taking an adversarial position from the elite schools such as Harvard that saw eugenics and the sterilization of the “unfit” as the best progress during the progressive era. Perhaps the best “cure” for our ills, especially those ills that attack the soul, would be to follow the sound advice of Pope John XXIII who advised that reform comes from a thorough and solid understanding of that “firm rock” on which our faith is built. From the foundation of this firm rock, saints supplied the cure for the physical and spiritual ills that sickened the societies in which they lived.