Saturday, June 27, 2009

"He cured all the sick"

When it was evening, they brought him many who were possessed by demons, and he drove out the spirits by a word and cured all the sick, to fulfill what had been said by Isaiah the prophet:

He took away our infirmities
and bore our diseases.

-- Mt 8:5-17

Moved by so much suffering Christ not only allows himself to be touched by the sick, but he makes their miseries his own: "He took our infirmities and bore our diseases." But he did not heal all the sick. His healings were signs of the coming of the Kingdom of God. They announced a more radical healing: the victory over sin and death through his Passover. On the cross Christ took upon himself the whole weight of evil and took away the "sin of the world," of which illness is only a consequence. By his passion and death on the cross Christ has given a new meaning to suffering: it can henceforth configure us to him and unite us with his redemptive Passion.

-- CCC 1505

(Holy water font in the Basilica of Saint Paul outside the Walls symbolizes the exorcism of grace in Christ which "drives out demons" and brings healing to body and soul.)


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