Homily for Monday of the 2nd Week of Advent
Theme: HOLISTIC HEALING
By: Fr. Gerald M. Musa
Homily for Monday December 6 2021
There is a belief in African traditional medicine that the body and spirit are intertwined. Therefore, herbal medicine is said to have both physical and spiritual (holistic) significance. This explains why divinations, incantations, charms, scarification, spitting, magic, and casting of spells accompany the traditional healing process. Jesus had a holistic approach in his healing ministry. He healed people who were physically and spiritually sick. And so, for Christians, healing is holistic and requires faith in God. A group of men demonstrated a strong faith in God when they brought their paralysed friend to Jesus. Seeing a large crowd around Jesus, “They went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into their midst before Jesus” (Luke 5:19). Jesus said to the paralysed man, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” Jesus healed the man spiritually and then physically. He entrusted his mission of healing and forgiveness to his successors, the Apostles, and then to validly ordained bishops and priests. These ministers have the power to heal physically through prayer and spiritually through the sacrament of confession/reconciliation. There is an ineffable joy that accompanies the certainty that one is forgiven. In this period of preparing for Christmas let us seek for holistic healing of body and soul. What is the point receiving physical healing when the soul is turbulent, restless, peaceless and heavy with a load of guilt and shame?
LUKE 5:17-26; MONDAY, 2ND WEEK OF ADVENT