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Written by Bobby Reyes
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Tuesday, 01 September 2009 22:11 |
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HE IMPOSED HIS HANDS ON THEM
Helping and caring for people as Christ himself would do.
The Gospel of the Mass (Luke 4:38-44) tells us how at sunset people began to bring many sick people to Christ for him to cure them. It is quite possible that it was a Sabbath day, because the Sabbath observance, so scrupulously enforced by the scribes and Pharisees, would have ended at sunset. There were very many sick people: Saint Mark says that the whole city was gathered together about the door (cf Mark 1:33). Saint Luke leaves on record the striking detail that He cured them by laying his hands upon each one, singulis manus imponens. He looks carefully at them and gives each one his full attention, because for him each person is unique. Everybody is always well received by Jesus, and is treated by him with the incomparable dignity that the human person always deserves.
Commenting on this passage of the Gospel, Saint Ambrose says that from the beginning of the Church Jesus already sought out the crowds. And why? Because ... to cure people there are no established times or places. The medicine has to be applied in all times and places (St Ambrose, Treatise on Virginity, 8, 10). The Gospel shows us Christ’s tireless activity. It teaches us how we in turn have to behave with those who are far from the faith, with all those souls who haven’t yet come to Christ to be healed. No son or daughter of Holy Church can lead a quiet life, without concern for the anonymous masses - a mob, a herd, a flock, as I once wrote. How many noble passions they have within their apparent listless ness! How much potential!
We must serve all, laying our hands on each and every one, as Jesus did, 'singulis manus imponens to bring them back to lift, to enlighten their minds and strengthen their wills so that they can become useful! (J. Escrivá, The Forge, 901).
To serve all means treating them as Christ would have done in our place, with the same esteem, with the same courtesy, each one individually, allowing for their particular circumstances, their manner of being, the state in which they find themselves, without applying the same formula to everyone. They are the people we meet in the course of our business, through local involvement, journeys or common interests. And others we will go to look for wherever they happen to be, in order to bring them to God, as a doctor looks after a patient. Just one single soul saved through another’s mediation can be the source of pardon for many sins (St John Chrysostom, in Catena Aurea, vol. 5, p. 238).
Let us resolve now in our prayer to be as concerned for our neighbours’ welfare as were those who crowded around the doorway bringing Jesus the sick people to be cured. Let us see now in his presence if we treat them with the same attention, singulis manus imponens, as he did.
With permission from Scepter UK. Short excerpt from IN CONVERSATION WITH GOD by Francis Fernandez. Available at SinagTala or Totus Bookstore 723-4326 or at www.totusbookstore. com (info@totusbookstore .com)
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