my Articulate Heart

It is the experience of “being healed from sicknesses” that makes people venture out, crossing the lake and climbing the mountain, to meet Jesus again. Refer John 6:1 On the mountain, Jesus gives them the Word and soon undertakes to give them the bread. This is clearly a sign leading to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The celebration of the Holy Mass is our participation in the perfect worship Jesus offers to the Father on our behalf. It has the Word and the Bread [body and Blood of Jesus] central to it. The barley loaves and fish the boy gives, represent the work of our hands and fruit of our labour - both good and bad, inadequate, short-lived and imperfect. Jesus receives our imperfections and gives back his own flesh in the form of the Eucharistic Bread - feeding the hungry and healing the sick. Jesus here also presents himself as the New Moses and the New Manna. When Jesus asks Philip “Where can we buy some bread for these people to eat?” [John 6:4-6] He was paraphrasing Moses...

Wrestling with God is the battle man experiences within. Jacob of the old testament is known for wrestling with the angel of God. Genesis 32:22-28 - The same night he [Jacob] got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” Post the fight, God called Jacob “Israel”. Is-ra-el in Hebrew means "the man who wrestled with G...

Jesus came to save mankind from their sins. Mathew 1:21 Saving the mankind from sin also means saving them from their sickness because it is sin that causes sickness. And therefore it is forgiveness of Sins that initiate healing. [CCC 1502,1503] [1502 The man of the Old Testament lives his sickness in the presence of God. It is before God that he laments his illness, and it is of God, Master of life and death, that he implores healing. Illness becomes a way to conversion; God's forgiveness initiates the healing. It is the experience of Israel that illness is mysteriously linked to sin and evil, and that faithfulness to God according to his law restores life: "For I am the Lord, your healer." The prophet intuits that suffering can also have a redemptive meaning for the sins of others. Finally Isaiah announces that God will usher in a time for Zion when he will pardon every offense and heal every illness. 1503 Jesus has the power not only to heal, but also to forgive s...