Daily Thought For October 9, 2015

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The Healing Power of Jesus

 Lectio

 Luke 11:15–26

 Meditatio

 “But if it is by the finger of God that I drive out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you.”

 A woman in her fifties was an alcoholic without a job. She was heartbroken. I met her on a retreat, where she told me her story, and I prayed with her. We went back in prayer to the place in her life that needed the most healing: the birth of her first child. Her daughter had been taken away from her because she was “not suited to be a mother.” She was in her teens, unwed, afraid. She was never allowed to see her daughter, or the two children born after that. Now, almost forty years later, she still bore the scars of the shame and sorrow.

 In prayer she took Jesus’ hand and returned to the hospital where she had given birth to her daughter. She remembered what was happening around her, words people said, what she felt. Then she stopped and observed Jesus looking at her with such compassion and love. When her daughter was born, he took her from the doctor’s hands with joy, raised her in the air and blessed his Father for her birth. Then he laid the child next to my friend. For the first time she “saw” her baby. Then I told her to wait because Jesus would say something just for her to hear. Jesus spoke healing words to her, words that swept away the demons of shame that had possessed her. “You are a good mother,” he told her. I gently started to cry, moved at Jesus’ goodness to her. A year later I met my friend again on retreat. She had a job, was attending A. A. meetings, and had met her three children, who had come searching for their mother.

 The kingdom of God is nothing more than the presence of Jesus among us. It is not in the future or in the past, something far away, or only inside a sanctuary. Jesus is here and now for you and me, wherever we are. He still sweeps away the demons that possess us and weigh us down with shame and sorrow. Jesus is God-for-us.

Oratio

 In the name of Jesus, may the kingdom of light and love shine in our darkness and turn our nights into days, our fears into hope, our hatred into love. Let the kingdom of God arise where once there were shame and sorrow, so that our earthly life will receive a new form as we await the day we will enjoy eternal life forever. Amen.

 Contemplatio

 Jesus, heal the darkest place of my life.
Daughters of St. Paul. (2011). Ordinary Grace Weeks 18–34: Daily Gospel Reflections. (M. G. Dateno & M. L. Trouvé, Eds.) (pp. 182–183). Boston, MA: Pauline Books & Media.

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