CURE
Historically speaking, it is certain that Jesus, unlike John the Baptist,
cured the sick. The New Testament finds in these cures the proof of the
divine power that inhabits Jesus. An indisputable proof that is placed before
any religious theory.
However, in the Gospel of Mark (6,5) it is said that at Nazareth "He
was not able to perform any miracles there, except that he placed his hands
on a few sick people and healed them".
In effect, Jesus cured with all the force that was necessary in order
to give confidence to those who listened to him.
If, as in the first letter of Saint John (4,8) we name God "Whoever
does not love does not know God, for God is love", one may truly say
that Jesus was capable, together with the power of that God, to dominate
the sick-making stages of fear. Psychic and psychosomatic fears.
Jesus always spoke of God in this way, to the people. What he wanted
was that all feelings of anguish - solitude, despair, - going as far as
self-destruction, should transform themselves in an acceptance of the self,
a form of maturity, of serenity, opening up onto a new relationship towards
oneself and towards others.
By breaking free of the chains of a rigid religion that itself produced
fear, Jesus became the object of reproach. He was accused of revolt against
God, it was said that his cures where a type of black magic, that he was
under the influence of the chief of the demons (Mc 3,22). But for Jesus,
the cure of the sick at heart meant that God had become alive in the hearts
of human beings. For him, trust in God and the liberation of humankind from
its fears could not be separated from one another.
This ministry of the cure was entrusted by Jesus to his apostles when
he sent them to Galilee: ..."The disciples left and travelled through
all the villages, preaching the Good News and healing people erverywhere"
(Luke 9,6).
This is how Jesus demonstrated how important he felt was the care of
the soul, a real therapy, by trying to understand what is lacking in the
fulfilment of human beings, instead of condemning them with moral judgements
on their faults and their weaknesses. |