Love the Healer More Than the Healing*

We are very pleased to publish Fr. Ro’s homily – an exceptional example of two blessed people being deeply and simultaneously touched by God in their encounter.  WHITE BUTTERFLY

FR. RO ATILANO, S.J.

Last February 17, 2023, I went to anoint a stage-4 colon cancer patient in the hospital. Dalie had been fighting it since 2018. She tried different treatment modalities for the past four years trying to beat it, but on that day I visited her, it was already spreading aggressively in her bones, lungs, liver, and chest.

After I blessed and anointed her, she said something that moved and inspired me profoundly.

“Father, after going through surgery after surgery, treatment after treatment, I learned to love the Healer more than the healing. I also learned not to mind the “why” but just to trust in Him.”

She was calm and her face serene. It was also her birthday. So, I sang her the song as I wiped the tears welling up my eyes. I was amazed by her beautiful faith. I wished I have such faith like hers.

As I exited the hospital lobby, I thanked the Lord for this undeserved gift of priesthood. It was one of the most consoling graces and experiences for me as a priest – to witness the indomitability of the human spirit and the unfathomable redeeming grace of God.

We all want to be healed, don’t we? During times of sickness, we will do everything just to be healed: exhausting all our savings for medical treatments, begging for prayers from our friends, going to different shrines and even faith healers, and praying all kinds of novena after novena, to name a few. We will also do these even more, for our loved ones.

But after doing everything we could to experience complete healing and recovery, and yet all our efforts do not seem to bear fruit, we realize that we could only do as much. We also need to learn to trust in God.

Trust in God is not easy, especially if we are used to having full control of our lives and everything in them. It is not easy to simply let go of our comfort zones and personal security and abandon them into the unknown and the untrodden.

But there is no other way but God. Like prodigal sons and daughters, after squandering everything on lives of dissipation, we come back home to our loving Father to beg for his healing grace. Deep down in our hearts, we know that with God, nothing is impossible.

As we pray for healing, we also learn to trust God’s will. We gradually allow the Lord to take full control of our lives. As we do this, we realize that God desires not just the healing of our physical infirmities but also our souls. God loves us and He does not will any harm to happen to us.

In the process, we learn to love the Healer, not just the healing.

This is faith.

Faith is when we learn not to lean on our own understanding. It is entrusting ourselves completely to the healing hands of our Lord. It is letting go of our need to control everything and having the need to know all the why’s in this life. Faith is letting go and letting God.

This is the message of the two healing stories in our Gospel today. The first story is about the extraordinary faith of the official whose daughter just died. He came looking for Jesus because he believed that if Jesus would lay his hands on her, she would live. And she did! The second story is about a woman who suffered bleeding for twelve long years. She believed that if only she could touch the cloak of Jesus, she would be healed. And Jesus healed her and told her that her faith saved her.

My dear friends, during times of sickness and crisis, it is our faith in God that could save us not just from our physical infirmities but also our souls. Our faith teaches us to desire not just the healing but the Healer.

Dalie fell in love with Jesus while she was sick. She knew Jesus would not abandon her. Of course, she wanted and prayed for her healing every single day. But as her faith in God grew deeper, she also learned to surrender herself completely and her will into the hands of God. She knew that with God, all shall be well.

A month later, I heard that Dalie passed on. She was ready. She was at peace with herself, with others, and with God. She was grateful. I thought God gave her a beautiful ending. I whispered a prayer to God for her soul as I imagined her smiling peacefully. I will never forget her and her extraordinary faith. She taught me to love the Healer more than the healing.

*HOMILY DELIVERED DURING RADYO KATIPUNAN MASS.