The cure

     I noted the other day that the prevailing opinion in Jesus' time was that someone like this woman "whom satan bound for eighteen years"  was being punished for a sin of hers or perhaps of her parents. Tough crowd.  I wondered what it would be like to be such an outcast (according to her community) for eighteen long years. Could I endure that?  That was about the length of time it is purported that St. Monica prayed to God for her son, St. Augustin, to turn to God.

      I then started to think of how it had taken me almost 50 years to come to the realization that I am gay. I always felt 'different' and just couldn't put my finger on it so to speak. I tried to do what good little Catholic boys are supposed to do.  So, almost 50 years of feeling like a bit of an outcast. Of course coming out in itself can make you feel like a different kind of outcast. That is terribly sad. I realized the 'cure' was to accept to God made me to be. I pray that everyone has the sense of their own worth and that God loves them as God made them, gay, straight, whatever. God does not hate or dislike anything that she has made.

      Then I started to think about things that are viewed irroniously as a handicap or less than desirable by society becasue of ignorance or bigotry. At one time that would have been if you were left handed. It certainly is how the Church felt about indiginous peoples at one time or if you were African American or a woman! What does one do when you cannot be 'cured' of your "illness"? What happens when you are a minority and the majority looks down upon you or that their majority is viewed as right and blessed; the minority, errant and sinful? I guess there is still a tough crowd around. 

       In thinking of all these scenarios ( and more ), I cannot help but think that they can still all be 'cured' by God.  Screw everyone else that is doing the judging, the looking down upon and thinking they are better for some reason. God makes whole anyone at anytime. A large portion of that, if not the entire portion is helping us realize we are actually perfect to begin with, we have only to realize and accept ourselves. 

       Accept our cure, our wholeness.

Luke 13:10-17

Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, ‘Woman, you are set free from your ailment.’ When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, ‘There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.’ But the Lord answered him and said, ‘You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?’ When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.