Health and Holiness, continued

     The Gospel for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost just happens to fall into line with what I thought I would cover after the last post gleaned from Archbishop Sheen.  Matthew 9:1-8 tells about Christ healing the paralyzed man.  Jesus  told him "Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven you."  Since Our Lord could read hearts, He knew that the scribes were thinking that He blasphemed. He said to them,"Why do you harbor evil thoughts in your hearts? For which is easier to say, 'Your sins are forgiven you,' or to say, 'Arise, take up your bed and go into your house." The man rose and went into his house. This was Christ's greatest miracle, a double healing. Notice that He healed the soul before He healed the body, for a sign of His divinity to those doubters. But it also fits with the idea that health and holiness are connected. 
    
     Archbishop Sheen in his Guide to Contentment, notes that peace of soul and health have been recognized to have a relationship through the ages. Part of a quote from the Latin poet, Juvenal is "a sound mind in a sound body." He goes on to quote Francis Thompson, "Holiness is an oil which increases a hundredfold the energies of the body, which is the wick."

     Through medicine and psychiatry today, Archbishop Sheen  sees that these disciplines recognize an "intrinsic" relationship between holiness and health. Cases have been documented in which patients were cured after being freed from fear, worry, and resentment. Moral conflicts, state of mind, contribute to the increased incidences of high blood pressure and mental problems in today's world.

     Dr. Carl Jung, consulted by people from all over the world, came to the conclusion that people who came to find a religious outlook on life found a healthier life besides. Often then, physical, psychic and spiritual disorders can be catalysts to illness.  This doesn't mean that if you have a serious or chronic illness, that your spiritual life is wanting.  It is something to think about, however, if you have stress, guilt, overwhelming worries, that might affect your overall health. 

     The Healer of all illness, spiritual and physical, came to us in the form of our humanity, demonstrating His divinity, showing His love and mercy in every act He performed upon earth, to the ultimate act of Love and Sacrifice, His death on the cross for our salvation.  If we place our trust in Our Lord's healing power, and our salvation in that hope and trust (Spe Salvi; Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical on Salvation in Hope) both our souls and our bodies will be in good health when we meet Him face to face.

10/17/11