Week 5: Healing

We turn to the theme of healing which features strongly in Black Spiritual traditions. Healing is complex and multi-faceted – affecting mind and body, the physical and the spiritual, the individual and the community. This week we will focus on an important sequence of events from Mark’s Gospel to help us explore this deep truth.

Prayer for the Week

O Holy One, you are the one who makes us whole again. We present to you our bodies, our minds, our spirits, our cultures and our communities. Heal us and send us out to tell others all that you have done for us. Amen.

Healing the spirit

Week 5: Monday

Reading

Mark 4.35-5.2

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?' And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’
They came to the other side of the lake, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him.

Reflection

We will be focussing for most of this week on the story of Jesus’ encounters in the country of the Gerasenes. It’s a story that has many layers of meaning. On the face of it, though, it is an account of Jesus’ healing a man “with an unclean spirit”.

The Bible consistently points to the reality of a spiritual world beyond human understanding that affects the material. In today’s passage the disciples witness Jesus’ power over the physical world: “even the wind and the sea obey him.” Jesus’ next miracle – the exorcism of the man’s demons – will show he is also Lord of the spiritual realm.

As we have seen, Black Spirituality emphasises the oneness of all things – the physical and the spiritual, the individual and the community. Jesus is able to heal the man’s spirit – but the healing he offers goes far deeper and wider.

Watch

What comes to mind when you think of the spiritual realm? Where do these images come from?

...and pray

for deeper attention to God's divine power, holiness, healing and love.

Copyright © The Archbishops’ Council 2024.