StLuke – Upper Room Media Blogs

Restless

Transcribed St Luke’s sermon by Fr Daniel Fanous

The gospel that we read today is a short Gospel placed between 2 of the most remarkable events that occur in the Gospels.

The multiplication miracle
Christ talking about the Eucharist and how we should eat His body and blood

So, this Gospel is sandwiched between these two events, and if not read in this context it won’t make too much sense. Once the people have seen the multiplication miracle, they remember Moses when he gave the manna when they were starving. As a result, they try to make Jesus King. It then says that once they did so that Jesus departed alone to the mountain. Afterwards, the disciples waited till later that evening to start crossing the sea of Galilee, and after having rowed 4 miles(7km) they saw that Jesus came walking to them saying to them “it is I, do not be afraid”.

The next morning, the few thousand people who were on the other side of Galilee got in boats and crossed the sea. When they get there they see that there’s only one boat, then they remembered that Jesus wasn’t on that boat. So they were confused as to how He got there, so they asked him a question (which is the centre of this Gospel); “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Basically asking in a nice way, How did you possibly come here?!

Jesus answers and says, “Most assuredly I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.”

But notice that they have forgotten something. They just wanted to make Him king of Israel and now they’ve forgotten. Just yesterday, He had performed a miracle that had convinced them utterly that this Man should be the King of Israel, the Messiah, the Redeemer, the one sent to deliver Israel. And then within hours they’ve completely forgotten. So Christ tells them, You’re only following, not because you saw the signs, but because I fed you.

St John Chrysostom, one of the early church fathers, says, “they forgot about making Him king, that’s how fickle humanity is. Now they just want more food.”

This is the story not only of these few thousand people but of all humanity. This is our entire lives, we chase after satisfaction without looking to the one who satisfies. That is the nature of all lust and desire, you keep chasing it but not seeing that it’s a sign of something else, it points to someone else, it points to a higher union.Every desire, if not looked at our own hearts, is an attempt to be satisfied. Whether its lust, sex, food, pride or vanity. All of these are a yearning to be satisfied, and all of these sins are a state of restlessness, agitation, an attempt to be satisfied but you can’t quite get there.

St Augustine was somebody who did this for some time. But even when he did try to seek a respectable marriage and left all these women he’s been with and even left his concubine/lover he says that he tried to chase women after women to find satisfaction but he just couldn’t. In his confessions he writes the most stunning line;

“Our hearts were created for God, and so they remain restless until they rest in Him.”Restless being a state of anxiety, agitation and annoyance.

This is specifically our hearts; We are in a state of agitation, seeking a higher union, but we just don’t see this. There’s this infinite hole in our hearts and we try to fill it with finite things, things that are limited and cannot satisfy. Then we wonder why we remain anxious, unsatisfied, yearning and addicted. Because what were trying to do is satisfy ourselves infinitely with something that is limited. That is why we must have mercy on those who separate themselves from God, those who sin, those who behave agitatedly. Because this happens in trying to fulfill their desires that are not corrupt or evil, they’re just weak. They’re searching for the one who gives the sign, but they’re stuck on the sign, and they keep going back to the sign, not understanding it and just trying to be satisfied by the sign alone. They forgot to seek God and just try to still that infinite restlessness until they rest in God;

“Most assuredly I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.”

Jesus’ words are a response to the agitation of these people; they are a response to us. We have chased the sign and have forgotten the one to whom the sign points to.

St Augustine says a beautiful line; “How many seek Jesus for no other objective than to gain some kind of temporal benefit?” One has a business that they need help in so they ask for the intercessions of the clergy. Another is oppressed by one that is more superior to them and so they seek God for help to have influence on someone to whom he himself has little influence. Each person wants something.The Church is filled with people like this.

Jesus is scarcely sought after for His own sake.

Even Christ infers that we seek Him not for Him but for something else. And all of these things are signs; something that points to something else. And yet, we can’t see that, were just stuck on the sign. What we think are our goals- Satisfying lust, pride, ambition, glory and love- are in fact just pointers.

It’s almost as if you make a journey to Niagara Falls. And as you’re walking you see a sign pointing in the direction towards the falls. Then you start taking photos with the sign, you stare at it, you spend time around it and then you go home. Inside you know that there’s something left unsatisfied from the day. Was that what I was really aiming for?

Is that what we were really created for?

This is how we remain unsatisfied and restless. Yet were not sure why. We want something but we don’t even know what. I’ll never forget that when I was a young medical student I was in surgery with one of the top urologists in Australia, and he said to me, ‘Ive chased my entire life to because the number 1 urologist in the number 1 hospital in Australia. I chased it until I became the head of the department, and now I’m 50 years old and I’ve stopped. Yet I can’t stop thinking, what am I doing?’ He was in a state of agitation, always yearning, but not too sure what for. These things leave us empty and don’t actually achieve what they’re mean to achieve.

St John Chrysostom says from the perspective of Christ;

“I fed your bodies so that after this you may seek the food that endures, which nourishes the soul. But you run right back to the food that is temporal. Therfore you do not understand that I lead you, not to this imperfect food, but to that which nourishes not the body but the soul.”

This material satisfaction is supposed to point us to Him, it Is in itself good, there’s nothing bad with is. Love, intimacy, fear; all of these things are good but they’re only signs pointing to Him. Even today on Valentine’s Day, we should never forget the words of St Paul;

“But I speak of a greater mystery, that of Christ and the church.”

Even our marriages and our love points to Christ and the church, the laying down of His life for the church and the churches response to that.

So let us then lift up our eyes to Christ, the one to whom our hearts were created for. The one whom our hearts are restless for, so that we can say with St Augustine “our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”

What’s remarkable is that at the end of that passage in St Augustine’s confession he ends with this conclusion;

“Through Your own merciful dealings with me my Lord and God, tell me what You are to me, say to my soul ‘I am your salvation’, say it so that I can hear it. My heart is listening Lord. Open the ears of my heart and say to my soul, ‘I am your salvation.’ Let me run towards this voice and cease hold of You. Do not hide Your face from me, let me die so that I may see it, for not to see it would be death to me indeed.”

Not seeing the Lord is death.

Glory be to God forevermore, Amen

Being different

St Luke’s transcribed sermon by David Nada

Coming into the new year, we approach Christmas and the birth of our Lord. The church in her wisdom- during this time- gives for us the gospel of the birth of Saint John the Baptist.

It was the job of Saint John the Baptist to prepare the way for Christ. I think it’s a really important time in the year that we get to hear and see this gospel. When I read the gospel for today’s liturgy there was a verse that stuck out to me which didn’t usually stick out, and that was verse 61;

“his mother answered and said, ‘no he shall be called John’, but they said to her, ‘there is no one among your relatives who is called by this name.’ So then they made signs to his father that he would what he would have him called.”

The very first thing that stuck out to me there was that even from birth and even from naming, St John’s life was different. He was called to be different. The usual tradition at the time was to call your son after his father or someone in the family. But from the begging of his life, Saint John was called to be different. If you see what his purpose of his life was- which was to carry the light of Christ and to prepare the way for Christ- then this is a calling for all of us. We are all called to be different and I think sometimes being different can be quite scary in our day and age.

And recently someone who came up to me had just finished their HSC and they said to me, ‘I want to study law and business but should I study medicine because that in itself is a Christ-like profession in that you’re constantly helping people and healing people.’ This made me realize that in every action that we do -regardless if it’s the action that we do at work or with the people around us- we have an opportunity to be different. There is obviously an assumption that in jobs in business that it’s like it’s a dog eat dog world and you have to be stepping over people to kind of get your way, but that’s because It is not normal to do things that are Christian and it’s not normal to turn the other cheek.

I really wanted to focus today on this concept of being different as something that we as Christians should really take pride in that we should really take pride in being able to stand out and to be the salt of the earth. We give the world its flavour. We give the world its light. So, then that brings me on to the second verse in this in this gospel, which really caught my attention, which is what is the result of being different? In verse 76 to 79 of today’s Gospel, we read;

“And you child would be called the Prophet of the Highest for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the remission of their sins through the tender mercy of our God with which the day-spring from on high has visited us to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

I think is very clear that there’s a lot of sadness and darkness in the world around us. Never in the history of humanity have we had the same rates of depression, the same rates of suicide, the wars that we see around us, the social injustices. There is a lot of darkness in the world. So, we may take great pride in things which we’ve worked hard for in our life, and rightly so in terms of our work and our families. But really, there is great work to be done and the harvest truly is great, to be different, to be a light unto the world. To show people the love of Christ, which is a radical love that changes lives. We see that more so in Christ’s life than anyone else. It was Christ who when he sat with the tax collectors and the adulterers they said, why are you doing that? That is not normal. It was Christ who walked hours and hours in the middle of the sun to see the Samaritan woman. It was Christ to constantly went out of his way to show the world that to be a light you have to be different. And if we look at this kind of motif of ‘the light’, we see the Old-Testament-equivalent is the ‘minora’ or the ‘lampstand’, that we read of in Exodus. Exodus 25 Christ God gives very clear instructions on how to build this light, and it’s extremely specific. I think what it calls to is that all of us are in different walks of life. All of us are placed in different parts of life and different workplace, in different family environments, in different countries, and in different cities, and in every single place we are called to be this light.

So, there is kind of three parts to this; there is why, how, and what.

1. Why am I called to lead this life?

Father Tadros Yacoub Malaty says that “The light sorry the light given by this ‘manora’ in the dark tent would have been a powerful symbol of God’s light and holiness in our dark and sinful world.” So that is the why, if we are to draw people to Christ if you are to give people the gift that is the peace and love of Christ that we are all able to partake of in communion; the why is to share this light with others to not just keep it to ourselves.

So, it’s very easy to say ‘okay, we need to be different, we need to be a light on the world. I need to be the salt of the world’, but;

2. How do I become light if I feel like I’m dark inside, or if I feel like I’m full of sin to think of who am I to bring people or what am I?

It’s quite a hard question to answer, how do I become a light? I think we’re very blessed in this time as we approach the nativity that the how is very clear, that the how is said in a very simple verse;

“draw near to Me and I will draw a near to you.”

Pope Kyrillos instituted the idea of having a liturgy every single day. I guess the theologians have kind of studied that since have come up with this concept called theosis. The idea is that the more we partake of the body and blood of Christ, the more we have communion the more we become like Christ. So that if every day I wake up and I pray then I go to church and I have communion, then throughout my day I’m thinking of Christ, then at night before I sleep, I read my Bible and I pray, I’m constantly drawing near to Christ.

“draw near to Me and I will draw near to you, partake of Me and I will be in you and you will be of me so that we carry that light.”

So if I want to know how to become a light to people, how do I behave so in order to uphold what we hear that sometimes you are the only gospel one gets the chance to read. In order to know how to truly be that gospel, the answer is in drawing near to Christ, in being Christ’s like so that in every action, in every day, in every word, and in every interaction with everyone around meI am being Christ’s like. And this can only be achieved through drawing near to Christ through consistent and constant prayer.

I really love father Sam and father Dan who on New Year’s Eve here at Saint Luke’s instituted this idea that every month, there’s a certain action and as a church we all practice that action. That action for this specific month of January was to do one act of kindness every single day, for instance, if someone drops something at the shopping center you pick it up for them. These are kind of the Christ-like little lights which may mean nothing to you, but to the person who receives the kindness could mean everything, and has possibly changed their day, and maybe even their life.

So then that brings us onto the what- The why is to show people the light of Christ, the how is to draw near to Christ in prayer, in communion, in Psalms, in singing praises. And then that brings us to the what- the only what that is important to all of us is the what of love. That is the only way really to draw people in, to practice love the way that Christ taught us. To finish off this idea of what I just wanted to read Luke 6:32 to 36, which is really how to be a Christian. How to be different from the world, because these practices of love that are outlined in these verses are not normal. These are not things that the world would normally teach us. These are;

“But if you love those who love you what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? for even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. But love your enemies do good, lend a helping hand hoping for nothing in return and your reward will be great and you will be sons of the highest. For he is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore, be merciful just as your father is merciful.”

We also read;

“Turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, give someone your cloak, and do not ask for it back.”

These are practices that the world finds radical. These are practices that really distinguish us from everyone else. These are the practices by which we are called to be different.

So if I want to know why- the answer is to spread the light of Christ and to be different. The how – is to draw near to Christ and he will draw near to me. The what is to show love to the world that the world does not expect that nor teach us and to do good in that way.

The result of all this is written in today’s Gospel, which says “to guide our feet into the way of peace”; Luke 1:79. St Cyril the Great says of this verse “The world was knocked about in the very dark mazes and in the shameful ignorance. The cloud of ignorance forbade the multitude of people from seeing the Lord Jesus the redeemer. He is the God of truth and justice. The Lord of all was manifested to the Israelites, a light to them and a son to their souls”.

Glory be to God forever Amen.

Who is my neighbor?

St Luke’s transcribed sermon by Fr Daniel Fanous

The gospel today is a well-known gospel that ends with a passage. A passage where a lawyer comes to question our Lord. He comes to the Lord standing up- all details we should pay attention to- and asking, “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

So, our Lord sensing and knowing that the lawyer has come to deceive Him doesn’t answer but instead asks the lawyer a question;

“What is your reading of the law?

The lawyer responds saying ‘You shall love God with all your mind and all your strength, and you should love your neighbour as yourself’. These two that he mentions are known as the 2 tables of the law; the vertical table and horizontal able. The vertical being the love of God and the horizontal being the love for neighbours. So, Christ hearing this says, “do this and you shall live”. A direct response to his question, but it continues further, and we miss what immediately follows this. The lawyer then asks another question wanting to justify himself; “who is my neighbour?”

In 1^st century Palestine, as it is in the middle east today, a teacher would actually sit while the students would stand, opposite to what we have now. So, the lawyer is standing is faking humility, pretending to be a student ready to listen when in fact he isn’t.

So, who is this neighbour he asks? As a response, Christ gives the story of the Good Samaritan.

The beaten man in the story is assumed to be a Jew because he is travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho. And as he is being beaten, he is left beaten and stripped and a priest passes him by. Most priests at the time would have lived in Jericho, so he would have gone to Jerusalem to pray and go back home. Due to the number of priests, the priests most likely prayed once or twice in the holy of holies throughout their lifetime. So, the priest passes by, most likely not even walking because due to the priests being quite wealthy at the time. Christ is very specific in saying that “when the priest had seen the man, he passed by the other side.” There was no ignorance, he saw him and then chose to walk on the other side; he saw a man that was beaten, disfigured and stripped. So, looking at him all he knew is that he wasn’t a Jew; he could have been a pagan, Samaritan, Greek, he could have been anything. The priest couldn’t distinguish whether he was a Jew because he was stripped, and blood covered the majority of the man. The priest also couldn’t tell if he was dead or not. Back in those days if someone was dead and you touch them, especially a priest, they would become defiled. Consequently, there would be a 1-week ceremony to cleanse them. During that week there were a lot of restrictions on what he could and couldn’t do. To the priest, all of this was not worth the risk, so the priest walked past, considering the man not to be his neighbour.

Next up was a Levite, who were generally known to be assistants to the priests. The Levite replicating the actions of the priest.

And then Christ continues;

“But a certain Samaritan as he journeyed came where he was and when he saw him (notice the words that he used, they’re very specific, translating to ‘he had compassion’), so he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on them oil and wine. And he set him on his own animal, brought him to the inn and took care of him. On the next day when he departed, he took out 2 denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said to him, ‘take care of him, and whatever more you spend on him when I come again I will repay you.’”

The Samaritans were a very unique sort of people. In the old testament, the Assyrian kingdom conquered the northern tribes of Israel, the 10 northern tribes. What they did was very interesting. Their system to break a culture was with the aim to prevent any revolt from happening later on so they would deport Israelites all around and would also bring people from all around the world to settle them in Israel. So, they couldn’t band together for a revolution. There was a hybrid of people living there together in the northern part of Israel. God because their practices and evil it is said in scripture that he sent lions there to kill them. So, they thought that the gods must be against us, and banded together to make a new temple. They formed a new hybrid religion; a mix of Judaism and a mix of Assyrian religion. And so, the people of Israel hated the Samaritans as they are a mixed-race and as far as the Israelites are concerned, they defile the temple.

This means that when Christ mentions a Samaritan everyone would have been shocked and confused. It is the Samaritan that saw the man and had compassion. The priest, Levite and Samaritan all saw the same man, they all had eyes. The Samaritan would have also been unsure if the dying man was his neighbour, and in fact, it is more likely that the man was a Jew, his enemy. Meanwhile, the others would have been more convinced it was their kinsman. And yet the Samaritan saw him, he had compassion upon him. The Samaritan was moved deeply within to help, this isn’t someone who has decided for the first time in his life to do a good deed. But rather this is somebody who has a spirit of goodness, that chooses to give himself to people because he sees himself as their neighbour. He was moved deeply within for someone who may or may not has been his neighbour. Everyone expects Christ to say that a priest passed him by, then a Levite and after that a certain Jew or farmer comes and helps and maybe that the person that was dying on the ground was a Samaritan who would have been their enemy. So, they expected this to be a parable about how good some Jews can be, and yet Christ does the exact opposite. He’s beautifully subversive. Instead of that, He talks about one of their enemies having mercy on them.

A Samaritan helped a man who was passed by a Priest Levite who both were so concerned about who their neighbour is. Just as the lawyer was asking who is my neighbour?

The Samaritan then uses all that he has to help the man;

He uses his bandages, wine and oil for the wounds
Puts the man on his own animal
Risks his life by going into a Jewish town

Imagine the look of a Samaritan walking into a Jewish town with a near-dead Jewish man on his donkey. There was a cost to loving his neighbour.

So, Christ then asks;

“So, which of these three was neighbour to the one who fell among the thieves?”

The lawyer replied, “He who showed mercy on him”, he couldn’t even say the Samaritan. Notice how Christ worded it from the perspective of the hurt man saying, “who was a neighbour to him.” And so, the question isn’t who is my neighbour but who am I a neighbour to?

Christ defines the neighbour is one who has mercy. In fact, it is Christ who is our neighbour, the one who loves and has mercy on us. In Patristic thought, they always understand that it is Christ Himself who is the Samaritan in this case. He is the one who sees us all, no matter where I’m from or who I am, He sees us. He moves deeply within, He binds our wounds, He heals us with the wine and oil that is his, and then He carries us who are beaten on His own animal. As Origen says;

“Christ carries us to Church, that Inn is the church. And he promises to the Innkeeper that He will return and care for us again.”

Christ showed us that he was the man’s neighbour not that the man was His neighbour. It is possible for us to imitate Christ and care for those who are among thieves. Only if we are like Christ and serve all and become a neighbour to all, only then will we hear the words of Christ;

“Do this and you shall inherit eternal life.”

To conclude, St Anthony once said, “Our life and our death is with our neighbour.” How you treat the person next to you is either your life or your death.

Glory be to God forevermore, Amen.

The Paralytic Man

St Luke’s transcribed sermons- Fr Samuel Fanous

There are some beautiful readings today, and if you look through them there is a common theme that runs through all of them. That theme is healing.

If you look at the Pauline it says;

“eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

So, you can’t even begin to imagine what God has prepared for you. Then if we go to the Catholicon;

“by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature having escaped corruption that is in the world through lust.”

This is one of the most famous passages in the whole Bible because St peter teaches us something very profound in this passage; the true incarnation of Jesus Christ through Him coming as fully God and touching humanity in the way He did and uniting it to Himself, He has touched all flesh so that we become like God. God became man, so man could become God. So, this is what Christ offers us through healing our flesh, through touching it and making it holy and divine. Hence why this is one of the most famous passages in the Bible.

If we go to the acts, we hear of St Paul healing a cripple from Lystra. They thought that he was a God because of this healing. As we also hear of St Moses the Strong in the Synaxarion, which is one of the most beautiful stories of repentance we have in the whole church. A man who was so far gone and yet he became one of the greatest saints that we have in the church.

Finally, in the Gospel we have Christ healing the paralytic man, and if you have a look at the order, He doesn’t heal him then forgives his sins. He forgives his sins then He heals him. And the question is, what is the greatest miracle in the Gospels?

He raises Lazarus from the dead after 4 days and He made eyes for a blind man. But is this really what He came to do?

Lazarus rose and then died later on in life. The blind man saw but became blind again when he died and saw nothing. So, is this really what He came to do?

All of these miracles don’t achieve any lasting service in and of themselves, because the healing that he achieves is temporary.

Matthew Henry, one of the great biblical commentators says;

“The only reason Christ did miracles, was to show what He could really do.”

The miracles were just a little taste tester to show what he could really do. The miracles don’t mean anything in and of themselves because of how many people saw his miracles and walked away and kept going on about their lives.

What Christ is teaching us today is the real miracle, which is the forgiveness of sins. The real miracle is the healing of the soul, not the body. The healing of the soul has eternal ramifications, and it is so much harder to do than the healing of the body. That’s why Christ questions, “what’s easier to say?”

It is much easier to heal someone than to forgive their sins. Now in modern medicine, you come, and we have miracle drugs because they cure many diseases and fix problems that we never had before. That’s what medicine can achieve, but what medicine can never achieve is the change of heart, the change of person, helping someone to overcome a particular sin. So, when Christ came, He did not come for miracles, He came to say, “look, you have a physical disease and I will heal it for you. Just to show you. Imagine what I could do with your spiritual disease. For us its standard, I repent, and the sin is gone. This is what we have been taught in Church, but if you look, it wasn’t always the case. In the old testament, if you sinned; let’s say you killed someone, there’s no forgiveness. The punishment is death. It is only through Christ that that changes. Now everything is forgivable, everything is healable. This is why the Pharisees were shocked, they said; “who can forgive sins but God alone?” And God doesn’t refute them, because He forgives the sins to show that “I am God.”

So, all of these readings today show us the process from sickness to health is an incredibly joyful process, not something sad. We often think that repentance is something sad, we should cry and lament, which might be the first part of it. But the reality of repentance is exceeding joy, to that that ‘I was sick and now I am healed’.

From now on in your life, you have to remember that there is nothing that can separate you from God except yourself. The only person standing between you and God is yourself. Many people sin and then they think that is the end of the line for them; ‘Now I am a sinful person; how can God accept me …’

And that is what you call despair, which is the worst thing that you can do in life. Many people think that despair is humility, but it is the opposite. It is pride. When you think of yourself as so good, that you can’t imagine how you have fallen so much, you think that you are better than that, but none of us are better than that. At our best states, we are still the biggest sinners before God, comparatively speaking. But when I think, ‘wow look at what I’ve done, how could I have done this?’ You think your better than what you are, but if you saw realistically you realise that when you sin it is what you are without God’s grace. So, we must remember that nothing can separate us from God’s grace. St Paul says;

“For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, nor power, nor things present, nor things to come, not height, nor depth, nor any other created thing should be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

But there is a catch; and that catch is ourselves. If you do not repent and not feel as though you have sin in your life, or you feel as though you are not worthy before God and you feel that you are ok, you can never have this relationship, it’s impossible. It is you putting yourself a big barrier between you and God, and not allowing God to enter. For us, repentance starts with an acknowledgment of the sin and is completed in the act of confession and achieving healing. Many people feel as though the church made confession up, but if you look at the old testament people would take 2 goats and bring them to the altar and cast lots for them. One of them is God’s lot. And the goat which the Lord’s lot is cast, that goat is slaughtered. The Lord’s one is slaughtered, and the goat that didn’t get killed is set free into the wilderness. Before they set it free, the priest lays his hand on the goat and he confesses the sins of himself and of the whole Jewish people, and that goat goes free while the Lord’s goat is slain. And so, when you come to have confession it is the exact same process; when the priest lays his hand on your head and you’ve confessed your sins you go free as the scapegoat, you’re the one who escaped. But the Lord, the Lamb himself, Jesus Christ, is sacrificed for your sake. Confession is a sacrament in which there is a hidden mystery, in which something happens that you don’t see with your eyes. This is a very beautiful thing that we have to remember, this is the miracle that God gives us in healing. The physical miracles in your life are nothing compared to this healing that can happen to us.

The worst cases as a doctor to see is when somebody comes in with mental health problems. The first thing you ask is a question that tells you what their insight it, do they have insight into their disease, and if they have good insight it is excellent. We can fix it as they will comply with treatment and do what needs to be done because they know that they need it. If you have no insight it becomes infinitely more difficult to treat, if the person has no insight of their mental health problems they won’t comply and thus we can’t treat them. And so, the number 1 marker of whether a person can be healed is whether they have insight into their disease. Sometimes, we walked around like this, with zero insight into what we are. Zero insight into how sinful we are and how much we need God; ‘I’m fine, I’m a good person. I don’t fight, I don’t kill, I don’t do anything, what do I need God for?’ And that is the hardest thing to cure. St Moses the strong, big sinner, no problem, he knows he’s a big sinner. But most of us going about life ordinarily thinking everything is ok, that is a big problem because we don’t recognise what we need and don’t have. This is the hardest job for any priest and even Jesus Christ Himself who came and could not convince the Pharisees that they needed Him.

So, I think for us, God is offering healing for us and if you seek Him as a Physician, He will be given to you. But you must never feel or think that you don’t need it, or that you are too good for God. The moment you do that you are making yourself out to be God.

Glory be to God forever.