It’s not easy to give a talk during a recollection of sisters when almost 50 percent of them are undergoing chemotherapy.    

Cancer is indescribable. Faith will strongly suggest that an impending death is a doorway towards eternal bliss. But when it is your sister who has a cancer it becomes another reality. Dread, anguish, doubt on God’s Love, anger, frustration, negotiation, while acceptance seldom comes with peace and quiet. This I have experienced when my sister was declared thirty years ago, as a young mother who has a long cancer and has only three months to love. It becomes more painful when the three months would end only in one month. Chemo is an aggressive and painful medication and chances are slim that you could prolong your life. 

Is Jesus really a healer? These consecrated women were also like sisters to me and I am at a loss how to continue my talk in front of them: five, and two of whom have cancer. How could I explain that Jesus heals the sick or even drive away the devil who causes sickness. Honestly, I was really at a loss.   

I ask again, Is Jesus really a healer? He was a priest, a teacher, a rabbi, a prophet but how could I present Him as our healer?  How could He heal now?

Where is Jesus? of course, He is in the blessed sacrament, the poor, in nature as its creator, in the brother; but He is also in a community where two are three are gathered in the name of Jesus, i.e., in his reality. Jesus in the second person of the divine trinity and he is one with the father and the Holy Spirit, though they are not the same and having equal dignity. The law of this trinitarian unity is no other than Love. God is love and being so, He is at the same time one and three persons. It is Love that makes theme on and to gather in this reality is to gather together as persons who also love one another. In fact Jesus said: the world will know that you are my disciples if you have love one another. How? What measure: it is with the measure of Jesus’ love. “Love one another as I have loved you,” He said. Persons who gather together and loving one another with the love of Jesus, makes Jesus present. He is present in the community whose members love one another. With his Mutual Love in the community, Jesus becomes the healer. Wow! If he is amongst us, he is our healer.

Is it not true that the atmosphere of love makes the sick person in the family more adopted to the healing process? Is it that true that when there is a loving relationship between the doctor and patient, healing becomes faster? So this is it. Any community for that matter, are invited to make real the new commandment of Jesus of mutual loves – as Jesus loves – that makes Him present and it is He who could heal any sick person in the community. Mutual love heals.

He heals, since in mutual love the members become equal in health. Love equalizes its members. In a true mutual love, no one feels secondary or primary since we are all equal in love.  A healthy member becomes one with the weak, and the weak becomes one with the strong. This is the miracle!  Even those who are physically weak could still contribute to the sanctification of many including those who living with him/her since he/she is giving a chance to the others to love him/her as a weak person. With Christ’s presence in the community, through mutual love, everybody becomes healthy and if one leaves due to physical illness, he/she becomes healthier since he/she meets the fullness of Love, God.  

What a beautiful mystery but real. Those who are healthy and dying are all the same in the eyes of God. In His mercy all are healthy, not only spirituality but the atmosphere creates a healthy environment that the sick feels he/she is not a burden but an important contributor to the body of Christ, the church which is the present community.

This I have shared to my sister friends the sick and the healthy. After the sharing, I understand that one has to rest and postpone her lunch, but I feel all has received the grace to be with Jesus the Healer, even for a moment.  Jesus in the community heals even today.  

I left that community grateful to God, for He has also healed my soul with His mercy.