Those who are well do not need a physician

SATURDAY 18 JANUARY (Mk 2,13-17)

Job calls his friends, unable to heal the wound of his spirit: doctors worth nothing, only capable of dirtying and of lies: “Lo, all this my eye has seen; my ear has heard and perceived it. What you know, I also know; I fall not short of you. But I would speak with the Almighty; I wish to reason with God. You are glossing over falsehoods and offering vain remedies, every one of you! Oh, that you would be altogether silent! This for you would be wisdom. Hear now the rebuke I shall utter and listen to the reproof from my lips. Is it for God that you speak falsehood? Is it for him that you utter deceit? Is it for him that you show partiality? Do you play advocate on behalf of God? Will it be well when he shall search you out? Would you impose on him as one does on men? He will openly rebuke you if even in secret you show partiality. Surely will his majesty affright you and the dread of him fall upon you. Your reminders are ashy maxims, your fabrications are mounds of clay. Be silent, let me alone! that I may speak and give vent to my feelings (Jb 13,1-13). For them his spirit remains in great sickness and suffering. Even today there are many doctors worth nothing.

Instead, Jeremiah tells the doctors that they should have treated Jerusalem, that they treat its wound lightly: “Be warned, O Jerusalem, lest I be estranged from you; Lest I turn you into a desert, a land where no man dwells. Thus says the Lord of hosts: Glean, glean like a vine the remnant of Israel; Pass your hand, like a vintager, repeatedly over the tendrils. To whom shall I speak? whom shall I warn, and be heard? See! their ears are uncircumcised, they cannot give heed; See, the word of the Lord has become for them an object of scorn, which they will not have. Small and great alike, all are greedy for gain; prophet and priest, all practice fraud. They would repair, as though it were nought, the injury to my people: “Peace, peace!” they say, though there is no peace. They are odious; they have done abominable things, yet they are not at all ashamed, they know not how to blush” (Jer 6,8-15). And more: “How can you say, “We are wise, we have the law of the Lord”? Why, that has been changed into falsehood by the lying pen of the scribes! The wise are confounded, dismayed and ensnared; Since they have rejected the word of the Lord, of what avail is their wisdom? Therefore, I will give their wives to strangers, their fields to spoilers. Small and great alike, all are greedy for gain, prophet and priest, all practice fraud. They would repair, as though it were nought, the injury to the daughter of my people: “Peace, peace!” they say, though there is no peace. They are odious; they have done abominable things, yet they are not at all ashamed, they know not how to blush” (Jer 8,8-12). Whoever wants to cure others must first let himself be cured by the Word of the Lord. When the Word of our God does not become the only light that illuminates our heart and our soul, we can work nothing for the healing of the brothers. The saint sanctifies. The healed by God heals.

Once again he went out along the sea. All the crowd came to him and he taught them. As he passed by, he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners sat with Jesus and his disciples; for there were many who followed him. Some scribes who were Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors and said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus heard this and said to them (that), “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

Pharisees, scribes, Sadducees and chief priests had divided the world into two. On the one hand there were their sects in which all were saints. On the other hand, separated by an impassable abyss, there were the other men, in their judgment all sinners, with whom they should have had no contact. Instead, Jesus comes and fills this abyss. The Saint places himself at the service of sinners, the Just puts himself at the disposal of the unjust, for their conversion, redemption and salvation. He does not cure lightly the wound of his people. He gives it the divine antibiotic of his flesh and the powerful vaccine of his blood. Then, he leads everyone to the hospital of the Holy Spirit, with his Mother as a nurse.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints give the Church great doctors to cure the world.