Where Healing Begins

As we look around the world in which we live, we may feel hopeless and helpless, confronted by so much pain, sorrow and suffering. There is a real temptation to throw up our hands and doubt that healing can take place. God, however, is always extending His healing hands to our world. How does this healing begin? It starts person by person, heart by heart. It begins in each of our hearts.
            
Our Lord extends His hands to us each day from the Cross. It appears that His hands are fixed with nails to the wood of the Cross. The truth is that His hands were held there not by nails, but rather, by the love that He bears for each one of us. The nailprints in His hands are a testimony to the power of healing that His hands possess—the power that heals our heart when He reaches out to us and grants us His forgiveness and peace.
            
In Christ’s desire to draw us to Himself through healing, He has entrusted to his Body, the Church, the Sacrament of Penance, also called Reconciliation and Confession. This sacrament forgives sins and heals hearts. It is an encounter with the Divine Physician who wants us to know His healing.
            
Our Lord said to St. Faustina Kowalska, 

“Daughter, when you go to confession, to this fountain of My mercy, the Blood and Water which came forth from My Heart always flows down upon your soul and ennobles it. Every time you go to confession, immerse yourself entirely in My mercy, with great trust, so that I may pour the bounty of My grace upon your soul. When you approach the confessional, know this, that I Myself am waiting there for you. I am only hidden by the priest, but I Myself act in your soul. Here the misery of the soul meets the God of mercy. Tell souls that from this fount of mercy souls draw graces solely with the vessel of trust. If their trust is great, there is no limit to My generosity. The torrents of grace inundate humble souls. The proud remain always in poverty and misery, because My grace turns away from them to humble souls.” (Diary 1602)
            
My dear friends, as we approach Ash Wednesday and the great Season of Lent, let’s take Our Lord up on His invitation to encounter him in the Sacrament of Penance. We should approach the confessional knowing that He awaits us there, hidden by the priest, and extending His hands marked by the print of the nails to embrace us. Our own hands must not be thrown up in despair at the suffering of the world or our own brokenness and sin. Rather we should fold them in adoration and prayer and raise them to reach out for the Savior who forgives us, heals us, and gives us hope. In humility and faith let us receive the mercy of Jesus who went to the Cross for us. If we want to see the world healed, let us allow Him who is the source of all merciful love to heal our heart first. Where does healing begin? In my own broken heart!
 
Most Reverend William J. Waltersheid
Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh